Page 41 of Prey of the Lycan Queen (Unwanted #2)
Chapter Forty
“On your feet, witch!” The grating command of King Slavic slices through the silence. Straining, I lift my gaze, locking eyes with the merciless figure towering over me.
It may be my birthday in a few days, but my shift is nearer than they think.
It’s a full moon tomorrow night; I am only growing stronger with that urge that has left my bones aching and my gums throbbing.
It’s like an electric current slithering under my skin, awakening every nerve, awakening a power embedded in my DNA from the Fates themselves, and along with the moon comes my lycan side.
“Fear looks good on you, Slavic,” I taunt, my eyes flashing defiantly.
“Hmm, yet nobody wears it better than you, dear,” he sneers. Just as another van’s engine roars and comes into view, shattering the tense silence that came with my words.
The van pulls up beside the one I was cruelly ripped from.
My heart drops into my stomach as the doors fly open, revealing the rest of my coven, their bodies limp and defeated, bruised and bloodied.
Each of them is dragged out unceremoniously, their lifeless forms a cruel show of Slavic’s ruthlessness.
Dread and desperation claw at me, witnessing them being manhandled like worthless objects, dragged into the mountain’s ominous maw.
“You asshole!” A snarl rips through me as I spring to my feet, driven by an instinctive need to protect my own. As I stumble forward, Slavic’s cold grasp tugs my hair, pulling my head back abruptly. A fresh wave of pain blooms along my scalp, but I refuse to show him the satisfaction of my agony.
“If you don’t cooperate,” he threatens, his voice barely above a whisper, “I’ll start with them, Zirah.” His threat, as terrifying as it is, isn’t what shakes me. It’s the absolute conviction in his voice, the promise of pain, that sets my blood boiling.
He would make their deaths torturous. Anger bubbles within me. Anger and anticipation.
The full moon is tomorrow, and already its power surges within me, instinctively, making me stronger, more powerful.
My lycan side is eager for the freedom the lunar cycle promises, and with that strength comes a flicker of hope.
We just need to remain alive until the full moon is at its highest point tomorrow.
For now, I must play the obedient captive.
I force the rage back, plastering a false smile onto my face.
I meet Slavic’s icy gaze with my own fiery one, pouring every ounce of my defiance into my words.
“We’ll see who breaks first, Slavic,” I sneer, my voice steady despite the turmoil raging within me.
One at a time, I watch my coven being hauled into the gaping door where Malachi was taken, and once they enter, I lose sight of them. Regan will find us. I have to believe it’s enough.
My heart sinks even further as they drag Zeke and Lyon from the van, both of them seeming far away and dazed by something. Lyon’s eyes flicker wildly with desperation, his sense of self slipping slowly as the hallucinations warp and twist his mind.
His body begins to convulse savagely in a way that’s becoming more familiar with each passing moment. As soon as he wakes from his trance, his eyes snap to me, but it does nothing to abate the rage bubbling within him now that there is no one left to protect or sustain him, except for me.
I’m all they have here in this place where everything seems so very wrong yet strangely powerful all at once—like an old manor house built atop an ancient graveyard.
You never quite forget its history, and it’s clear, despite this state the mandrake root has him in, Lyon still holds on to some memory of me.
For how much longer, I don’t know. But for now, I still exist in his crazed mind because the moment a guard tries to grab me, he snarls.
Lyon launches himself at the guard. Despite being bound, he still tears through the guard’s throat with his teeth, viciously mauling flesh, bone, and muscle alike in pursuit.
Some primal urge long since sublimated, suddenly regaining control over every other thought sensation until restored back into sanity. The guard screams out in pain before finally collapsing, while his surrounding colleagues raise their guns toward us in panic and terror.
Despite the confusion writ upon their faces when Lyon turns on them, the guards only stall momentarily.
“Drug him! Don’t shoot! We need him alive!
” Slavic orders, but his words don’t take effect quickly enough because the moment he gives them the order, Lyon attacks, breaking his restraints and charging the king.
They all fire their guns simultaneously.
My scream is deafening when I realize they did not use darts but actual bullets.
Lyon stares down at his stomach and chest in shock.
The air wheezes from his lungs out the holes that litter him.
He staggers, falling to his knees, and Zeke thrashes.
My vision tunnels as I grow weaker, taking on his injuries.
Zeke falls quiet. “Idiots! Heal him! If he dies, they all do!” Slavic screams.
Despite the fear coursing through me, I force myself to breathe deeply, pressing against the invisible walls closing around me as Slavic’s earlier words replay in my mind. “Nobody wears fear better than you, dear”
I shake off the cold chill as I lose my vision. “Please hurry, Regan, I don’t know how long they’ll last,” I whisper to the wind. For me. For Zeke and Lyon, their once vibrant spirits now dulled under the influence of the mandrake root.
For my coven.
For Malachi.
I have to believe he’s okay, that he’ll come for us because, until I shift, we’re all sitting ducks.