High up on the ridge, the squad had completely lost visual contact with James.
The Moth Queen's dense silk barriers were doing heavy work; even though the sky was clear and there weren't many trees to block their line of sight, the ambient spellcraft ensured very little sensory information passed through.
"I can't see him," Talia said, her hand resting on the hilt of her broadsword as her eyes scanned the valley below.
She was certain he had to be down there somewhere—that was his last known position before they lost track of him.
She couldn't help but wonder why he had suddenly started running.
With his sheer strength, he should have been able to handle the creature; the moth was far weaker than the merfolk he had managed to deal with underwater, so this operation should have been a walk in the park. His life hadn't been in any genuine danger.
She paused, her brow furrowing. Where the hell did he go?
Down in the clearing, a heavy silence settled over the valley. Yet to their superhuman ears, the faint, rhythmic thrumming of wings cut through the quiet.
They could hear the Moth Queen moving—circling low, her feathered antennae snapping back and forth erratically as if she were desperately hunting for a lost scent.
"Over there," Mira pointed toward a shadowed stretch of the valley floor.
Following her lead, the squad locked their gazes onto the creature.
She was hovering unusually close to the ground, operating as if she knew that flying higher would leave her completely exposed to the open air.
'She's aware of us,' was the first thought that crossed Caius's mind.
The beast clearly knew an external threat was present, which flipped the baseline parameters of the mission. The original plan to use James as lure rested entirely on the assumption that the moth was oblivious to their presence.
Now it was clear she knew at least four supernatural entities were lurking around her perimeter—yet the second James stepped into her territory, she had risked exposed combat anyway.
The creature was either hopelessly starving, or James's hybrid nature was absurdly irresistible to rogue entities.
That was one more variable Caius would have to account for later.
The moment Talia spotted the target, her grip tightened on her sword, ready to leap down from the ledge and end the threat. Before she could launch herself forward, a heavy hand clamped onto her shoulder.
Caius held her back.
"The hell?" she snapped, shooting him an annoyed look.
"We still do not know the location of her nest," Caius stated calmly, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Clearing her lair is vital."
Talia let out a sharp breath, clearly irritated, but she relented and stepped back.
Now that they had eyes on the Moth Queen, finding James was only a matter of time. Sure enough, as they looked back down toward the lower rock face, the creature slammed her weight onto the stone right in front of a hidden cave entrance.
Moments later, a familiar figure stepped out from the darkness of the cavern and into the pale moonlight.
His dark skin was illuminated by the lunar glow, his golden-yellow eyes burning with a fierce, predatory light—yet something about his demeanor was wildly off.
The hood of his sweatshirt was pulled up over his head, casting his face in shadow, but his posture sat menacingly low. From beneath his lips, a dark crimson stain dripped down his chin and smeared across his jaw.
His canines had elongated into razor-sharp fangs, protruding past his lips, while the metallic scent of raw blood radiated outward, amplifying through the cool night air.
"What... the hell?" Mira muttered, freezing mid-step as she stared down at the scene.
Before anyone on the ridge could react, the Moth Queen snapped her head toward him. Catching the potent scent of fresh blood, her instincts completely shattered.
Driven mad by the overwhelming aroma, she launched herself directly at James at breakneck speed, her hooked talons bared and ready to strike.
The creature hit him like a runaway freight train, but James didn't even attempt to dodge.
Instead, he simply opened his arms wide, as if preparing to embrace a long-lost friend.
HUNGRY... SO HUNGRY... BLOOD... BLOOD... BLOOD...
The Moth Queen's agonizing hunger echoed violently inside his mind. He could hear her voice crying out—a harrowing, hollow ache that threatened to devour everything in its path, slowly destroying her from the inside out.
The countless corpses he had just seen back in the cavern suddenly made tragic sense. None of them had been fully consumed; most carried only a single bite mark.
While her transformed state had burdened her with the endless, ghastly appetite of a ghoul, her refined taste as a regal creature remained intact.
Her instinct forced her to hunt anything with a pulse, yet her body rejected the meal the moment she tasted it.
Her icy, chitinous talons slammed around his shoulders, secreting hyper-dense silk to bind him securely to her chest.
Her massive mandibles sank deep into his flesh. James gritted his teeth, bracing for the worst, but the expected agony never came.
The natural narcotic coating the tip of her tongue went to work immediately, numbing his pain receptors like a mosquito's bite. He could barely feel a thing.
