74

74

Celine's POV

“Come on now, you know we don't have all day…let's get moving” he ordered with a voice that was both stern and silent at the same time.

I brought myself to order and slowly stood up to my feet using the water fountain as leverage. I couldn't stop myself from wondering what I could do to escape, but my mind was shut against any ideas.

This was Mason and I had known him and his capabilities before now while I was with Ryder.

I believed in my heart that if I could somehow raise an alarm and have the guards know where I was then I could quite possibly get out of this tight spot that I currently was in.

But that would be at the cost of their lives.

Mason wouldn't hesitate to cut down anyone that he had to to get a mission done. He was a cold and silent killer with a ruthless personality.

He picked up the body of the assassin and moved it into one of the bushes around, perfectly concealing it before coming back to do the same to Jarvis.

I didn't like that very much, I felt guilt creeping up my skin at this point… I couldn't shake the feeling that I was responsible for his death.

And I still couldn't get him a proper burial at this point. I grit my teeth and swore vengeance but I doubted my resolve at just about the same time.

Mason looked up at the half-moon for a moment. He seemed to be observing the time and the scent in the wind. This was a sign, we were about to move.

“Alright, here are my rules, ladybug,”, Mason said as he pulled out his gun in one hand and his hooked blade in another. He looked me straight in the eyes as he gave his commands.

“The plan and the instructions that I have been given require that I bring you out of this place and back to my employer in one piece but also as quietly as possible without any fuss and that I am very possible to achieve…but only if you are cooperative with me. Do you understand?”. I was initially silent and on edge till he brought his hooked blade close to my neck as a threat.

“Do you understand, ladybug?”

I gave a half-hearted nod to his question. he slowly removed the blade from my neck and had it hidden in his coat before he stood up. “Let's go”, he instructed and started on his way with m,e, following a few steps behind him.

I was conflicted with myself from within as I thought of every way to escape. I couldn't tell how the soldiers had not yet figured out what was going on, but I couldn't ponder much on that.

One thing was for sure, if he managed to get me out of the palace, then there was every chance that I could never be found again. I wanted to scream out for help, but then I had to consider the lives of those who had been assigned to protect.

Mason wasn't someone that I wanted the regular guards to fight, I would require one of the masters that had been assigned to me to fight him. We stole through the various dark parts of the castle, snaking through and moving in almost absolute silence.

The journey out of the castle seemed to be a very long one, given the size of the palace but also given the fact that he had to move me despite my heavy pregnancy. We snuck past a few guard posts, but it seemed like they were not even there to start with. Something was wrong, and I could feel it within me as we continued walking through.

We were making our way through the courtyard that would lead us to the gate, the last place and the last obstacle that stood between us and our imminent escape from the castle. I felt the hope that I had of escaping from this nasty situation was slowly slipping away with each step that we took.

I thought back to Maverick and his quest to get more powerful, and I just felt my heart sink as I imagined his reaction when he eventually found out that I had been taken while he was away.

He would most definitely declare war this time, and there would be no one who could talk him out of this one; the whole territory would quickly be transformed from a wonderful landscape to a bloodbath, and many would lose their lives to this senseless. struggle.

I resigned in my mind, I had finally resolved to follow Mason and see where it went from here. In the midst of my thoughts, I bumped into him.

“Hey,”, he fired back with a finger against his lips, motioning me to be silent.

I went mute and listened out to try and figure out what he was seeing that I wasn't seeing. He pulled out his gun and his blade as he listened in. His eyes darted to and fro and his eyebrows furrowed into a bit of a frown.

“Something is wrong” he whispered to no one in particular. “What was wrong?” I asked myself internally. He looked back at me as though he woulod hear my thoughts from where he was.

“This is just way too easy”

Immediately after he said those words, we sensed a bit of a movement in the bushes that stood on both sides of the gates. Two guards came out from them and stood with their spears in hand and their eyes already glowing red.

He locked eyes with them, but he wouldn't flinch though; somewhere inside me, I could tell what he was thinking. If it was only two guards that stood between him and his mission then he could cut them down without much of a fuss.

But he wasn't going to rush in either.

These guards weren't the only ones there. Before long, lycans started popping out from every bush and entrance possible until we were surrounded by them all. Mason broke a sweat as he hissed at them.

They had their spears out and pointed at us but no one was making any moves at this point. The situation was a dire one at this point. While they had already surrounded him and possibly put him on edge, I was still caught in the crossfire of this, and that was a situation that made them thread with an extra form of caution.

I needed to get out of the way so they could apprehend him or, better still, just end him.

I looked around me and caught sight of my handmaid, who stood in the arch of the entrance that had led to the courtyard. She seemed to be with the maid that had served me in the garden, I could tell she was shaken up by something.

Maybe she came across the bodies in the garden? Mason seemed to be thinking of what best to do… this was my moment and the best timing I could think of. As quietly as I could manage to, I took steps backwards till I was close to the circumference of this ambush.

“You little…” Mason had caught sight of what I was doing. He lunged forward at me, but the guards were faster, quickly pulling me out of the circle and stopping him in his tracks with their spears.

My heart pounded violently against my rib cage as I struggled to bring the tempo under control. My maid rushed forward to be of assistance, helping me to get away from the environment and closer to the entrance.

“You will be fine, Your Highness, but I need to please bring your breathing under control… you need to think about the baby and its well-being” I took in her words and tried to get my breathing under control.

“Jarvis…how's Jarvis?”

“He's perfectly fine, Your Highness”, her answer relieved an invisible weight from off my shoulders. I started to cry, but this one was not tears of pain. They were tears of joy.

It seemed like somehow Jarvis had managed to survive the bullet.

“the maid that served you seemed to have seen most of the commotion, and so you drew our attention to it,” she explained.

There were footsteps from outside the circle going towards it.

“Mason… I'd advise you to surrender now so that you can be taken into custody without being hurt. If you decide not to cooperate with us, then we will have to use brute force.” I couldn't tell who was speaking as I was slowly losing consciousness, but I could still hear what it was that was being said.

Mason let out a maniacal laugh. once he was done, he turned towards them, his eyes glowing yellow and filled with bloodlust.

“And who said I have a problem with that?”