Greymoor Academy: I Accidentally Bonded With Four Lycan Royals! novel Chapter 244

Chapter 244: 244. Panic

Maisie

So, I panicked.

I wasn’t exactly thinking. This wasn’t factored into my plans, and just thinking about sitting through that conversation made me suffocate with fear. And before I knew it, I was sliding up the window and running.

Stupid, I know.

But I just needed to get some air. Alone. Somewhere I wasn’t being watched. Or questioned.

A wolf barked in the distance, and not even one second later, eight more howls erupted around me in the woods.

Clearly, I had underestimated how much the Council wanted me dead. It hadn’t even been fifteen minutes since I went out for fucking air, and yet and I was being chased like a hardened criminal.

Oh shit.

I was a hardened criminal.

Branches whipped my arms. My boots skidded on wet leaves. Behind me the underbrush rustled with the movement of heavy paws striking roots and leaves, the click and firing of rifles, and orders being barked by the uniformed men chasing me.

"Maisie Adams!" a man’s voice boomed through the woods. "Stop where you are! You are under arrest by order of the Council. Surrender and you will be transported to the facility for processing."

I kept running.

"This is your final warning!" The voice was now closer. So was the sound of barking wolves and dogs. "Refuse to comply and we are authorized to use lethal force. Stop or you will be shot."

My lungs burned.

They were going to shoot me either way. They had the Queen’s crest on their uniforms. I was alone. It was the perfect way to die. She would probably implicate me for something new that would make killing me justifiable.

"I just wanted to get some air!" I screamed over my shoulder for what felt like the hundredth time, voice cracking with pure outrage and terror as I forced my legs to move faster. "I wasn’t running. I just needed air!"

A massive wolf the same height as me crashed through the trees to my right, saliva flying from its jaws, eyes locked on my throat and I yelped in alarm as it launched itself at me.

I twisted hard, felt its teeth snap shut on empty air, and drove my fist into its ribs. The impact sent it slamming into a trunk with a pained howl, and I heard the crunch of bone as I half-stumbled—

Gun fire went off and the tree trunk beside my head exploded. Another and I cried out as pain ripped through my knee cap.

I tumbled, falling hard against the earth, an angry sob tearing out of me as I clutched my shot knee.

The guards caught up, as did their hunting wolves, and I was soon surrounded by a horde of guards, more than a dozen rifles aimed for my head.

"I did nothing wrong!" I yelled. "You kept chasing and shooting at me. I was just going for a walk!"

The one I assumed to be the head guard, a hybrid with a wicked scar splitting the bridge of his nose, strolled forward. He handed the leash of the wolf that had nearly taken my head off to another man.

The cold mouth of his gun pressed against my forehead.

"The Prince’s orders were to keep you here until he came," he said, dragging the barrel slowly over the side of my head, using it to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear. "But I do not serve the Prince."

I jerked my face away from the metal. "Don’t touch me."

He smiled.

Then the gun cracked against the side of my skull so hard, the world exploded into splotches of whites and blacks, my ears ringing with white noise. I hit the dirt, vision swimming.

Before I could push up, he was already on a knee in front of me, the barrel tracing a line down the side of my neck.

My vision cleared enough to see the leering in his eyes and my body went cold.

"I was at the wedding, you know," he murmured. "And the duel after. I hoped you would lose. Many of us did. It’s not every day we get fresh blood at the Red Moon rite."

The cold metal dragged lower, popping the buttons of the shirt someone had put on me while I was unconscious.

I kicked hard at his knee, catching him off guard, and he swore as I tried to knock the gun aside. My nails caught his right and he snarled and slapped me across the face.

But it was enough to make my bladder full. It was mottled, wrong in every way, wrong shaped limbs, a grotesque head, too many joints, grey skin. It hit the guard on the farther end, his scream cutting off mid-note as it ripped him to pieces before it ever took flight.

There was a second of silence before the guards opened fire at the skies in blind panic. Bullets tore through the leaves as they yelled, "What the fuck is that thing?!"

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