Chapter 3: Escape

~ Amira ~

Amidst the excruciating pain coursing through her body, the sounds of the guards charging towards the bed chambers signified her time was up. Amira glared at the king's motionless form. He was not dead. There was only enough aconite in his system to render him unconscious for a few days at most.

She could finish him off right then and there, even with the injuries she sustained and the pain of the rejected mate bond her wolf was whining about, but there was no guarantee she would make it out alive. This was mostly for the good of the kingdom, but she wasn't selfless or a martyr. This was also an act of vengeance.

There would be another time and place. Hopefully.

Amira sprinted towards the king's walk-in wardrobe and the secret passageway, letting her bones break, and her body shift as she did so.

Overwhelmed by the intense pain, a wave of nausea washed over her, threatening to plunge her into unconsciousness. Her fur sunk back inside her pours as she returned to her usual size.

Scrambling from her hands and feet, Amira pushed against the back of the wardrobe, her bloodied hand leaving a mark. Heart racing, she collapsed through the door as the clinking of armour entered the chambers.

"Alpha!" Amira heard their panicked calls.

"Search the area! Get the trackers!" The Beta commanded on the other side of the wall.

Amira slipped away, controlling her breathing as she rushed through the secret passageway. She couldn't escape through the library. It was too close to the king's quarters.

Continuing through the cold, dark and eery tunnel, Amira ransacked her mind in search of potential escape routes from the intimate confines of the lover's bed chambers, but to no avail. She would have to wing it. The urgency to create some distance between herself and her pursuers grew paramount, knowing that the trackers possessed an uncanny ability to detect even the faintest traces of her scent. It was impossible to outrun trackers once they caught onto a fresh scent.

Running through the secret passages naked didn't concern her. The trail of blood did. Luckily, Amira could already feel the slither of her healing powers taking root at her neck. She had too much adrenaline rushing through her body to notice the sting of her back, though she'd ripped out a few shards of the glass from her back already.

Amira slowed when she saw the cobwebbed door a few steps away. She waited, listening in case there was anyone else in the room. It didn't matter if it was vacant, but it was better not to scare anyone with her sudden arrival. Instead, she heard a constant squeaking and knocking sound, then the obvious telltale signs of heavy breathing.

She would sneak in without being seen, depending on whether this love-making session was good or if the woman's obnoxious cries were faked. Either way, she would escape swiftly. Turning the black ring handle, she snuck inside and was faced instantly with the lovers in question, their backs to her. The constant knocking sound had been the headboard.

He really was slamming into her backside roughly. She might have asked to join them if she wasn't in a rush. Her wolf snarled at the idea. She was still a little prickly after the mate incident.

Amira crept along the floor, grabbing the man's white dress shirt that smelled of sex and sweat. He must have been wearing it for a while. Her nose wrinkled as she put it on, but she decided it was better to smell differently. It would aid in her escape.

Now half decently dressed, with the shirt swallowing her body whole until the tops of her knees, Amira glanced at the windows and slowly edged towards them.

"Oh yes!"

"Ugh, shut up," the man grunted, yanking on the woman's hair as he focused on her backside.

Amira shook her head at the rough play, darting her tongue along her bottom lip as she pulled gently at the bottom of the window. There was a considerable drop between here and the ground, but there were bushes before the open palace grounds, and further back, it looked like the west side of the forest.

Hearing the first groans of the aged window, Amira realised this room wasn't used a lot. Dust was sprinkled everywhere, meaning this couple were probably secret lovers. Amira grunted and shoved the window up, letting it groan and squeal until the wind blew in.

The woman screamed, and the man pulled out, spinning around to face the intruder already halfway out of the window.

"Who are you!?"

Amira shushed them with her finger pressed to her lips and winked. "You don't tell my secret. I won't tell them yours."

She heard their intakes of breath. She was right. "Very naughty indeed."

She lowered herself and then paused. "Oh," she dropped her gaze to the man's groin. "Keep up the good work."

Amira released her hold on the window ledge, smirking at the couple's hushed and heated conversation before slamming into the bushes that, left cuts on the bottom of her ass. She also bounced off them and landed on her left side. The air was punched out of her lungs, and she heard something else break. Luckily or not so fortunately, it was on the same side as her hand that had been crushed under Rhys'.

Any remaining shards of glass cut deeper into her skin, with the added cuts and now this blinding pain from her broken hand on the cold ground. The chill soothed the swelling injury, but she couldn't stay there.

Amira knew the fucker was strong, but her stomach dropped, and her soul almost left her body, watching him crush her hand like it was as easy as squishing dough.

It would be a struggle to remain in her human form, especially now with the rushing of guards on the third floor she'd jumped from. She still had some time. Running forwards, she allowed her wolf to take over from there.

The transformation was less painful if there were no injuries. Each time they shifted, the wound at their neck reopened. Now, her wolf's paws pounded across the grass, finding comfort in the moon shadowed by the clouds and allowing their escape to go unnoticed. Her wolf's heightened hearing picked up on the guards and wolves rushing towards the three different gates. The only routes to enter the palace.

But they didn't know about the makeshift tunnel Amira created with the help of a shadow fae indebted to her. A glamour was placed on the tunnel large enough for her wolf to run under the bottom of the wall. Nobody besides Amira could see it.

The shadow fae could influence minds into seeing visions that were not there. This was nothing more than a simple glamour, though. It would wear off within the month.

Feeling her claws dig into the earth as they ran, the smell of leaves and wet wood filled their senses.

‘We're not out of this yet. Stay alert.' Amira told her wolf. Nisha could understand her just like how Amira could understand her wolf, even though she could not speak. Mostly. There was just some uncanny sense that only werewolves understood.

Her wolf raced through the woods and passed the Alpha King's territories. The pack could still chase them, but it would be difficult now they didn't have full authority in these lands.

Nisha was panting hard, not from being physically unfit, of course not, especially after such a run, but because the slight numbing effects of adrenaline were now running out. She'd been mostly limping throughout it, but now that she was slowing down, feeling reassured at the territory they were in, she'd stopped to a walk, and the limp grew worse with each step.

Her wolf slowly slipped out of consciousness, leaving Amira to take the brunt of the injury in wolf form. Her paw throbbed and sent shooting pains to her shoulder. The fur at her neck was sticky with new warm blood trickling across it and her back.

Her back was worse than she realised. It was coated in blood and dirt. Amira felt dizzy from the blood loss. She better not die because of that prick. Not only was the Moon Goddess fricken crazy for giving that tyrant as her mate, but then for said mate to live and her die?! Hell fricken no!

Limping, she made it as far as the light green and blue glimmering river and collapsed onto her front, head on her paws. In her darkening daze, Amira couldn't help but let her thoughts return to everything that had happened.

Shame stirred in her chest. It wasn't the thoughts of her failure at killing Rhys.

No, it was the way his touch had ignited such desire from her, the way his hand caressing her body had left her aflame and craving more. He was a foul, despicable, disgusting tyrant. He'd killed many, and at times for his own pleasure. He'd been known one too many times for being coated in the blood of his enemies and lovers.

Yet, the lips at her neck made her back arch and want more. Rhys' hands which were stained with the blood of innocents, had trailed across her skin like she was as fragile as a flower petal.

What he didn't know was this flower was not fragile. The environment would never allow it to be so. Heck, she wasn't a flower. She was the irritated little wasp, the fucker that made giants run for the hills from a little prick of her stinger. And though she failed this time, it was not the last she would see of Alpha King Rhys.