Morning sunlight forced its way through the gap in the vines at the cave entrance, bringing warmth that slowly pushed out the last cold from the storm the night before.
Valerie opened her eyes slowly, breathing in the fresh pine forest scent mixed with the heavy smell of wet earth.
She found herself still inside the circle of Caleb’s huge arms, leaning against the broad chest of the wolf man, whose heartbeat now beat steady and calm.
“You’re awake, fragile human,” Caleb said in that heavy voice of someone who just woke up, without opening his eyes.
“Yeah, and your body is still as hot as a furnace,” Valerie answered, slowly shifting her sitting position to make a safe distance.
“My body temperature won’t change just because the storm is gone,” Caleb replied, opening his pair of golden eyes that immediately flashed sharp as the dawn light hit them.
“Thanks for last night.
I don’t know what would’ve happened if I stubbornly stayed in the corner of the cave,” Valerie said honestly, fixing her slightly messy cotton blanket.
“I just made sure my herbal supply didn’t freeze to death,” Caleb joked, standing straight and stretching his powerful muscles.
“Always got some annoying excuse,” Valerie murmured, making Caleb huff softly with the corner of his mouth lifting in a tiny smirk.
Valerie stood up too, walking toward the cave mouth to check the outside conditions after that huge storm.
But right as her fingers were about to push aside the vine leaves, the wolf ears on Caleb’s head suddenly snapped upright, moving very actively.
The next second, that relaxed mood vanished completely.
The man suddenly grabbed Valerie’s shoulder from behind, pulling her away from the entrance with shocking strength.
“What’s going on, Caleb?” Valerie asked panicked, her heart immediately pounding hard seeing that drastic change.
“Sstt… quiet,” Caleb whispered very low, putting one finger in front of his lips while his eyes stared sharp through the stone gap outside the cave, pupils narrowing.
“Are they the people from the city hunting me?” Valerie pressed, voice trembling, her old fear slamming back in without mercy.
“No, this isn’t the scent of humans,” Caleb answered, eyebrows wrinkling deep, his nose flaring as he sharply sniffed the wet morning air.
“Then who?” Valerie asked again, also holding her breath as the cave atmosphere suddenly turned suffocating.
“This scent… pure wolf clan feromones, but really weak and mixed with a thick smell of iron,” Caleb muttered, his face expression turning super tense and disbelief.
Without wasting another second, Caleb stepped out of the cave with a move that was super fast but completely silent.
Valerie, who didn’t want to be left alone in that terrifying unknown, boldly followed the wolf man from behind, creeping between pine trees that were still dripping leftover rain water.
Only about fifty meters from their stone hill slope, Caleb stopped his steps suddenly right in front of a messy bush.
On the ground that was burnt and black like a single lightning strike, a giant-sized man lay unconscious.
His torn armor was covered with dried black blood stains, and his left arm looked horrifying, skin dark and rotting.
“Oh god, he’s badly injured,” Valerie whispered, covering her mouth because she was scared seeing that foreign guy’s condition.
Caleb didn’t move closer immediately.
He set a defensive stance with glowing bright gold eyes, watching every physical detail of the lying man with extreme caution.
But as soon as his eyes caught the broken silver emblem shaped like a wolf head on the remains of the man’s shoulder guard, Caleb’s breath suddenly stopped in his throat.
“Vane,” Caleb called with a voice shaking hard, a reaction Valerie had never seen before from him.
Hearing that heavy voice he knew so well echoing above his head, the giant man on the ground slowly opened his eyes.
His blurry, pain-filled eyes suddenly lit wild as he caught the figure of a dark-haired man with gray wolf ears standing in front of him.
“Lord… Caleb,” Vane whispered, voice super raspy, almost choked by blood.
With the last strength he had, Vane forced his giant body to move in an extreme way.
He dragged his knees on the rocky ground, crawling painfully until he was right in front of Caleb’s feet, then bowed his head deep onto the wet ground.
“Your servant… Captain Vane of the Front Guard, finally managed to find you, Lord,” Vane said emotional, tears mixed with blood dripping from his injured temple.
“Stand up, Vane.
What happened to your body?” Caleb commanded worried, quickly kneeling to support the strong shoulder of that loyal soldier.
“Don’t touch my left arm, Lord.
It’s a black magic curse from the palace traitors,” Vane warned, grimacing in pain as his body was lifted up.
Valerie, who had been watching that unbelievable scene with wide eyes, finally dared to move closer.
She knelt beside Caleb, checking the pulse at Vane’s neck with hands that trembled but moved trained, like a real nurse.
“His pulse is extremely weak and uneven.
We have to carry him inside the cave right now if we want him alive,” Valerie said firmly, looking at Caleb with a serious look he didn’t argue against.
“Who… is this human, Lord?” Vane asked, eyes staring sharp at Valerie, trying to stay alert even though his body was already at the edge of death.
“She’s the one who treated me all this time, Vane.
She can be trusted,” Caleb explained short, then hugged Vane’s big body to help him stand.
