Chapter 198
It was impossible not to listen to the grunts and the last screams of a person before they fell dead. The bloodshed was already massive and the healers were running around to tend to all those who had been hurt.
We had volunteers outside bringing in the wounded and the bodies of the dead ones were left on the field.
Even from here, I could smell the blood seeping up the hallway and the Guards screamed in pain when the healers did what they could to help them but I also heard a few hearts stop and sighs of hopelessness over the loss of another life.
“He’s smiling,” Lauren seethed from the window.
“Who is?” I asked.
4
“The Elder, he’s just standing there in the back, smiling,”
The bodies were piling up, even if I couldn’t see it and the girls wouldn’t fill me in on anything, I knew we had lost more Guards than we thought we would. Every time I tried to get out of bed Lauren was there and pushed me down again, that dance continued until I gave in and laid back.
If the humans couldn’t die they had the upper hand.
“How many causalities?” I asked and chewed on my lip.
Nora shook her head and shot Lauren a look and they both stayed quiet.
They wouldn’t tell me anything and I was left thinking the worst.
***
I fisted the sheets and shut my eyes but the images played out in my vision of the blood and the gore. Too many people were losing their lives and it had gone on for over two hours now. Nora eventually took down the clock and turned it facing down on the table but I was counting the seconds in my head.
And like the silence after a raging storm when everything was still and people held their breaths to look at the damage, the grunts, and killing stopped.
The silence washed over us in a wave and I opened my eyes to see Nora’s tear-filled eyes gazing out the window and Lauren hung her head.
“What happened?” I cried and rose from the bed. Lauren tried to stop me again but there was no strength to her hold so I slapped her hand away and ran to the window.
I pressed my hands against the glass and looked down, but I could barely see the grass under the dead bodies and the sea of blood.
“Oh my gods,” I gasped.
They were heaving, both sides stepped back and hundreds of men and women had perished.
All for the sake of power.
But ours weren’t fighting for power, they fought for Valeria, and their King. For the people.
I saw the Elder on the edge of the land where he had stood and watched. Darian was in the front but I could only barely see him.
All I saw was his crimson-colored arm and his ripped uniform.
Limbs lay scattered at their feet and Gabe was limping up next to his brother.
My heart squeezed in my chest and my stomach rippled from what felt like kicks but they didn’t have legs yet so it couldn’t be.
We stood and listened when the Elder stepped forward to talk.
1/3
Chapter 198
“We gave you an honest chance to step down, King Darian, you did not accept and now your men have paid the price,” a black fog surrounded him and Zade manifested by his side. I held my breath and removed my hands.
“I will give you one more chance to do the right thing for your people,” the Elder continued and Zade turned his head and found my eyes through the window. He lifted his hand in a small wave and his metal rings glimmered under the light from the moon.
“All we want is Hazel, one life for thousands is not a bad bargain,” he continued.
Darian followed Zade’s gaze up to the window and I released the breath when our eyes locked for a split second. He took a knife from its holster and launched it at Zade’s head but the menace disappeared and the blade stabbed through the black fog and continued down far.
He appeared on the Elder’s other side and brushed the fog from his shoulder.
My head roared with the buzz from the mind link being unblocked and I winced.
I know what you’re thinking. Do not dare come down here
It’s me they want
To get to me
It’s your life or mine
I choose yours. I swear on your Gods, Hazel Grey, if you set foot outside the hospital I will drag you to the basement and chain you to the door myself
He said.
His obsidian gaze found mine, and I saw the sinister monster who brought me here, the one who claimed me at the Hunt, but I was no longer afraid of him, I loved him. All of him. When that happened? I don’t know, but it did, and now I can’t imagine my life without that love. If he died, I would die: it was twisted and deranged and beautifully unhinged. It was ours, and I couldn’t bear to lose it.
I blocked the mind link and backed away from the window until I was out of his sight.
“Don’t,” Lauren said and grabbed my hand. I pulled it out of her grip and walked toward the door, prepared that she would block my path and when she did I figured the only thing that would work to reason with her was logic.
“Do you want to see more of your friends die?” I asked.
Her lips parted and closed.
“I knew what I signed myself up for when I became a member of the King’s Guard,”
التحري عالم الحر التعبير اللانها
“And I knew what I signed up for when I accepted Darian as my mate. With that came the knowledge that I would one day be Queen and what kind of leader would I be if I allowed one more person to die in my place?”
“They’ll kill you,” she said under breath.
Was Lauren showing care? I smiled and nodded. It wasn’t my plan to die tonight, but it wasn’t in my blood to sit back, either. Maybe sacrifices for the sake of others is our family curse, maybe I’d see them again. My mom was probably cocking something over the stove of our family home, and my dad was annoying her with his horrible jokes and dancing her around the kitchen. Maybe we’d be closer in death than we were in life.
“I’ll go with you,” Nora said with a tear tracing down her cheek.
2/3
The Alpha’s Hunt
