Chapter 30 Chapter 30
LENORE
My eyes widened at Travis’ words. Huh?! A couple of months ago, I’d heard Travis’ brother died, but I wasn’t aware their family thought our father did it… Did he?
“Your accusations are unfounded,” Cameron replied, his voice still calm. “Besides, your problem is with my father. Take it up with him.”
Travis’ eye twitched, and using the momentum of his next step, he threw a fast, hard punch to Cameron’s jaw. My ears rang with the crack of bone meeting bone as the hit snapped his head to the side.
I gasped.
Cameron spat bright red blood onto the ground and for a moment, his expression warred with a visible urge to retaliate, but before he could decide, Travis lunged at him. It was like watching storm fronts collide. Both of them rained blows on each other, and my stomach rolled as my gaze bounced between them. I didn’t know what the fuck to do—I’d never been in a situation like this before
While Travis wanted to dominate the fight though, Cameron was holding back. I mean, he had to be. He’d taken down two of Killian’s guards; there was no way he was struggling to take down Travis.
Thinking of the guards made me remember they would most likely have gotten up or be getting up soon, and they were definitely going to raise an alarm when they realized I was gone. This needed to stop.
“Cameron!” I called, quickly moving toward them as they toppled to the ground. Travis was on top of Cameron and my steps faltered as I noticed Travis wasn’t moving.
Cameron groaned as he shoved him off, and Travis fell to the floor on his back. His eyes were closed.
“Is he…” I trailed off as Cameron got to his feet, glancing at Travis while dragging the back of his hand over his bloodied mouth. It left a red streak across his pale knuckles.
“No.” He walked over, and after staring at me with an unreadable expression on his face for a moment, he held out his hand. “Come on.”
I took it and we ran down the street. The area around the palace was surrounded by sprawling parks and gardens, and though we didn’t see anyone on our way, I was still on edge. Not running into guards while escaping the palace was one thing, but the chances of running into someone from the city was high. If they knew about the diplomatic gathering and recognized Cameron, there would be trouble.
Just as I was about to ask if we were going to get out of Eyrosa on foot, we turned onto a street where I spotted Cameron’s car parked behind a couple of trees. When we got into the car, I finally let myself relax a bit while trying to catch my breath, but after about a minute, I realized Cameron hadn’t started the car.
I turned to see him staring straight ahead and gripping the steering wheel tightly, his expression hard. “What’s wrong?” I asked, concern evident in my voice, and he faced me.
He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it a moment later. Opened it again, and blinked rapidly. “Lenore, the prince. Did he…”
Oh. The King gifting me to Killian coupled with Travis calling me that word must have left him disconcerted.
“He didn’t do anything to me.”
Cameron heaved a sigh, letting his head hit the headrest, before his gaze dropped to my wrist. A small frown formed on his face. “And what happened to your wrist? Your arm too.”
I glanced down, the corner of my mouth twitching as I remembered why Killian had even bothered to treat my wounds. “It’s nothing,” I said and removed the bandages so he could see there was nothing wrong with me.
He bobbed his head, sighing again before he abruptly glanced down and around himself like he was looking for something. “Must have dropped it back there,” he muttered before clicking his tongue as he started the car, and it took me a moment to realize he was talking about the stake.
Now that I thought about it, he’d entered the suite prepared to use it, and if he’d met Killian there, there was no doubt he would have used it on him.
My eye twitched.
A wooden stake wouldn’t kill a born vampire, but the thought of someone hurting Killian made me terribly uncomfortable, and that overwhelming feeling brought my mind back to the fact that this… attraction he felt toward me could be the work of a spell. And if there was actually a spell on him and this version of him that treated me like I was everything ceased to exist, what was the guarantee I wouldn’t find his hands wrapped around my throat again?
I swallowed and sat with those thoughts for a while.
A while ended up being quite the amount of time because by the time I snapped out of it, I could see some of the buildings I’d taken note of during our drive through the city the day I was dropped off.
