Greymoor Academy: I Accidentally Bonded With Four Lycan Royals! novel Chapter 73

Chapter 73: 73. Change In Plans I

Maisie

I had not planned for this.

In my defense, I had planned for approximately none of the last two months of my life, so this was really just consistent behavior.

Tessa was shrieking beneath me at a pitch that I was fairly certain could shatter glass.

And goddess, she was beautiful, which somehow made everything worse. Silver hair fanned across the red carpet, her gown spread out on the aisle, and she was staring at me with pure murder.

"Get off me!" she screamed. "Get off, you miserable wretch!"

I tried scrambling backward. My chain caught on something—her dress, her gorgeous, elaborate, multiple-layered dress—and I yanked it free with a sound that was definitely tearing. "That was absolutely not intentional—"

She shrieked again.

I tugged my hand away, but the length of pearl decorating her hair came off, wrenching strands of her hair with it. "That... was totally an accident—"

"My hair!" She cried.

"I know, I know," I said, and then, for some reason I couldn’t explain, I reached out, and yanked a fistful of her hair on purpose this time, with the dark intent of tearing it off her scalp to see if her brain was the same silver color.

But before I could follow through with it, I was yanked off her. A guard grabbed my wrist and the chain, wrenching it up behind me, and a second took my other arm with a grip that felt like iron.

I fought. I bit. I got a satisfying grunt from one of them when my heel connected with his shin, but there were more pouring through the side entrance now and I realized very quickly that even if I had made it to the crowd, not much had changed.

"Take her out!"

The order came from somewhere high up in the amphitheater, hard and dangerously calm. I craned my neck and saw her.

The Queen.

She sat in a private elevated gallery, flanked by five men, each more stunning than the other, wearing rich, blood red robes and a crown.

There was something eerie about the crown on her brow. It was like any other golden circlet, but the stone in the center of it was a blood ruby, shaped like an eye.

The Queen’s iridescent eyes found mine across the chaos and held them, and I felt the promise in that gaze like she had spoken against my ear. "I will make you pay for this very slowly, very thoroughly."

"Get that mad creature out of my hall," she repeated, voice oddly pleasant, like poison. "Now."

I swiveled to the crowd and opened my mouth to scream for help, but a thick hand slapped over my mouth.

An entire line of guards were set off, running to demarcate each line of the crowd, either to keep them all in order or to catch me if I ran, but it didn’t make sense to me until I heard not too far from me, a small, "May?"

The fresh wave of noises almost buried it, but I turned and saw Regina and Jenny, both dressed for the wedding, staring with shock.

When they moved and got blocked off by the guards, I realized the placement of the guards was to prevent me from getting any help.

"Hey! Let her go!" Regina yelled in alarm. "That’s Maisie Adams. She’s with us—"

The Queen’s voice echoed through the hall, addressing the priestess, who I now noticed was standing at the altar at the center of the hall, with the three of them. "Proceed with the rite and ignore the interruption from the ballistic woman. Surely, it is not the first time in history that a jilted lover tried to ruin a wedding."

Laughter rippled across the hall, the fresh wave of noise covering Regina and Jenny’s angry yells as they were pushed back into the crowd by two guards until I couldn’t see them anymore.

I glanced up at The Queen.

Her brow was arched at me, as if to ask, Did you really think it would be that easy, wolf?

I felt like a rabbit ensnared in an inescapable trap. It was easy, so easy, to turn the opinion of the crowd with one line, and suddenly, I was no longer a victim, but a crazy ex, who needed to be taken out by the guards for the crime of sabotage.

If I had been an illegal prisoner here before, I was now being held for an actual crime.

Tessa gave me a cruel smile as she took her flowers from where they had rolled off the path and began her walk back down the aisle, to where Soren stood.

He hadn’t moved.

He stood exactly where he’d stopped moments ago, twenty feet from where Tessa and I had gone down and he was watching. Not the chaos. Not Tessa. Not the guards dragging me backward across the carpet.

Me.

His face was still. Completely, eerily still. And even from here, I could see his eyes weren’t right. They were too dark. Something was watching me from beneath the surface of him and was looking out through his face.

It was the same with the Mercer, Jericho and Quinlan when I glanced up at the altar behind him.

I knew not to expect anything from them. Not help. Not interference. They didn’t care. And I understood that they would never go against the Queen for me.

So I didn’t look at them pleadingly as the guards dragged me to the entrance.

No one was coming for me, I thought as the music resumed behind me. I would just have to find a different out—

"Stop."

It was one word spoken softly, but power in the deep resonant voice struck the entire hall with force.

And then, he blinked slowly, and it was like watching a person who had fallen asleep come awake. Alive.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify