Chapter Fifty-Six

“What the hell is happening?” Aimes barked.

Guards swarmed the stage and surrounded the not-so-happy couple. Confusion erupted all around us, exclamations of surprise, of fear.

“What are you doing?” Annecy demanded. “Step back, all of you!” She whirled on Stride. “What did you do?”

A moment ago, Stride was a slobbering, half-conscious mess.

Now? He was exactly who he’d always been. A clearly Photoshopped man standing straight and tall, lifting his chin.

“Not you,” he said with a smile. “Never you.”

“We have to get out of here. Now!” Aimes whispered, clutching my hand and reaching for his mom in the aisle in front of us. “Let’s go!”

“I can’t!” I whispered back, looking meaningfully down at my sleeve, then at Connolly.

“Forget him,” Aimes hissed close to my ear. “This is all a trick. This might be our only chance to get out of here.”

Yes, but it might be my only chance to rid the world of a monster. My dad. He had killed so many and would likely kill so many more, all in the name of gaining more power.

I had spent days psyching myself up to do this, giving myself all the reasons why I was doing the world a favor, and now I was supposed to give up?

A few of the guests tried to leave their rows, but more of Annecy’s soldiers flooded the aisle, blocking the way.

“What are you doing?” Annecy shouted in a voice shrill with panic. “Go back to where you were! I didn’t summon you! You’re ruining this!”

“I summoned them,” Stride informed her, taking a giant backward step to put distance between them.

“No. No!” she shrieked, high-pitched, full of fury. “That isn’t true!”

“Isn’t it?” He laughed, and the sound chilled my blood.

He knew exactly what he was doing. It had all been an act.

“It looks like I had more to offer your soldiers than you do,” he said, then turned to one of the men standing in front of the stage and nodded.

I thought things were bad before? What a joke.

Because that single nod marked the moment when everything went to hell.

I watched in horror as one of the soldiers plunged a silver dagger into the chest of a heavily jeweled woman sitting nearby. She screamed, and soon that scream was met with others, male and female, as all hell broke loose and the massacre began.

There I was, hoping to slit Connolly’s throat and bleed him out before there was anything he could do to stop me. Aimes, though, was dragging both me and his mom away from the madness.

“Stop this!” Annecy screamed from the stage, but nobody was listening to her anymore.

They were all either trying to run away or being butchered. Some had already shifted. Some were mid-shift when they fell dead to the ground.

Connolly shouted orders at his men, but they were busy fighting off the soldiers who had surrounded them.

This was my chance. Connolly stood all alone, both he and his guards too distracted by the bloodshed.

I yanked away from Aimes’s grip.

“Harlow, no,” he shouted.

Continuing forward, I pulled the knife free and held it in my right hand, preparing to pull Connolly’s head back with the left and saw through to his spine if I had to.

If I was going to die here, I was going to take him with me.

Yet a shrill, horrified scream that ended abruptly paused my right hand, which was prepared to slice him open. I knew that scream. It was Sloane, her pretty cream dress speckled in blood as she stood between her attacker and Jenny. One of the guards had his hand around her throat and was lifting her into the air.

Over Jenny’s trembling shoulder, Aimes was hauling his mom behind him on a direct path toward me.

I had seconds to decide. To make a choice.

I charged forward and slipped the steak knife into Jenny’s clammy fingers. “Get out of here fast.”

She looked at me with glassy eyes, like she had no idea who I was, but she gripped the knife tightly.

Aimes took hold of my arm, his mom right behind him. “We have to move!”

He dragged me after him as a pained grunt sounded behind me. The man who’d been strangling Sloan lay in a heap while the two women made a break for the mansion.

Meanwhile, two of Connolly's guards managed to struggle free. They grabbed Connolly and ran him away from the chaos.

Stride now commanded his new army from the stage while Annecy continued screaming, denying what she saw in front of her. She wasn’t in control anymore. At some point, he had taken over.

Aimes pulled me and his mom along behind him, all of us bent at the waist, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible while we zigzagged through clusters of panicked people and wolves either trying to escape or in the process of being murdered. I stepped over the body of a woman covered in diamonds and blood, and I knew I would never forget the look of surprise frozen on her face.

A few people trampled each other, trying to climb the walls surrounding the courtyard. Broken, crumpled bodies lay at the base of the wall, ignored by those who stepped on them to try to gain the advantage of height. Shrieks pierced the air, horrifying screams, and all I could do was run.

And try not to get caught.

“Where do you think you're going?” One of Annecy’s soldiers grabbed my free arm and pulled hard enough that I felt the joint tear in my shoulder.

“Aimes!” It was all I could shout before a punch to my jaw snapped my head around and dazed me.

Aimes leapt on him, snarling, and broke his neck before grabbing me again. I was still seeing stars, the world spinning around me, so he threw me over his shoulder, took Jessa’s hand, and took off at a run, staying close to the wall.

I raised my head enough to take in what we were leaving behind. Everything was in ruins—blood-soaked, destroyed. Annecy barely avoided being crushed when the lighting rig crashed to the stage, sending sparks flying and plunging the entire courtyard into darkness.

But it wasn’t so dark that I couldn’t see Stride hop down from the stage. He whistled like before, and like magic, the soldiers who’d been busy slaughtering the guests fell in line. They shifted all at once and ran into the mansion.

Annecy stood out in her ivory dress, standing in front of the stage in shock. The day she had planned so meticulously had fallen apart around her, all because she had underestimated her fated mate.

Aimes kicked open a small door in the wall.

“What is this?” Jessa asked him, a spray of someone else’s blood flecking her face.

“I told you I could get us out of here,” he said, leading us both under the low stone arch. Then he turned back and swept me off my feet.

“I'm fine. Put me down,” I ordered.

Either he didn't believe me or he didn't hear me, too busy running through a tunnel behind his mom. I bounced along, which didn't exactly help the pain from the punch I’d taken.

By the time we were far enough from the mansion to feel safe, he set me on my feet but didn’t let me go, holding me by the waist.

“I should have known,” he panted out, looking over his shoulder.

Somewhere in the distance, wolves howled. Dozens of them.

Something stirred within me. Recognition. I wanted to go to them, to be with them. My kind.

My wolf was back. Now that we were beyond the mansion walls, she was back. I felt her inside me, and relief exploded inside me. So much so that my fingertips were smoking, just like the last time I’d escaped.

Until a stabbing ache in my back made me wince, and I doubled over, pressing my hand to the spot where the pain radiated from. When Aimes pulled my hand away, examining it, I found my palm coated in blood and a spreading patch of blood on the back of my dress.

Somewhere in the middle of everything, I’d been stabbed in the back. I was bleeding. A lot.

“Did they get you with silver?” Jessa asked me, her eyes wide.

“Does it burn?” Aimes demanded, shaking me a little when I didn’t answer. “Tell me, Harlow. Does it burn?”

Did it? I wasn't sure.

My thoughts were scattered, and I was too weak to stand.

The last thing I heard was the sound of my mate shouting my name before everything went black.