"Your baby is okay," James whispered softly against her ear.
For a single, breathless second, the giant beast froze completely.
...MY... BABY...?
James felt the hesitation ripple through her frame, but her primal hunger was too absolute.
Within moments, her mandibles had stripped away the upper layer of flesh, reaching the dense muscle fibers of his shoulder.
His supernatural density proved to be a formidable obstacle.
The reinforced muscle was tough, and no matter how violently her jaws clamped down, she couldn't fracture his werewolf bones.
In fact, her own mandibles clicked and cracked under the strain, taking more damage than his skeleton.
GOOD... SO GOOD... WARM... SO WARM...
A wave of pure, overwhelming relief poured into his mind like water filling a cracked vessel. For the first time in centuries, the screaming agony in her belly began to recede.
The frantic shrieks faded into a soft, shuddering hum of deep, animalistic gratitude.
James felt the shift in her aura, feeling a strange, tragic sympathy for the monster clinging to him.
'Hurry up, you idiots,' he thought distantly, his vision swimming slightly at the edges from the rapid blood loss.
Up on the ridge, the pack stood in absolute, stunned silence.
"He's just standing there," Mira whispered, her voice laced with rare disbelief. "Why the hell is he just standing there?!"
Talia was already gone.
She had cleared the edge of the cliff before Mira even finished her sentence. Her broadsword flashed silver in the moonlight as she executed a controlled descent down the sheer rock face.
Caius and Mira dropped down a heartbeat behind her, but Talia hit the valley floor first.
Her boots cracked the stone, and she sprinted forward without slowing down for a single fraction of a second.
Down in the clearing, the Moth Queen's colossal wings remained half-spread, her gaunt body hunched over James with her head buried against his neck.
Her gaunt frame looked noticeably healthier now, her trembling limbs finally stilled in peaceful satiety.
Then, the physical world simply drifted away.
The dull pressure in James's neck vanished, along with the damp chill of the valley and the heavy stench of spores.
James blinked, finding himself standing in a vast, pale space—soft as morning fog, with no ground beneath his feet and no sky above his head. It felt like standing inside a held breath.
Standing a few paces across from him was a woman.
James tilted his head, studying her figure. She looks... human?
Not entirely. Two long, feathered antennae rose gracefully from her crown like pale fern fronds, swaying gently despite the lack of wind. Cascading waves of silken hair spilled past her shoulders, drifting around her as if suspended in water.
A lush ruff of white feathers framed her collarbone, fluffed and layered like downy moth fur, while behind her, two vast, ethereal wings folded loosely against her back.
This woman bore zero resemblance to the nightmare that had ambushed him in the forest.
There were no dripping mandibles, hooked talons, or cold eyespots. Her features were soft, tired, and warm. As she looked at him, her lips curved into a gentle, weary smile.
The agonizing hunger was gone. The screaming in her soul had fallen silent. All that remained was a spirit who looked as though she had finally been granted permission to rest.
James opened his mouth to speak, but she raised a hand, her voice echoing quiet and warm—like a flame shielded from the wind.
"Thank you."
"For what?" James asked, genuinely confused.
"For not running," she replied softly, pressing a hand against her chest over the soft white down.
"For letting me feed. I did not think anything in this world could make the pain stop. It hurt for so long that I forgot what it felt like to be free of it."
James rubbed the back of his neck. "Never thought I'd be thanked for offering my neck as a juice box."
The spirit paused, tilting her head as she struggled to process the strange modern phrasing.
"Don't overthink it," James added with a faint smirk, trying to lighten the atmosphere.
Even if she didn't fully grasp human slang, her primal instincts picked up on his intent. A soft, genuine chuckle escaped her lips.
"You are a very strange human," she said fondly.
"You have no idea," James replied dryly.
Her expression softened further, a warm light settling in her eyes. "Oh... I almost forgot. Your little companion... one of my children still lives."
James nodded gently. "Yeah. The kid is safe."
She closed her eyes, a look of profound peace washing over her features. "Thank you, young one."
Her form began to fade at the edges, her lingering soul dissolving into glowing motes of pale blue light.
"And human..." she whispered, her final words drifting across the void just before she vanished entirely. "They are looking for you."
Back in the physical realm, Talia arrived like a falling star.
Swinging her massive broadsword in a single, devastating arc from above, she cleaved straight through the Moth Queen's torso—from crown to abdomen.
