Chapter 221. Searching
Maisie
Stone and wood exploded as the second rogue lunged for me with a snarl, no longer caring that the humans were watching. He caught my wrist and slammed it into the side of the crushed counter so hard, it was either let go of the glass or break my fingers.
I let go, just so I could step inside his reach and drive my knee into his balls. He choked on a wheeze and went down hard, and I had just shoved him to the side when a fist came at my head from the left.
I ducked blindly, came up under it, slammed my elbow into the attacker’s throat.
Thick arms tried to grab me from behind. I threw my weight forward, flipped him over my shoulder. He crashed into a table full of drinks, taking everything down with him.
The flick of a knife drew my gaze towards the leader, and I tried to hide my wince. The scar along my neck began to itch.
I hated knives.
He came at me and I ducked, heart racing as the tip of the blade sliced the air.
Let her go, you fool.
I stumbled and barely avoided a strike to the temple. He slashed again, and I caught his arm, redirecting the knife past my ribs and tipped forward with enough force to smash my forehead into his nose.
Cartilage crunched. I ripped the knife free of his grip and punched the hilt into his solar plexus hard enough to fold him in half.
It was over in less than two minutes. And I didn’t even need my Lycan to beat them.
A single trickle of sweat rolled down my spine as the world rushed in. The bar was an absolute wreck and I stood in its middle, breathing slightly elevated, blood speckled down the front of my clothes and a knife I let clatter into the ground.
"Freak..."
"Did you see her eyes—"
"What the hell is she?"
"Did you see the posters? She looks just like that bitch they’re looking for—"
The words spread in low, fearful murmurs across the bar. Someone near the back already had a phone pressed to their ear, speaking quickly and quietly, and only then did I notice my hood was down.
I stepped over one of the groaning men and hurled my ass through the back room that had become a bedroom of some sorts for me. I grabbed the small bag I kept stashed under the bed and discarded my apron, grabbing my black baseball hat and sat it over my head before drawing up my hoodie and heading for the door.
But Mandy intercepted me before I reached it.
She looked shaken, but her expression wasn’t. "Here. I wrestled it off Marco—"
"Mandy—"
"You earned it, Lis. Don’t care what they say about you, you ain’t no killer," she said and smiled. "Take it."
My lips quivered and I swallowed. "Thank you."
She nodded and jerked her head at the door. "Go, before the cops get here."
The air outside was cold, the sun swiftly setting as I slipped out. I avoided the streets, taking the fields and woods beyond the edge of town as I heard the sirens wailing in the distance.
I had an hour, give or take, before more of them showed up—
My ears twitched at the sound of faint breathing behind me. I stopped walking, angled my head and looked back as the feeling of being watched tickled the back of my neck intensely.
The first figure detached from the tree line.
Then another.
Then more.
I stopped counting at ten.
They fanned out in a loose semicircle, cutting off every path forward, all dressed in black, their gazes hard and menacing.
One of them stepped forward. He flicked a taser between his fingers, and my eyebrow rose when his head lowered into a bow.
"Princess," he said. "We have orders to retrieve you. It would be preferable if you came willingly, but as previous attempts have shown, there might be a need for some... force."
The taser crackled, punctuating his words, and he smiled slightly. "His Highness is rather eager to meet you."
My Lycan began whining like a bitch, needing, demanding, but I forced her down as always, ignoring her, tuning her out. But it was getting harder and harder by the d. Shattered bonds, it seems, didn’t stop the shakes, the phantom need. It was like my body knew something was missing and kept craving it even in its absence.
Like I was an addict in rehab.
But I kept my expression empty. "I’m not interested."
****
Soren
"We found her."
My fingers stilled over the stack of papers.
I’d heard those words so many times over the last nine months that they shouldn’t have done anything to me anymore. They shouldn’t have made my pulse spike like I’d just been struck. They shouldn’t have tightened something vicious and restless under my ribs.
But they did.
And I was starting to hate that too.
I stared at the photo on the screen. Irritation flared hot and immediate. The Council meeting droned on around me. Voices, reports, politics. I had clawed my way back into this room after the exile, after the disgrace, after every carefully placed dent the Queen had left in my reputation to ensure I never got the Council’s. A seat here was supposed to mean something. Progress. Control.
Enough control to re-appeal on the "kill-on-sight" order to had been given. Enough control to invoke a trial to keep her alive for long enough to clear her name.
But that was months ago. And I didn’t give a single fuck about any of it right now.
My left eye twitched as I studied the image.
What the hell had she done to her hair?
Last month it had been neon green in some grainy shot from Japan. Now she’d hacked it off to her chin like she was trying to erase herself one piece at a time. Like changing the way she looked would somehow make her less mine.
I stood, already putting the phone to my ear.
"Where?" I tried not to growl.
"Utah," Todd answered. The lead mercenary. Because apparently fifty trained guards hadn’t been enough to drag one woman home. Because she kept slipping through every net I threw. Because she ran like the devil himself was behind her, and maybe he was. Maybe that devil was me.
A crash exploded through the speaker, followed by a man’s furious roar.
Todd swore under his breath. "There’s... uh. A bit of an issue."
Of course there was.
There was always an issue.
Nine months. Nine months of dead ends and near-misses and reports of her tearing through anyone stupid enough to get close. Nine months of her looking me in the face through photographs and still choosing to disappear again. I had told myself I wanted answers. I did want answers. I wanted to know why she left. Why she let the entire world believe she was a traitor. Why she ran instead of coming to me. Why the fuck she had gotten rid of our child without a word.
I wanted to hear her say it.
I wanted to drag the truth out of her throat if I had to.
But more than any of that, I was done being patient.
My brothers had taken the news in their own ways. Jericho went quieter. Mercer angrier. Quinlan colder. The distance between the four of us had grown into something ugly and unfamiliar. They thought I was chasing a ghost. Chasing a woman who had already made it clear she didn’t want us. They thought I should let it fucking go.
But they didn’t understand.
People didn’t leave me.
Not like that. Not with lies and blood and silence. Not after everything. Maisie Adams didn’t get to laugh in my face, bind herself to me, and then vanish into the world like I was something she could outrun.
She was mine.
Bond or no bond. Crown or no crown. Allegations or not.
She was mine, and she was fucking delusional if she thought distance and dyed hair and cheap fake names would keep her from me. Call it an abandonment issue or whatever the fuck it was. But the only way she would ever escape me was if she was in a different fucking dimension. And even that wouldn’t save her.
Another crash came through the phone. Someone shouted in pain.
"She’s knocked out eight of my men," he growled. "We’ll be needing reinforcements. Preferably," he spat out the word like it annoyed him to even speak it. "One of you."
I exhaled slowly through my nose, fingers flying over the screen.
"Don’t kill her," I said, voice flat. "Do whatever else you need to do to keep her there. Mercer’s closer. He’ll be there within the hour--"
"Fuck!"
I tensed. "Tell me you didn’t fucking lose her."
The line went dead.