Page 20 of Aries Mated

I didn’t waste a second, this was exactly the chance that I was looking for. I leapt up as soon as Tex left the room and found the security cameras on his screen. Footage that covered the whole arena, inside and out. Since I knew where Maeve had been sitting, I spotted her in the crowd immediately. I could predict which way she might have left when she took the phone call, the last time she could be located. I clicked on the correct camera and rewound it approximately forty minutes.

“Oh my God.” There she was, her curly hair flickering just out of view. I needed to find the next camera to follow her trail. Where the hell was Maeve going? She was acting strange, almost as if she was following someone. Hiding herself, ducking and diving, trying to conceal herself as much as she could. She headed toward an exit that I hadn’t seen before, one that seemed closed off to the public. What the hell was she doing here? I knew that to find out, I needed to rewind a little further to see who else had been over there.

My heart stopped beating. What the hell was Sly, the leader of the Unaligned Clan, doing there and not watching his son compete in the games? Wasn’t that the most important thing to him? Maybe that was why Drew seemed a little peeved as we competed. Why the hell would Maeve be interested in what Sly was up to? Sly turned a little and I noticed there was another person with him. I couldn’t see a face, but those clothes, I would know those clothes anywhere. There was only one person in the whole of the Zodiac Empire who dressed like that. Princess Azariyah. Fucking hell, Sly had of Princess Azariyah, and Maeve was following them straight into danger.

My police instincts took a back seat as I watched this horror show unfold. In my right mind, I probably would have gone to find Tex so he could see this as well. That way I could get a team of cops on the case and everything would be done officially. But that wasn’t efficient. It would take time, and I instinctively knew I didn’t have any. I needed to get to Maeve right now before something bad happened to either woman. Sly obviously needed the princess for something, although I dreaded to imagine what, but Maeve was disposable. If Sly spotted her, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her so he could get away with his crimes. He didn’t bother to hide his distaste for humans. Thank God I had a direction to run in now. I was only forty minutes behind, not three days. I did want Tex to know what was going on, so I left the footage on his screen, desperately hoping he would put two and two together and tell the Bear King.

The Bear King needed to know what was happening with his daughter, and really needed to see what an asshole Sly was. Truth be told, these games were on their way to being a complete disaster anyway, so that couldn’t be the priority anymore.

I took off running, a pang in my heart for Maeve as I went. It was horrible for Sol to have already lost his dad during that training accident, he couldn’t lose his mother as well. He just couldn’t. Pi would hate that. He went into the armed forces knowing he might have to give up his own life, although not in the way that he did, but he would never want anything to happen to his family. Plus, I couldn’t stomach the idea of a bright spark like Maeve being extinguished too early. That thought propelled me in the direction of the exit I saw on the video footage. Thank goodness this wasn’t a door that was used regularly because it meant that Maeve’s scent was very strong and easy for me to pick up on. I didn’t even need TJ’s extremely good sense of smell to follow the trail that had been left behind for me. I could also smell Sly and Princess Azariyah, but their scents weren’t as prominent as hers.

I raced through the door and out to a strange woodland area I hadn’t noticed before now. It was isolated, quiet despite all the sounds coming from the arena, the sort of place where terrible things could happen to a person.Notthe sort of thoughts that I wanted to have cascading through my brain. I didn’t trust Sly at all. I didn’t need to know the man to understand that he didn’t have good intentions in his heart. In a place like this…well, it just didn’t bear thinking about. My stomach flip flopped and I felt sick.

“Help!” Oh my God, what was that? Was it a voice or did I just imagine it because I was so freaking desperate for a solution? With my heart hammering, I tiptoed in the direction the voice came from. “Help!”

I definitely heard it that time, and that wasn’t just any voice. That was Maeve’s for sure. If she was able to cry out like that, then at least she was alive. Thank God she was alive. Relief flooded me as I continued moving, picking up the pace. Even though she was alive, I still couldn’t stop myself fearing the worst. Who knew what Sly would do to torture Maeve? If he had done something to Maeve, I was going to have to kill him. I was going to rip that asshole’s head off. No way I was going to let him do this to anyone again. No one deserved to be in danger, to be threatened by Sly. Least of all the princess and Maeve. Fuck, what the hell was he going to do with them?

Maeve, I thought desperately as I ran toward the voice.I’m coming for you.

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