The creature's hardened chitin parted like rotten wood, and the two halves of the monster thudded heavily onto the dark earth, twitching once before going completely still.
Talia landed in a low crouch, her blade dripping with glowing green blood. She quickly inspected the remains, confirming the threat was eliminated.
A few feet back, Rowan emerged from the shadows, watching a faint blue spectral light drift upward from the corpse into the night sky before dispersing into nothingness.
"Target confirmed dead," Talia reported, wiping her blade clean.
James let out a long breath, assuming the chaos was finally over. He was very wrong.
"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!"
Mira materialized directly in front of him, her face flushed with absolute fury.
He had never seen her look this genuinely pissed off before. Grabbing him violently by the collar of his hoodie, she yanked him down until they were eye-to-eye.
"You just stood there! You stood there like an idiot and let it eat you alive! Are you completely out of your mind?!"
Oh... right, James realized. From their perspective, I just looked like a suicidal rookie giving up.
"I was fine," James croaked defensively, holding his hands up.
Even as he spoke, the deep puncture marks on his neck began to knit together at a visible rate.
His skin flushed warm as his high-speed werewolf metabolism burned through raw calories, rapidly generating fresh muscle tissue over his collarbone.
"You were NOT fine!" Mira roared, shaking him. "Do you have any idea how stupid that was?! There's no honor in playing the martyr, James! None! Nobody here is giving you a medal for bleeding out in the dirt!"
"I wasn't trying to be a martyr—"
"Then what were you trying to do?!" she snapped back, her grip tightening as if she wanted to strangle him herself.
"I was giving her final moments some peace," James said quietly.
Mira glared at him as if he had just spoken absolute gibberish, her breathing heavy with frustration.
Behind her, Caius stepped forward. He didn't focus on the healing wound on James's neck—which was already completely closed, leaving only a patch of pale new skin that would take a few minutes for his natural melanin to restore.
Instead, Caius's sharp gaze locked onto James's left forearm, where his hoodie sleeve had ridden up.
Distinct, dark bite marks were indented deep into his forearm flesh.
At first, Caius assumed it was a wound from the Moth Queen, but the imprint was undeniably left by human-shaped teeth and sharp fangs—not chitinous mandibles.
And unless another wild werewolf had snuck into the valley without anyone noticing, the bite was completely self-inflicted.
"James," Caius spoke up, his voice dangerously calm. "What are those?"
James glanced down at his arm. For a second, he considered making up a cover story, but he was far too exhausted to craft a believable lie.
"I bit myself," James admitted bluntly.
Mira's grip on his hoodie loosened slightly in shock. Talia paused mid-wipe, her broadsword held still.
Realizing how crazy that sounded without context, James quickly clarified. "When I first confronted her, her psychic hunger hit my mind like a truck. The agony was so overwhelming that my wolf started trying to rip its way out to go on a rampage. I ran because I knew I was losing control. I followed a spirit into a cave and found a massive nest of human remains... and because I was already starving from her psychic echo, my wolf looked at those bodies as food."
He looked Caius dead in the eye. "A werewolf bite causes enough immediate pain to jolt my mind back to reality. It kept me grounded."
Mira's terrifying glare returned with double the intensity.
"Mostly grounded," James hastily corrected himself before she could punch him through a tree.
Caius remained silent for a moment, analyzing the explanation. He was well aware that James possessed uniquely heightened sensory perception—the kid could literally sense spatial warps.
It made sense that he suffered from an advanced form of empathetic sensing, much like Nneka.
"And then you stood still and let her feed on you," Caius continued calmly. "Would you have allowed her to devour you completely?"
James looked down at his right hand.
It was no longer human. The fingers had elongated into thick, clawed talons, coarse black fur creeping past his wrist while his nails hardened into deadly black points—the mark of a werewolf form he had barely managed to keep contained.
He flexed his claws once, watching his skin slowly shift back to normal.
"I was planning to crush her head," James explained quietly. "But I wanted her belly to be full first... so she didn't have to die starving."
Silence stretched across the clearing.
Then, without warning, Mira delivered a heavy punch straight into his shoulder.
The kinetic impact staggered James sideways, making him swear under his breath as he clutched his bruised bicep.
"Ow! What the hell was that for?!"
"That's for being a massive dumbass!" Mira snapped, though the fury in her aura had finally settled into exasperated relief.
Fair enough, James thought, wincing as he rubbed his arm.
Caius, meanwhile, zeroed in on another detail. "You mentioned a spirit."
