Page 50 of Prey of the Lycan Queen (Unwanted #2)

Chapter Forty-Nine

Every inch of my body aches as I pry my eyes open to see what has awakened me.

It’s the guards stabbing Lyon through the bars with darts.

His grunt woke me, and he jolts awake, eyes wild.

Zeke quickly moves me under him, using his body as a shield.

A second later, Zeke also groans, his back arching above me.

My vision is blurry, and my senses dull as I feel my connection to my mates wane slightly. The poison they were injected with ripples through me. “Did you think you could hide your shift from me?” Slavic snaps.

I am wrapped in a fog of sedation as I turn to look at him.

My thoughts are a swirling storm of confusion and distress.

The tang of mandrake root fills my nostrils, the harsh metallic bite doing little to dispel my growing disorientation.

It feels as if I am trapped beneath the crushing depths of the ocean.

Slavic stands safely on the other side of the bars, arms folded across his chest as he glares at me. With one finger, he points to the corner of the cell, and I notice the little red flashing light—a camera.

“Ensure she can’t shift,” he snarls, walking off.

Suddenly, my chest is lit with red dots, and despite being heavily drugged, Lyon tries to block me, but he’s hit with the cow prodder those guards are so fond of, Zeke too, but several darts hit his chest. I move to attack them as my body begins to shift, but the warm sensation of their darts sinking into my skin stalls my changing form.

I choke on the bitter taste of poison in the back of my throat.

“I cannot shift,” I mutter as I look down at my very human hands. The ground rushes up to meet me with a hard thud. The primal force within me rumbles, caged and furious, but it has been weakened, reduced to a mere whisper beneath the chemically induced slumber.

The cage around me is alive with shadows, brutal darkness broken by slivers of artificial light from the guards’ flashlights.

Through the gloom, I see the flicker of movement—my coven members split between two cells.

Despair clings to them like a second skin, but I see determination smoldering in their eyes.

Kelly leans against the bars. “I heard the guards talking earlier,” she states, and I lift my groggy head. “He’s coming for you, Priestess. It’s why Slavic is in such a state. They’re securing a place for you to perform the spell.”

An elderly woman of my coven speaks from within the same cell as Kelly.

“Eastern side of the mountain. Slavic has been trying to block that side off.” Her aura doesn’t ripple as the others do, so it only takes me moments to realize that it’s Leila’s grandmother.

Her face is covered in dirt and her hair matted with blood from where she took a hit to the head.

Kelly places her hand outside the cell, pressing it against the ground. My hands also feel the vibration of the guards’ return.

“Listen,” I rasp, my voice carrying in the hushed silence. I draw on the threads of magic that bind us, reaching out to their minds. The connection is tenuous at best, frayed and weakened, but it is there. “We need to plan an escape. We can’t just use brute force.”

A myriad of emotions filters through the bond—fear, hope, anger, but there is an unwavering determination beneath it all. It fuels me and stokes the flames of defiance within my heart.

Suddenly, an alarm bellows throughout the compound, a high-pitched wail that slices through the tense stillness.

I cringe at the racket, my ears ringing from the onslaught.

Then, the world lurches beneath us. A violent tremor is followed by a loud explosion that sends a shudder through the mountain.

Dust cascades from the ceiling, a sinister rain of gray that chokes the air.

A sliver of hope blossoms in my chest through disorientation and fear. The chaos might be the opportunity we need. “This is our chance,” I send the thought out to my coven, gripping the bars of my cage, my knuckles white. “If Regan is here, we must be ready,” I warn them.

“We have no magic without Leila or without the curse being broken first,” Kelly says, and my brows furrow.

“But you can channel me,” I tell them, and they glance at each other, making me realize they are hiding something. “We can, but we won’t, not until the curse is broken,” Kelly whispers, and the vibration through the rock floor grows stronger.

“Our magic was locked in the square when Litha died. To use our magic, we need the entire coven and the square for a channel, but we won’t channel you. If we weaken you, we risk everything,” she whispers.

“I don’t understand,” I tell her.

“To break the curse, you choose them all or let Regan fall along with King Theron. Until then, we are powerless without something to channel. We channel from the square where Litha fell. That sacred place punished our mothers and absorbed our power. When dawn rises, they will either fall or live by your mark, but either way, the spell will be broken.”

