AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A low grumble of indignant voices muttered through the crowd.
“It is for your own safety as well.”
I tried to hold back my snort. It had nothing to do with them and everything to do with the fragile, scared man on the horse.
“If you have your papers, you have nothing to worry about,” Iain declared. “If you do not… I don’t recommend running. You will not outrun her.” He gestured to the sky. On cue, Nyx screeched above, chilling my bones. “Or my guards,” he haughtily added, nodding to the men, giving them the signal to move out.
Awareness prickled at me as I watched Iain’s smugness and the way the soldiers aggressively went for villagers, strange magic billowing off them, smelling like adrenaline, of fear in their last moments. A bitter copper taste laid on my tongue, memories surging up, plunging more terror into my system.
I knew what they were. Panic heaved through me, stealing my air, spinning my head as if I were caught in a wave.
Before he was killed, Istvan was able to improve his method of turning humans into fae. Most of his early research victims died horrible deaths, except a few like Hanna, who still struggled. Her shift into fae was unpredictable and dangerous.
He eventually achieved better results with his experiments, creating a new breed of fae from humans as he did with his son, Caden, who had been injected with Warwick’s magic. It gave Caden powers similar to Warwick and a connection between them, which they both went out of their way to ignore.
Istvan’s own son became the model subject, and Istvan opened up labs in Ukraine to produce more like Caden. Create an army of fae-humans who could easily fight and kill fae.
We destroyed the labs, but we knew a lot of test subjects had escaped. And I had a terrible feeling I knew where some were.
I observed the guards, the way they moved, the hints of fae they had taken on, and the shifter qualities their bodies were permanently intertwined with. One clearly was a gorilla-shifter, along with a tiger, bear, and wolf.
Iain surrounded himself with all animal-shifters who could intimidate and kill in a blink. They spread out, demanding papers from everyone.
“Where are your papers?” one growled, throwing a woman on the ground and grabbing her by her hair.
Her screams activated my need to protect and defend, my pulse pounding my ears.
“We have to get out of here,” I mumbled into Raven’s ear, trying to load my gun inside the backpack so they wouldn’t notice.
“How?” Anxiety had her voice rising slightly. “They’re blocking the gate.”
I peered around, searching for another exit. There was usually more than one. I just needed to be certain where.
Two guards were moving our way, terror dancing on my nerves.
“Papers!” they demanded. Neither Raven nor I moved. “I asked you for your papers.” The guard’s booming voice drew Iain’s head to us as though he could feel the blood of his enemy, the one hunting him down like he was a wild animal.
Our gazes locked. The color of his eyes differed from Lucas’s, and in that moment, I saw the heartless shell, no longer seeing the things reminding me of the man I loved, but the man I detested.
Iain was right there. I could shoot him right between the eyes before they could stop me. But then my brain flashed to the after. The part where the guards came for us, shooting, killing Raven, or even worse, capturing her. What they would do to her because of me. The torture. The merciless brutality she would endure.
Vomit reached the back of my throat.Fuck no. I couldn’t do that to her. Plus, when I killed Iain, I wanted him to suffer. Look in my eyes and know his life was about to end. Have Sonya watch her last son bleed out, understanding she would follow.
Iain’s body jerked with awareness that it was me. “It’s them!” His finger pointed toward me.
A hawk screeched from far above.
Terror fizzed in my muscles, needing to act, to protect Raven. Scanning the market, my gaze landed on a familiar figure. Vlad stood over by the blacksmith table, a huge fire blazing near where he was standing. His gaze went from Iain to me, and he gave me a tiny nod before he pretended someone knocked him over, stumbling into the fire pit and knocking it over. Burning coal and embers dumped onto the ground, the flames leaping for the fabric, igniting the tent with a whoosh.
Shouts and screams rang out, people scrambling out of the way of the flames, figures trying to retreat, run for the exit, the horses neighing and bucking as the fire lashed up the tent. It was complete chaos. A distraction. For us.
“No!” Iain yelled. “Get him. He’s right there.” But no one heard him above the commotion, his horse rearing back.
“Come on!” Clutching Raven’s hand, I yanked her toward the exit, funneling through the mass of people trying to get out at once.
Gunfire shot in the air from the guards, but all it did was add to the hysteria. People stepped on others, pushing and shoving, emotion turning off anything but survival.
Kee-eeeee-arr.A hawk shrieked, claws skimming over my head.
