The Lunar Curse: A Second Chance With Alpha Draven

Chapter 182: A Silent Promise

Draven.

When we arrived at the estate gates, the silence inside the car was louder than any roar.

Meredith didn’t look at me as she unfastened her seatbelt, the soft click strangely loud in the quiet.

She pushed the car door open, stepped out, and shut it behind her without a word as soon as I pulled over in the driveway.

I watched her slender frame disappear into the dimly lit front steps, her gait stiff with anger.

I didn’t blame her.

She was right to be furious. To someone like Meredith—still young, still able to see the world in lines of black and white—what I did tonight must have looked monstrous.

But in truth, it wasn’t cruelty that kept my hands still on the wheel.

I stayed in the car, the hum of the engine now gone, and let the weight of what I’d just seen settle fully over me.

The image of that pregnant woman being dragged into the van, her mouth covered so no sound could escape—it replayed over and over, sharper each time.

And yet, I had done nothing.

Not because I had turned cold to suffering. Not because my heart had forgotten what mercy felt like. But because what I saw confirmed something darker:

The humans weren’t just hunting us anymore. They were hunting their own.

It wasn’t random, like Brackham had tried to convince me before with his stories of organ traffickers or the black market.

It was targeted. Organized. A van, masked men, and a victim chosen from the road like livestock for slaughter.

The same quiet, deliberate cruelty I had seen in the disappearances of some of our people.

A dark experiment...

An underground lab somewhere on this cursed land, hidden beneath soil and secrets.

One that needed not just werewolf bodies, but human ones too.

That thought made my blood run colder than the night air outside the car.

My hand curled around the steering wheel, the leather groaning under my grip. I let out a slow breath, forcing my pulse to calm.

From the corner of my eye, the house lights glowed softly. One by one, other cars from our convoy pulled into the courtyard. Meredith’s maidservants stepped out first, hushed in the dark. Wanda followed, her eyes searching, catching mine briefly before she walked inside without a word.

Dennis and Jeffery got out last, closing their doors quietly.

I stayed seated until they approached, then stepped out and shut the car door behind me. The gravel crunched softly under my boots.

"Brother?" Dennis asked first, his voice low, searching my expression. "Something wrong?" noveldrama

I nodded once. "Stay a moment," I told them. "Wait until everyone is inside."

They obeyed, glancing toward the house as the last figures disappeared through the doors.

When the courtyard finally felt empty, under the watchful cold of the estate’s walls, I spoke.

"On the drive back, we witnessed something," I began, my voice measured, but there was steel beneath it. "A pregnant woman. She was dragged from her car by the roadside and forced into a van by masked men."

Dennis’s brows shot up, his eyes narrowing with instant fury. "By the humans?"

Jeffery sucked in a breath, his jaw clenching. "Is that... How?"

I nodded. "And this confirms something I suspected. The humans aren’t just capturing us. They’re also hunting their own. This isn’t about black-market organs like Brackham claimed. It’s coordinated."

Dennis’s voice turned cold, dangerous. "So, they’re running the same damned experiments on their own people too."

"That’s what it looks like," I confirmed.

A brief silence hung in the cold night air, broken only by the rustling of trees beyond the courtyard walls.

Jeffery’s expression hardened, a shadow falling over his features. "That means whatever they’re working on in that secret lab... it must be bigger than we thought."

"It is," I said quietly. "And far more dangerous."

Dennis glanced toward the gates, his voice low. "Brother, why didn’t we go after them? Trail the van?"

I met his eyes. "Because it was late. The roads were almost empty. They would have spotted my car in minutes, and if they were prepared, they would have led us into a trap. And if the woman had already been sedated, our intervention wouldn’t have saved her, only exposed us."

He drew in a slow breath, his nostrils flaring, but he nodded. "You’re right," he said through clenched teeth. "As much as I hate to admit it."

"I hate it too," I said. And I did.

Every part of me burned with the need to do something, to sink my claws into whoever was behind that van and drag the truth out of them.

But we couldn’t afford mistakes now. Not when we were this close to uncovering the heart of the darkness the humans had built.

I looked at them both, my voice steady despite the roil of anger beneath. "We need to find that lab. And soon. Before they have a chance to cover their tracks."

Brackham still has no idea we know something this deep about them. We were almost close to catching them red-handed.

Jeffery nodded firmly. "We will keep pushing. We won’t stop until we find it."

Dennis’s eyes flashed with resolve. "Just say the word, brother. I’ll tear the walls apart myself."

I released a breath, letting some of the weight settle. "For now," I said, "we focus. Speed up the search. Find that place—and find out exactly what they’re doing, and why."

Both men dipped their heads, accepting the order without question.

For a moment, the night felt colder, heavier. But in that silence, I made myself a promise:

Whatever lay buried under Duskmoor’s soil—whoever thought they could toy with my people, and even sacrifice their own to their dark ambition—would pay dearly when the time came.

"Go," I told them finally, my voice low. "Rest. We will speak again at dawn."

They turned toward the house, boots crunching over gravel, leaving me standing alone for a moment longer in the darkness.

Above, the sky was cloudless, the moon watching like an unblinking eye. And beneath that gaze, I made another silent vow to myself:

This would not stand. And I would see it ended—even if I had to burn every secret they had buried to ash.