This was my first time being in the city at night, and the streets were packed with people. A couple of the buildings we drove by were lit up, and music filled the air. Compared to how it had been when I arrived, the city felt alive.
Any other day I would have found the extremely lively atmosphere normal—they were vampires after all—but rogues had come into the city less than an hour ago. Didn’t they attack the city too?
“Shit,” Cameron muttered, slowing down, and I returned my attention to the road to see there was some kind of checkpoint ahead. The men at it were armed and they scrutinized each face in every vehicle before allowing anyone to pass.
Shit.
Thankfully, it was a three-way street, so Cameron turned into the street on the left. Unfortunately, the street we needed to take next also had a checkpoint.
Cameron wasn’t deterred. He decided to keep driving down the street we were currently on to see if we could find a way around it, but we couldn’t. They were checking everyone who wanted to leave the city.
“Oh my God,” I muttered as we got to the end of the safe street and Cameron stopped the car. We only had two options now: go through the checkpoint or retreat into the city. The former wasn’t an option because we’d definitely get caught, but the latter wasn’t an option for Cameron either.
“Cameron,” I started as I turned to face him, only to find his gaze intently fixed on the park next to the road. There weren’t many people there, and since the checkpoints were only on the roads, it wasn’t hard to guess what he was thinking. “Uh, Cameron, I can’t leave the city.”
“It’s okay,” he said without taking his eyes off the park, starting the car again. “We’re fine. We’re going to be fine.”
He thought I was worried about the guards at the checkpoint. The guards that now had their attention fixed on us with some of them already approaching.
Holy— “You don’t understand,” was all I managed to get out before he threw the car forward, speeding toward the park. “Cameron, I literally cannot leave! The King placed a spell on the invitation!”
“What?!” His brows snapped together, but he didn’t stop. Not like that was an option now; the checkpoint guards already knew there was something up with us. “Who told you this?”
“Killian.”
His frown deepened instantly and his gaze bounced from the road to me, then back to the road as we entered the park. “Killian?!”
Shit. “The first prince.”
“Since when do you—”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said in a rush. He absolutely wouldn’t approve of what was between me and Killian. “He said I won’t be able to leave.”
He scoffed, shooting me an incredulous look. “And you believe him?”
I was immediately offended by his tone, but then realized he believed Killian had lied to keep me in his palace.
Without waiting for me to respond, Cameron added, “We’re getting out of here.”
The people walking in the park didn’t react to our car racing through it—they only dashed out of the way if they were in our path—but since the ground wasn’t meant for driving, the ride wasn’t smooth. By the time we finally got out of the park, I felt like I was going to throw up.
The fact that I was about to find out if I could actually leave Eyrosa most likely had something to do with that feeling too. If I could, that would be, well, something. If I couldn’t… oh my God.
“Cameron, stop the car.”
I trusted Killian and didn’t want to find out what would happen if I tried to leave. It might be something, it might be nothing, but I was not interested in this experiment.
“You don’t actually trust him, Lenore,” Cameron said, but it seemed more like a question than a statement.
“I do. Stop the car.”
“We’re almost out. It’s going to be fine.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see if the guards that had been at the checkpoint were following us, but they were not in sight. When I faced forward once more, a wave of trepidation hit me at the sight of the rapidly approaching city limits.
“Cameron!”
I had no idea what happened. One moment, the car was speeding down the road, but the next, the world tilted violently. Everything spun as a sharp screech split the air, and then we were airborne.
My stomach lurched. Oh.
Metal groaned and glass shattered as the car hit the ground once more with a force that slammed the breath out of me, leaving nothing but a high-pitched ringing in my ears.
It took me a moment—it might have been longer—to realize the car had flipped, and the world swayed in and out like I was looking through water.
“Lenore,” came Cameron’s muffled voice from somewhere far away as I tried to focus, but my eyelids grew heavy.
The last thing I saw was someone crouching next to the car and an unfamiliar voice saying, “Take them back to the palace.”
Then everything went dark.