Greymoor Academy: I Accidentally Bonded With Four Lycan Royals!

Chapter 213: 213. Samhain --Final.

They had fought and failed.

There were four bullets in either of Soren’s shoulders. Three in Jericho’s spine, and it took four guards to drag his unconscious body back into the dungeons of the Council of Wolves three hours ago. They had aimed for Mercer’s legs, because they somehow knew that so long as he was standing, they wouldn’t survive him. And for Quinlan, they had placed a muzzle made of silver over his head.

Because even if they had emptied as many bullets as they could into his body, he’d just used his fangs to tear out their throats.

They were bound to the ground with chains of silver and ash around their ankles and their wrists.

But they weren’t the only ones who had been taken. Two cells over, Kisten and Ryder were in just as terrible shapes, snarling at every guard who passed by. Bastian, though, hadn’t moved an inch, staring intently at their mutual silver cages.

Conveniently, Margaret Hunt had escaped the Queen’s clutches tonight, even if she had led the charge. Soren’s theory was that she had ditched her sons when it got inconvenient. It would explain their surly expressions.

Either way, they were all to be tried in the morning in front of the Council of Wolves first, for first degree murder, amongst other things, before tried before the General Council made up of the oldest Wolves and the oldest Lycans that existed.

Yet, they all had one common thought.

Who had Maisie, and where?

Neither of them had been able to feel the bond since she disappeared. It was still there, but it had gone silent. It scared them and they could only hope the Queen hadn’t done something yet. If she wanted a bargain, she would get one. Whatever she wanted, they were willing to do it, so long as she didn’t hurt Maisie.

Quinlan watched the next guards on shift approach to stand by the bars, the reek of their fear pungent down in these dungeons. It was already midnight, then.

His neck started to itch strangely, the skin were Maisie’s mark on him sat chaffing uncomfortable. He thought about scratching it before he remembered his hands were chained behind him.

The itch grew into a sharp sting and Quinlan gasped when it started to burn like someone had put a torch to his skin. It started from the point of the mark, spreading all over his body like he had been thrown into a pool of liquid flames. And he half-heard the guard’s alarmed shout when he started to convulse.

Then something in his chest began to... cleave.

It wasn’t pain in an ordinary sense. It was absence. A violent, gaping void where the bond had lived inside his chest. No warmth. No pull. No presence. Nothing. The emptiness was suffocating him.

”What the fuck is wrong with him?” A guard asked, but when he heard Soren’s roar of fury, he knew something had gone horribly wrong.

**

Mercer felt it. The severance.

The mark burned hot against his skin and he was barely lucid enough to understand what was happening to him. But he knew that something fundamental had been ripped out of him. His chest felt hollow. Wrong. Like someone had reached inside him and taken a chunk of him.

Maisie, he thought.

**

It was the cold that woke Jericho.

He’d always known cold. Hunger. Emptiness. For most of his life, he hadn’t known anything else. But he could vividly recall the last time he did. It was the first time he held Maisie.

Jericho vaguely noticed his brothers spasming around him. He was disoriented.

Something was wrong. Something was gone. Something was missing. Why was he so damned cold?

***

At the edge of the cliff, Tessa felt it too.

The moment she heard the thud, something ancient and cold brushed against her skin. The air grew heavier than it had already been. The strange coloring in the skies vanished and a deep, rolling thunder cracked without warning, so loud it shook the earth beneath her feet.

Lightning struck the tree further down the slope. It caught sire instantly, flames licking up the trunk even as the first heavy drops of rain began to fall.

Tessa took a step back as the rain, frowning, as she watched the ground.

The rain became snow.

Perhaps for the second time, even in death, the stupid slut made her feel fear. Tessa glanced at the injured rogue behind her who had taken a blow to the head from the half-breed.

”Go get the body,” she ordered. ”Burn it. I want nothing left of it. Clean up the scene.”

”And the half-breed?” the rogue asked her.

Tessa thought for a moment. ”Leave him there. Leave her scent and her hair all over him. It should make for an interesting story later.”

The rogue nodded and began his descent.

Tessa stood in the snow for a long time, looking over the cliff. It was too dark, the plunge too deep to make out anything below. But she almost couldn’t believe it was over--

”It’s not there,” the rogue said, panting.

Tessa turned with a frown. ”What isn’t?”

”Her body. It’s gone.”

**

Queen Lysandra felt it. The crown on her head burned so hot, she took it off and hurled it across the room. It hit the ground with a loud clang and she watched as the ruby began to brighten. And heat, until it resembled red-hot coals.

The light in the ruby pulsed once. Twice. Then it died completely.

A slow, satisfied smile spread across Lysandra’s face.

It was done then.

The girl was gone. And the ruby was no more than an ordinary stone now.

But she had barely begun to relax when the ruby flickered back to life after five seconds, pulsing like a heartbeat that refused to stay extinguished.

The Lycan Queen’s smile vanished, and her frustrated shriek rang throughout the entire castle.

***

Gruer felt it.

He fell during his run in the Californian hills. And then, one moment, he was face planting into a tree-trunk, and in the next, he was at the base of a mountain, glaring down at the stupid girl.

He was sure she was dead.

The boy definitely was.

He didn’t hear a pulse or a heartbeat. He smelled death, much like he’d always been able to. And though there were only three bodies at the bottom of the chasm, he smelled four deaths.

He groaned, irritated beyond measure. Since she was stupid enough to get herself killed, it certainly wasn’t his business what happened next.

He turned on his trainers, about to leave.

But then, he heard it. A pulse.

Gruer’s eyebrow rose and he looked back, cocking his head as he listened. It came from the girl. It was frail and weak, but it was definitely there.

He laughed. What a strange child.