“King Theron isn’t my mate,” I remind her.

“You’re right, but his curse is similar, and his only way for redemption is through his sons.”

“What has that got to do with you using me as a channel?” I ask.

Kelly looks away, not offering an answer. Thankfully, Dahlia, Leila’s grandmother, does. “Kelly is a seer. If she says they can’t channel you, she has a reason for it. It means Kelly has seen you’ll need your power, Priestess,” Dahlia tells me.

Dahlia’s words make my stomach twist in knots.

“What did you see?” I ask curiously, and Kelly turns her head to look at me through the bars, her gaze distant as if she is looking through an invisible veil of time.

Her eyes turn white, her pupils too, casting an eerie sight to witness.

Her mouth opens, yet the voice that leaves her isn’t entirely her own.

“While a king’s power might lie in strength and command, a broken-hearted queen’s power thrives in the shadows of sorrow. Her heart’s agony becomes a weapon, her love’s loss a battle cry. She is the relentless night, the savage wind, a terror that neither forgives nor forgets.”

“I still don’t understand.” My brows press together, and I glance at the other witches in the cell with her. They look hollow, as if the words she speaks they already experienced.

“Mountains move, and kings may fall. A queen ascends but mourns it all. A queen without her heart’s true mate is fury, wrath, and love’s dark state.”

Instantly, I am reminded of how I rejected Regan.

Still, he fights to reach me. Zeke, who fought for me, lies unconscious beside me.

Finally, I stare at Lyon, who is still awake despite being drugged with mandrake root, his eyes savage as he crouches in the corner, watching my every move.

Lyon’s mind hallucinates, telling him to end me, while some part of him clings to our bond to spare me.

Kelly’s voice clears my mind, pulling my attention back to her.

“Your mother, a queen once scorned, altered history and cursed the kings. She cursed all of us. But you, Zirah, are her redemption, their condemnation, and our salvation. She cursed you as virtue incarnate, a priestess with the love and power of seven. However, your destiny is far more ominous. Pure and unbreakable virtues will become dark if your love is shattered.”

I feel the cold tendrils of fear grip me as I try to decipher her words and what she is keeping from me.

She doesn’t seem to hear me. Her eyes are fixed on some distant horizon.

“Seven Sins she cursed them with—a father’s greed and sons’ betrayal.

But you, the last female lycan born. You’re a hybrid, a child of virtue, you’re both the blessing and the curse.

Your fall would be a cataclysm beyond reckoning. ”

The tremors in the mountain grow stronger, the vibrations resonating through the rock floor as the guards approach, but Kelly’s voice remains steady, a haunting chant amid the chaos of my mind.

“A king’s downfall is sin. A queen’s is virtue turned dark. While a king kills, a queen with a broken heart sets the world on fire. A scorned king is a danger, but a scorned queen is an apocalypse.”

The prophecy she speaks sends a chill down my spine, and I grip the bars, my knuckles turning white, my mind reeling from the words. Kelly’s eyes finally meet mine, clear and focused but filled with sorrow I can’t fathom.

“Regret is the hardest thing to live with. Channeling your magic won’t be mine.

If he falls, we all do. Your virtues are your strength, but if they break, they could become the worst of sins,” Kelly tells me while my mind wonders who it is that falls.

Which of my mates did she see die? The footsteps grow nearer, voices carry in the tunnels when sudden alarms blare loudly again, and the guards fill the place.

The alarm continues to wail, the explosion and tremors signaling the approach of some unseen threat—or perhaps an opportunity.

I pull my thoughts together, determined not to let fear paralyze me.

“We will escape, Kelly. We will break the curse. And I will choose love, not darkness.” My cell door opens, and guards rush in.

Lyon attacks instantly, but because he is injured and unhealing, he is no match for their darts or strength.

Lyon’s dragged out, and my coven members scream as they are dragged from their cells.

Suddenly, Kelly yells above the chaos, her words wrapping around my mind and stealing my thoughts. “Remember, destiny is weaving, and you stand at the loom. The pattern may be set, but the threads can still be changed.”

The tension in the room grows palpable as we all prepare for whatever comes next, but the prophecy she speaks lingers in the air. It’s a warning, a challenge, a reminder that my choices could either redeem or damn us all.