Page 128 of The Wolf and the Chimera
My mind raced. Lyall must not have believed our story, like he had claimed to or maybe, he was just ready to play whatever hand he had been waiting for these past weeks.
Regardless, Elle was in danger.
Kieran, Melanie, Bo…
What had become of them?
My wolf’s rage sharpened, and I followed his lead. Now was not the time for questions and flurries of fear. Now was the time to act.
On the other side of the door, feet shuffled. I slipped into the corner of the room and waited for my prey. Each secondthat passed felt like hours, but whoever had come for me would’ve come prepared. I needed to catch them off-guard.
Two minutes and twenty-three seconds later, three werewolves in lab coats burst into the room. I knocked out the first hulking male with one blow to the head, then put the second, a female with fearsome blue eyes, out of commission by sweeping her legs. My last assailant, a lithe male with his claws out and ready, I kneed in the sternum. He fell to the ground wheezing.
Before they could rise, I slammed the door shut and dragged the nearest table in front of it. Luckily, the white hall was quiet, and no one had witnessed my attempted kidnapping.
As I followed Elle’s scent through the hall and toward the stairs, speakers crackled to life, and Lyall’s voice boomed. A cluster of wolves near the stairs paused to listen, and I rushed past them.
“Warning,” Lyall said. Though my stomach dropped, I skipped every other step as I raced down the spiral stairs. “This is not a drill, my friends.”
The raw emotion in his voice was so convincing, I almost believed it.
“Though we tried to help her,” Lyall continued, “the chimera’s wildness cannot be contained. She-she—”
I reached the bottom of the stairs and came face to face with a gaggle of wide-eyed she-wolves. None of them were older than nineteen or twenty.
“She mauled dear Kalli’s face,” he whispered. “She’s amonster.Until she is permanently contained, everyone must evacuateimmediately.”
As guilt threatened to crush me, I stumbled to a stop.
The sorceress had overtaken Elle to the point she had actually harmed my mother. If we had completed the claiming, if I hadn’t hesitated like a spineless sap—
“That’s its mate,” the blonde she-wolf whispered to her friend.
Itsmate.
“You heard your Sovereign,” I growled. “Run.”
The brown-haired she-wolf sucked in a breath, grabbed her friends, and obeyed my orders. Feet pounded down the steps, and I leaped aside to let the stampede of wolves past. As wolf after wolf escaped, doors slammed open and shut.
Just like Lyall clearly intended, Elle’s scent was lost in the cacophony.
I shoved my way through the masses and tried to latch onto her jasmine and lilac scent, but it was fruitless. Wolves snarled and shoved past me, and their fear-addled scents filled the glimmering hall.
I decided to follow a different lead. Tucking myself against the wall, I closed my eyes and focused on the flimsy connection Elle and I shared. As I sensed her panic, my heart skipped a beat. There was a harsh edge of rage to her fear.
Was this what she felt each time the sorceress took over?
The crowd of wolves died down, and I raced farther into the hall. Elle had left with Kalli to try on dresses. Surely, that would’ve taken place in Kalli’s wing of the estate, which was on the western side of the chateau.
If I could find her, I could bring her out of the possession. In my bones, I knew it to be true. That was why the sorceress had waited to strike until Elle was out of my reach.
If the sorceress could force Elle to harm Kalli, could she make my mate kill her?
I needed to find Ellenow.
I stormed through the endless white halls with razor sharp focus. Lingering wolves snarled and snapped at me, but the rage and fear twisting my face kept them from doing anything stupid, like trying to stop me.
As I snarled at an older male wolf, I rounded the corner and smacked squarely into Bo. With one flash of teeth, the other wolf simpered down the hall, and I focused on Bo. I had never been more grateful to see the hulking, quiet werewolf.