James perked up instantly, glad for any excuse to divert Mira's violent attention. "Yeah! It was a translucent blue ghost, maybe four feet tall. It deliberately guided me straight to the cave nest."
"Fascinating," Caius murmured, filing the information away.
Rowan shifted slightly in the shadows, his interest piqued. Is the kid an innate spirit medium?
Remembering his promise to the dying spirit, James cleared his throat awkwardly. "Um... so... I actually need to ask for a quick favor."
Mira shot him a sharp look. "If this is something stupid, I'm launching you through that mountain."
Her scent confirmed she was 100% capable of doing just that.
"I swear it's not!" James said apologetically, turning to Caius. "Can you guys help me out?"
Time Skip
A few hours passed. The deep valley had fallen completely quiet once again. The silvery moonlight had faded into the washed-out gray hues of early dawn, a thin morning mist clinging to the tall grass.
Near the base of the cliff face, the squad stood in a quiet line before a long, neatly arranged row of hand-carved stone markers.
"So this was your favor," Caius noted, looking out over the silent clearing.
James scratched the back of his head nervously. "Yeah... it would've taken me until noon to dig all these by myself."
Upon closer inspection, the stone markers weren't random. They were laid out in precise rows, each set above a mound of freshly turned earth.
Graves.
Every single human body from the cave had been retrieved and given a proper burial—the recent victims, the older remains, and the lost children alike. It wasn't much, but it was the absolute least they could do for those who had been trapped in the dark.
Mira stood a few paces back with her arms folded, unusually quiet for once.
Talia had driven her broadsword into the soil, leaning heavily on the pommel as her eyes lingered mournfully on the smaller mounds.
And if anyone looked closely at James's hoodie, they would notice a small, fluffy creature snuggled deep into the crook of his neck.
Tucked securely beneath his hood was a creature about the size of a small house cat. Its fur was impossibly thick and soft, a pale lavender-white color that fluffed out like a dandelion, with feathery tufts sprouting from its cheeks and a plush scarf of down covering its chest.
Two broad, feathered antennae rose from the top of its head like oversized velvet ears, twitching wildly at every sound.
Just above its main eyes sat two tiny, gem-like spots, while its primary eyes were huge, round, and glossy black—glimmering in the dawn light like tiny stars.
It tilted its head toward Caius, letting out a soft, high-pitched chirp.
Its tiny front paws, tipped with delicate gray claws, gripped James's collar tightly. Its miniature wings lay folded flat against its back like soft tissue paper
. Every few seconds, it pressed its tiny face into James's neck—right over the freshly healed bite mark—and let out a warm, vibrating purr.
It was the sole surviving moth larva.
When James had bitten his own arm back in the cave, his blood had dripped down onto the stone floor, landing directly near a half-starved larva hidden beneath the silk.
The rich, supernatural potency of his hybrid blood had provided enough raw energy to save its life and trigger an accelerated metamorphosis.
'Your baby is okay,' he had told the mother—unaware that the little creature would imprint on him the moment it broke free.
"Don't larvae usually scatter into the wild once they hatch?" James asked nervously, poking the tiny creature's plush cheek. The moth chirped happily, leaning into his touch.
"Not necessarily," Caius answered smoothly, watching the tiny beast cling to James's shirt.
"Some remain bonded to the parent until maturity."
James glanced back toward the clearing where the Moth Queen's body had dissolved into pale ash upon her death. "Right... but she's gone now. How is this little guy going to survive?"
"Her mother accepted your offer," Caius explained, his voice entirely matter-of-fact. "And it was your blood that sustained her transformation. Because a portion of consumed genetic material is permanently integrated during a moth's metamorphosis, she is now spiritually and biologically bonded to you."
Caius paused, picking his next words with clinical precision. "Technically speaking... she is your offspring."
James choked on his own breath. "MY WHAT?!"
What the actual fuck did he mean, HIS KIDS?!
He was a virgin! He hadn't even held a girl's hand longer than a shared bus ride, and now he was suddenly a father to a magical moth creature he rescued from a horror cave?!
Behind him, Mira made a muffled, strangled noise, while Talia swiftly turned around, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably with laughter.
Mira walked up to him with agonizing slowness, wearing the absolute smuggest grin humanly possible. She stopped right in front of James, patted his shoulder twice with mock tenderness, and looked up at him.
"Congratulations, big guy. You're a single dad now."
