Chapter 58 - Lost II - The Royal Hybrid

Tatiana’s POV

“Of course, you would be the type to try and kill someone in their sleep,” I huffed.

“If I would have killed you, I would have already done it,” he grinned. “But you suddenly waking up was not exactly a part of the plan.”

“What plan?” I questioned as I took a step to the side trying to get closer to the door but still remain a certain distance from him.

“It is something I know that you eventually will figure out,” he smirked.

“How did you get out? As far as I know, you were locked up pretty tight in that little new cell of yours,” I asked, my eyes focused on the dagger.

How did he even get that? No one could get access to Zaya’s tower without her permission and no one within their right mind would dare to steal from her… One tiny nick of that dagger and any wolf would pass out. The amount of concentrated silver in it would simply paralyze one’s body and leave them as good as dead if in the hands of an enemy, and here I was, standing in front of one of mine and one who of course had the dagger in his possession.

“I had a little help,” he hummed as he began taking a few steps forward making me look to the door, ready to make a run for it even though I knew that he would reach me before I reached it.

“Don’t come any closer,” I threatened, my voice suddenly beginning to fade.

I cleared my throat and blinked a few times as he came even closer. I wanted to move. I wanted to run, or call for help.

Stay away, was what I wanted to say, but for some reason, the words wouldn’t leave my mouth and when I looked up at his face, my eyes showing the confusion I felt, he grinned from ear to ear and that was when the realization hit me.

“Did you know that just one tiny little poke with the tip of this thing, will make it hard for even the strongest alpha to stay awake?” he asked as he admired the knife.

I wanted to shake my head, but I couldn’t. I wanted to bolt for the door, and scream for help, but no matter how much I wished for my body to move or do anything, it simply couldn’t comply. I was frozen, literally, and I knew that before long I would collapse to the ground. I tried to focus, to feel where exactly he had poked me with the knife, but the silver poisoning slowly taking over, made it impossible.

“You… W-won’t,” I tried to force out as my knees began to cave in under me.

“I won’t? What are you trying to say?” he asked in a smug tone. “I won’t what?”

“O-Out of he-here,” I staggered out as I finally fell my arms too limp to take off from the fall.

“I won’t make it out of here?” he laughed. “Are you sure about that?”

Black dots began forming in front of my eyes, and I watched as his feet moved closer to my face, I in the distance could hear shouting before a cloud of grey dust erupted around me and then everything turned black.

Hayden’s POV

I woke up unexpectedly in the middle of the night, feeling a weird sensation of numbness in my entire body and it felt as if a cloud was starting to form in my mind and a stone pressing on my heart. Everything tingled, but not in the ‘your foot is sleeping’ kind of way. This was worse and way more uncomfortable. It felt as if my body had a hard time moving on its own, feeling incredibly heavy even though nothing seemed to be wrong. I didn't quite understand what was happening. Even my eyes started to feel heavy and it didn’t take me long after that to realize that it probably wasn’t something that happened to my body directly.

“Tatiana!” I yelped and jumped out of bed, nearly crashing straight onto the floor, but I managed to drag myself towards the door.

I had only just opened it and when my eyes scouted the hall for enemies, I noticed Gabriel struggle to hold himself up further down in the hallway, leaning against a wall for support. He turned around, slowly, when he heard me come out of my room, and the second I saw how much he struggled to uphold himself or even make his body move I knew that whatever was happening to me, was happening to him too.

“Something is wrong,” I said through gritted teeth, the sound barely coming out.

All he could do was nod as he looked towards the door, that we knew our mate was behind.

"Tatiana," he called, his voice fading in the end.

One foot after the other we dragged ourselves toward her bedroom while trying to call for help, but soon our voices turned into whispers and then nothing. I was desperate. I wanted to see her, to hold her, to make sure that no harm would come to her, but I knew that this didn't just happen out of nowhere. No, someone had planned this, executed it, and their goal... was her.

“Hayden…”

“Hay…”

“Den…”

Someone was calling me but who?

“Hayden!”

“Wake up!”

“Hayden!” Zaya’s voice yelled, my eyes finally opening, and I sat up with a loud gasp as if I had been kept from breathing.

“What happened?” I panted as I tried to catch my breath and looked around confused at the fussing going on around me.

I was in the hallway on the floor, with Gabriel lying next to me unconscious. Zaya was standing above me while people were running back and forth from left and right.

“Are you okay?” she asked worried her eyes flickering from me to Gabriel. “Can you move your fingers? Your legs? Can you move anything at all?”

I wriggled them and nodded as I continued to look at her frantic facial features and it was then I remembered.

“Tatiana!” I exclaimed and tried to get up, but my body wouldn’t let me and so I fell straight back again, the back of my head slamming against the floor.

“No! Stay down!” she warned and pressed her hand against my chest to keep me still. “The silver is not completely out of your system yet,” she frowned.

“The silver? What silver?” I mumbled confused and grabbed my head. “What happened?” I asked as I tried to look past her and into the bedroom whose door before had been closed but now was wide open.

“Chad escaped,” she sighed. “He somehow got his hands on my dagger from the tower…” she trailed off.

“Where is she,” I growled.

“I… I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? What happened?” Gabriel who finally had woken up growled furiously from my side.

“I mean that Chad not only got his hands on my dagger but also a few of my potions, including one that will make you disappear,” she said and looked down.

“When you say disappear?” I asked now feeling incredibly anxious, especially since I couldn’t feel her through our mate bond anymore, hell I couldn’t even feel Syx.

“I mean that they literally went up in smoke,” she said. “I have been working on this potion for the past years trying to perfect it. It is meant to get you out of a dangerous situation if that ever were to happen and…”

“You got it to work,” I finished.

“Yes.”

“And he got his hands on that,” Gabriel said.

“Yes.”

So, the feeling I had when I woke up…

“How did he manage to do that?” I croaked out. “I thought…”

“So did I, but that apparently wasn’t the case,” Gabriel sighed finishing my thought for me.

“That what?” Zaya asked.

“I thought I felt the way I did because of Tatiana,” I explained. “But if I have silver in my system too then that clearly isn’t the case,” I said and shook my head.

I was right there… Right in front of her fucking door… Had I only been a bit faster than I could have possibly…

“Don’t even go there,” Gabriel said in a low voice. “It won’t help”

“But it is true,” I pointed out ignoring the fact that he knew what I was thinking.

“There is no need to go blame yourselves,” Zaya said slowly. “You couldn’t have done anything no matter how much you tried to fight it. That blade is like no other. It can make even a full-grown strong alpha bend down to his knees and even in some cases make him unconscious.”

“See?” Gabriel said and patted my back. “We couldn’t have done anything. How did you say he got out?”

But was that completely true? Was that really the case?

“We still don’t know how he broke out or how he even managed to get into my tower. It should be impossible to intrude and neither of my barriers has alerted me of a break-in, so I don’t understand how…” she trailed off.

“Then I have another question we need to find an answer to,” I said slowly. “How the hell did he manage to get to the both of us and Tatiana without anyone noticing?”

Gabriel looked at both of us as if the answer to all of our questions was so very clear.

“What?” both Zaya and I asked at the same time.

“I don’t think he did it alone. I think he got some help from the inside.”