“Thank you… for protecting my lord, human girl,” Vane whispered softly to Valerie before his consciousness dropped again, making him collapse weakly on Caleb’s shoulder.
With great struggle, Caleb and Valerie carried Vane’s giant body into the hidden stone cave.
They laid him down on a soft mat of dry leaves.
Valerie quickly took clean water supplies and crushed anti-curse herbs she usually used, while Caleb sat beside his soldier, face full of deep anxiety fog.
The quiet atmosphere inside the cave now turned into a tense medical battlefield.
Two hours passed in nerve-burning tension.
After Valerie finished wrapping the burn wounds on Vane’s body and applied poison-neutralizing medicine on his left arm, the guard captain finally opened his eyes again with much more stable consciousness.
“How do you feel, Vane?” Caleb asked, moving right to his soldier’s side.
“Much better, Lord.
This girl’s medicine has a weird magical effect even though it doesn’t contain magic from our world,” Vane answered, trying to lean his back against the solid cave wall.
“Tell me.
How did you even end up in this world?” Caleb demanded explanation, eyes locking Vane’s gaze without giving space.
“Your servant was pushed into the Forbidden Forest valley by Jarek’s troops, Lord.
No way out, so I boldly activated the ancient portal altar using my own blood,” Vane told, voice still heavy and carrying the horror of that battle.
“That ruined ancient portal,” Caleb confirmed, eyebrows deep wrinkle.
“Right, Lord.
While I was inside the energy vortex, my tracker senses caught your unique feromones super strong from the other side of the dimension gap, so I let my body get swept toward these coordinates,” Vane explained in detail that crazy escape.
Valerie, who was sitting in the cave corner holding a bowl of medicine, wrinkled her eyebrows confused and scared listening to those foreign terms that sounded totally unrealistic.
“Wait, you keep talking about that time thing.
So how long have you been missing from your world, Caleb?” Valerie cut the conversation, speaking out her curiosity that was rising hard.
Caleb turned to Valerie with a complicated look, then looked back at Vane.
“I fell into this world exactly on the night this girl found me, Vane.
For me, that was only about three or four months ago,” Caleb said flat, trying to fit the logic.
Hearing the prince’s words, Vane’s face suddenly turned super pale, like he just heard some terrifying apocalypse news.
“Three or four months, Lord?” Vane repeated, voice shaking hard.
“Yeah, what’s wrong with the timeline?” Caleb demanded clarity with sharp eyes, sensing some huge danger from his soldier’s fear expression.
“In our world, Lord… since the battle night at the palace gates and your disappearance into the dimension gap… time has been running for almost three years,” Vane revealed that horrifying fact, voice full of pain.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT TIME?!” Caleb startled, standing from his seat with bright glowing gold eyes because he was shocked and furious hearing that his dimension was running far ahead leaving him.
“THREE YEARS?!” “Three years?!” Valerie also screamed, dropping the wooden spoon in her hand so it clanged hard on the silent stone cave floor.
“Right, Lord.
The time flow between these two dimensions turns out runs at very different and deadly speeds,” Vane explained, bowing his head because he couldn’t bear seeing the look of shock crushing his lord’s face.
Caleb clenched his huge hand until his knuckles turned white, making a small cracking sound, holding the hit of information that crushed his logic.
The truth that his original world had been running for three years without him meant the traitors in the werewolf world were definitely super strong now, rooted, and unstoppable.
“Three years… then what’s the condition of our homeland now, Vane?” Caleb asked in a low voice full of tension ready to explode.
“The capital city has fallen completely into the hands of tyranny, Lord.
Your brother… General Lyca… has crowned himself as the new ruling king,” Vane reported the werewolf world condition with heavy heart.
“Lyca… so it’s true he’s the one behind all this bloody coup,” Caleb hissed, jaw locking hard until the veins on his neck popped terrifyingly because he was betrayed by his own blood.
“That traitor!!!” “Right, Lord.
He slaughtered all the old ministers loyal to the late ruler, and the common people now live under brutal war tax oppression to expand his territory,” Vane added that info, making the atmosphere inside the cave suddenly feel super suffocating and cold, like oxygen there was sucked away by Caleb’s anger.
Valerie felt her skin prick seeing Caleb’s aura suddenly turn super cold, cruel, and deadly.
The wolf man who for several months lived quietly with her in the cave, shared food, and protected her from storms, now seemed to be hiding a huge and terrifying power secret.
The status being called “lord” by that silver-armored soldier, his noble way of speaking, and the throne conflict from the palace that was just explained, made Valerie’s head spin wildly.
Shock after shock hit her human consciousness hard.
Who exactly was the wolf man she had been treating in this stone cave?
Why was he trapped in the bloody conflict of an interdimensional kingdom?
Valerie stepped slowly but definitely toward Caleb, refusing to bow to that terrifying intimidating aura.
She stared straight into the pair of golden eyes that were surging like a firestorm.
Silence gripped the cave so cruelly, making the last crackle of firewood sound so loud in the high hanging anxiety.
“Caleb… who exactly are you?” Valerie asked in a soft but sharp demanding tone, asking for the full truth from that man’s lips right now.