"I am NOT a—"
"Oh, but you are!" Mira beamed, her eyes dancing with sheer delight.
"Remember that big speech you gave before the mission? 'I'm going to be a hero!' Well, look at you! You saved the day, buried the dead, and adopted a magical bug child. Truly an inspiration to us all."
James felt his soul temporarily leave his body. "Mira. Don't."
"Yes, Daddy?" she purred playfully.
"I swear to God..."
On his neck, the little moth let out a bright, happy chirp at the sound of his voice, nuzzling deeper into his jawline.
"See? She loves her daddy!" Mira cackled.
Talia finally managed to compose herself, turning back around with a deeply mournful expression.
She pressed a hand to her forehead, letting out the heaviest, most dramatic sigh James had ever heard.
"So young..." Talia grieved, shaking her head like a disappointed aunt. "Barely out of training, and already burdened with parental duties. Where did the time go? It feels like just yesterday you were struggling through the basic obstacle course."
"I didn't struggle!"
"You panicked a little bit."
"BULLSHIT!"
"And not a mother in sight," Talia continued, completely ignoring his outburst as she stared dramatically into the distance.
"Poor thing... raised by a single father who jumps when the toaster pops. What will the neighbors think?"
"WHAT NEIGHBORS?! YOU GUYS LIVE IN THE MIDDLE OF A FOREST!"
"The forest neighbors will gossip," Talia insisted solemnly.
Mira was entirely past the point of hiding her amusement.
She was doubled over, hands on her knees, wheezing so hard she could barely draw breath.
"Oh my god... he's going to have to buy baby supplies! Imagine him walking into a 24-hour convenience store in his hoodie, asking the cashier where they keep the specialized moth formula—"
"THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MOTH FORMULA!"
"There is now," Talia declared. "You'll have to craft it yourself. Think of the market potential!"
"Parent-teacher conferences!" Mira gasped, wiping tears from her eyes. "She's going to go to school, James! Imagine getting called into the principal's office because your daughter bit another kid!"
"SHE IS NOT MY DAUGHTER!"
The little moth chirped again, resting her fuzzy head against his neck as her tiny paws kneaded his collar like a kitten.
James froze mid-shout. The creature felt so warm, small, and utterly trusting that he couldn't even bring himself to gently push her away.
He closed his eyes, letting out a long, defeated sigh toward the sky.
Universe, please have mercy on me.
None came.
"I genuinely wish that bite had knocked me unconscious," he muttered under his breath.
"No, you don't, sweetheart," Talia said softly, reaching over to pat his hood with dramatic maternal care. "You're just overwhelmed. It's completely normal for first-time parents."
Mira completely lost her battle with gravity, leaning against Caius's stone-still arm to stay upright as she wheezed with laughter.
Caius, to his absolute credit, remained entirely stoic—though the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth betrayed his immense effort to keep a straight face.
Caius let out a quiet sigh. He knew that the more James reacted, the longer the squad would mercilessly tease him.
Given the centuries-long lifespan of a werewolf pack, this joke was guaranteed to haunt the kid for at least five years.
Five full years of single-dad jokes... poor kid.
As the laughter continued, James looked up toward the tree line and noticed the horizon turning a soft orange hue.
"Shit..." James paled, pulling out his phone. "What time is it?!"
"It is approximately 7:05 AM," Caius reported, glancing at the rising sun.
The realization hit James like a lightning bolt. PHYSICS CLASS.
"CRAP! I'M GOING TO BE LATE!"
Plucking the tiny, fluffy moth from his collar, he frantically thrust the chirping creature straight into Mira's hands.
"HOLD HER! I GOTTA GO!"
BOOM!
The shockwave of wind generated by his departure was so violent it kicked up a cloud of dust and leaves, the hybrid dashing through the forest at a speed that nearly shattered the sound barrier.
Within three seconds, his silhouette had completely vanished over the hill.
Talia blinked, adjusting her hair from the sudden gust of wind. "What got his panties in such a twist?"
"Ah," Caius remarked calmly, watching the dust cloud settle in the distance. "I believe he mentioned having a physics lecture at seven-thirty."
A/N...4k, that was long, also didnt upload last week, since i was focusing on my hollow fanfic, its pretty good.
This mini arc should have set James personality in view, he is good, but not to much, he would have murked that creature if Talia had been late, also he is not that opposed to killing, remember his dad taught him how to hunt, he has killed before, granted, they were animal, but the point still there
Vote with powerstones