A Man Like None Other (Jared Chance) novel Chapter 6111

"After him," Garrick ordered in a low voice. "He's gravely injured—he can't have gone far!"

The six elders obeyed at once, leading thirty guards as they sprinted down the route Jared had taken.

Garrick stayed where he was, the color of his face growing ever darker.

Slowly, he turned and fixed his gaze on Vivian.

Vivian had sunk to the ground.

Tear stains marked her cheeks, yet a slight curve tugged at the corners of her lips.

He had escaped…

He had escaped!

A swell rose inside Vivian, one she struggled to name.

Was it the sudden lightness that followed a narrow escape?

Was it the heady rush that comes with success snatched from the jaws of ruin?

Or was it something else entirely?

She could not say.

She only knew that warmth kept spreading through her chest, impossible to contain.

Garrick walked over and looked down at her from above.

"Vivian, do you even realize what you've done?"

Vivian lifted her head.

Her gaze held steady, unflinching.

"Father, your daughter merely did what she believed was right."

Garrick kept silent for a long moment, then released a heavy sigh.

"Take her back to the ancestral hall. Until I give the order, she does not leave."

Two guards stepped forward and lifted Vivian by the arms, forcing her upright.

She offered no resistance; she simply gave Father one last look.

"Father, sooner or later you will regret this."

With the words spoken, she turned and let them escort her away.

Garrick stayed where he was, staring at her disappearing figure in silence that stretched on and on.

Regret?

Perhaps.

But for The Janis Family, he would not take the choice back.

*****

Jared tore across the wilderness at full speed, never daring to pause.

He had no sense of how long he had been running; the sky had shifted from noon to dusk and from dusk into deep night.

Blood covered him. Three ribs were broken, his left arm hung fractured, and the blows to his organs still throbbed.

Only raw stubbornness kept him from collapsing.

At last he slipped into a concealed cave and finally stopped.

He dropped to the ground, gulping for air, pulled several healing pills from his Storage Ring, and swallowed them.

The medicine dissolved, spreading a warm current that began knitting his shattered body.

Leaning against the cave wall, he closed his eyes and replayed every moment of the day.

Garrick…

The Janis Family…

Good.

He logged the debt, stroke for stroke.

And then the collar…

His fingers brushed the metal at his throat; the Binding Collar still clung there, its crack now wider.

The earlier eruption had shaken off part of the suppression, yet the device still held together.

The Soulshackle Seal still pulsed, and the Tracker's Mark remained intact.

Garrick could pinpoint him through that collar at any moment.

Jared's gaze hardened. He pressed a palm to the metal and flooded it with spiritual power, trying to tear it apart.

The runes flared violently; a tighter force surged out and nearly choked him.

No.

This thing wouldn't yield to brute strength.

He drew a long breath and forced the impulse to smash it back down.

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