Bought by the Beast King (Katerina and hunter) novel Chapter 146

Chapter 146

Chapter 146

HUNTER

I inhaled slowly, forcing myself to catalogue everything that was wrong with Kostas.

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His brown eyes were still red–rimmed, with veins threading through the whites. Foam clung to his lips as he panted beneath my foot. The desperation rolling off him was raw and unfiltered, and his conviction in what he said was absolute.

Moon madness didn’t look like this.

I lifted my gaze to the nearly full moon. Symptoms like this only manifested under a true full moon, and even then, they never altered the eyes to this extent. Kostas had already been stripped down to this feral edge.

This wasn’t about the moon. This was something within him. In his blood. The bloodline of the wolf pack that destroyed the dark magic before. Something had gone terribly wrong. Tanner would need to dig into that.

“Mine!” Kostas screamed, his fingers clawing at my ankle.

His? Because he’d been told that his entire life? Or because something inside him had snapped?

They’d paraded Katerina in front of half the kingdom in their desperation to find her true mate. If they’d succeeded, where would that have left Kostas? Would he still have fought this hard for her, even knowing that bond would never break?

“You’re imprisoning her,” he rambled, his eyes darting wildly. “Keeping her locked up in your house surrounded by bloodthirsty Lycans. My Katerina must be terrified. Please. Just give her back. Let me save her.”

I pressed my foot harder against his throat, cutting off his air. My beast was still eager to end him. But Kostas was provoking. me on purpose. Or whatever had done this to him was.

With the barrier gone, the magic in the air hadn’t weakened. If anything, it had intensified, feeding the golden threads I’d followed on the drive to the cabin. They hummed now, alive, and swollen with power. Whatever Zachary and his people had just done hadn’t stopped Kostas, and they obviously didn’t have the balls to confront the threat head–on.

“I’ll say this once,” I growled. “She will never be yours. I will keep her until we’re both old and grey.”

Big talk for someone who didn’t know how I could even begin to do that.

Kostas roared, his face warping, stretching to accommodate the wolf inside him, but my command still held him prisoner. He was locked in his human form. Like his father–his adoptive father–Kostas liked to forget who I was. Even if our kingdoms were divided, I was still their king.

“I’ll kill you!” he screamed, thrashing beneath my foot. “I’ll kill you, and then I’ll kill Nathan. She’ll be mine in a few da-”

My punch landed on his mouth before he finished. His head snapped back, and the night went eerily still. I stepped away and scanned him carefully.

No shadows clung to him like they had Elijah. His body didn’t radiáte magic the way Rivers‘ did. Whatever had been done to him was now silent. It wasn’t active anymore, or he wasn’t the source.

And this was the person a whole coven and the Lordswood pack thought worthy of Kitty?

I snarled and turned away, my mind turning over everything. Why didn’t the prophecy mention anything about what Kitty was? A rare white omega wolf that defied all reason and logic. Had the Seer’s vision been flawed? I’d go over that scroll first, and then pay Christos a long–overdue visit.

The cabin stood empty when I reached it, but six golden threads pulled me down the path, following the coven’s scent. The wisps of magic threading through the leaves were brighter now and definitely stronger. Typical. They’d fled and taken their

14:35 Wed, Jan 7 G

Chapter 146

answers with them. I was even surer now that we couldn’t rely on them.

But that meant Rivers was still the only option.

༢.ཟླ༣༡༠) 30

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My beast snarled, and my jealousy and possessiveness took root again, but I forced it down. I couldn’t think of that. Nathan would never have Kitty.

I didn’t bother shifting as I followed the trail. It was hazy in parts where the magic was strongest, as if the coven had tried to mask their tracks, but it was useless. I saw everything as if they were still in front of me.

Trees blurred past, but my eyes stayed on the tyre tracks. But even without them, the bond guided me where I wanted to go. It had steadied. Kitty was no longer panicking or in pain. I let my emotions roll down the bond to reassure her, and exhaled when they echoed back. She was safe.

At least for now.

I followed the trail to the main road and stopped. Kitty, Nathan and my agents had turned, but the coven… their trail stopped dead. Like they’d vanished.

Just like Elijah.

I dropped to my haunches, expanding my senses. My beast surged, lending me his strength, his ears up. But there was no one. Nothing. Besides the scents I’d followed, there were no others. Not even of the coven’s magic, or its residue.

The golden threads in front of me dimmed and scattered in the wind like smoke. The aura disappeared as if it hadn’t been there. The power behind them had been strong, of that I had no doubt. So how did it just vanish?

I’d been played. Again. Was this coven behind Elijah the whole time?

Before Elijah, I’d never met anyone who wielded magic capable of that. What were the chances that I’d meet a whole coven? And like Elijah, they wanted to get their hands on Kitty.

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