Greymoor Academy: I Accidentally Bonded With Four Lycan Royals!

Chapter 220: 220. The Stink of Rogue

Seven Months Later...

Maisie

Someone was watching me.

Eight tables down, left corner, scarred cheek, hard eyes. From the scars I noticed on his fingers and the way he adjusted constantly to keep what he had under his sleeve hidden, it had to be a knife. Or a gun.

Assassin.

He didn’t know I had noticed him since he walked in. Even if I hadn’t trained my senses and instincts hard enough to detect it, his scent would’ve given him away. In a bar full of human men, rogue stunk.

”Hey, Lis,” Mandy, the other waitress I worked the counter with during my afternoon shifts, said, grabbing two bottles as she headed upstairs. ”Heads up. It’s the old man again. Maybe give him your number or something?”

I made a face, but plastered a smile on my face as the grubby man who hadn’t stopped staring at my chest all evening finally walked up the courage to approach me.

I thought it was a bad time. They had found me again. I was going to have to leave tonight.

Shit. I really, really liked this bar.

”What can I get you, buddy?”

His eyes remained firmly on my breasts. ”Jameson. Neat.” He licked his lips. ”You new around here, sweetheart?”

I was. A month old, actually. It was the longest I had stayed in one place since Germany. And it was the only place that paid a woman with no means of identification, valid credentials or a past working experience high enough to live off the streets. Plus, it came with accommodation.

It didn’t seem like much, but if you consider the fact that my first month out of the hospital, I was scrubbing gum off the communal toilet of a club, and sneaking back into said club’s back room to sleep, this was a pretty great upgrade.

”I am,” I said with a cheerful smile, giving him my back while I stole another glance at the rogue. He had a phone to his ear. I let my Lycan listen for me while I shuffled through the fridge and I heard him rattle off the address to someone.

Great. Reinforcements.

”What’s a dainty thing like you doing in a shack like this?” the man by the counter asked.

Well, wasn’t that the question of the year?

Maisie Adams, ex-princess, ex-mate, murderess, adultress, thief, and whatever new title they liked to call me these days, was on the run. On average, I got six assassination attempts per week. On a good week, five. Only a bad one, about twice that amount.

The bounty on my head was now five times its original score, or so I had heard from the last man who tried to strangle me to death in the last boutique I had worked in.

Well, he didn’t exactly succeed.

But the boutique didn’t exactly survive the attack, either. Which meant I had to ’settle’ the owner before she could turn me in to the cops for destruction of personal property—I was trying not to die—and the cops would have been quite pleased to realize just who they had in their custody, seeing as everyone and their mother knew what I looked like, no thanks to the posters in every town, city and country the Queen could sink her claws into.

And ’settling’ meant calling that devil of a man, Gruer. Which also meant I had wracked up even more debts in addition to my hospital bills–debts I wasn’t done paying back, even after seven months.

At this rate, I would still be paying back my debts after fifty years.

Though a part of me thought Gruer was just making me work my ass off because he secretly enjoyed my suffering.

I had just closed a hand around the bottle when my body tensed up, and my instinct took over.

I turned around in the same second the doorbell chimed and five tall, broad shouldered men who didn’t look like they belonged in the bar walked in.

The air changed instantly when the rogue who had been watching me for the last two hours suddenly rose to his full height, joining his other friends that I was absolutely sure were more assassins.

The other patrons were beginning to take notice. I didn’t want a scene. A scene meant I wouldn’t get my last pay check before Marco threw me out of his bar. I really needed that pay check.

So I acted perfectly normal, even as they closed in, holding out the man’s drink. But in a blink he was shoved out of the way, the drink yanked out of my grip by one of the rogues and thrown to the ground, shattering it.

Everyone was definitely looking now. Marco would be down any second.

”Hello, Princess,” the rogue hissed.

I stared at him with utter boredom and pointed at the door. ”Did you miss the sign? No dogs allowed?”

His grin was all sharp canines and his eyes began glowing. ”Why don’t you come with us while we’re still asking nicely?”

”I’m going to ask you to walk away,” I said evenly. ”While I’m still asking nicely.”

They snickered. They always laughed. I understood them. I looked delicate. They didn’t see the scars I had underneath the clothes that were at least four times my size. Scars I had developed from pushing myself hard enough to avoid being killed. The calluses that lined my palms from beating my body into shape without access to my Lycan after the ash destroyed me.

They didn’t know I’d relied on this broken ’mortal’ body for months, so much so I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be more.

All they saw was a tiny, unassuming woman who wouldn’t be a problem to get rid of.

The lead rogue jerked his chin. ”Bring her.”

The first one reached across for me.

I caught his wrist, twisted, and slammed his face sideways into the counter hard enough that the wood cracked. Before he could recover, I snatched a half-empty bottle from the shelf and shattered it against his head.

He reeled back, blooding streaming from his already healing wound, his eyes blinking rapidly in a haze. Reassessing.

I heard yells of alarm come from all over the bar. Heard Marco’s ”What the fuck,” come from the stairs and rushed footsteps stomping.

I was definitely losing my job.