Page 101 of Fake Fae-Ancée

"McKenn, are you alright?" Chief Taggart barked, crackling through the phone line.

"I am alright," I said. "I’m just being brought back to the safe house. What’s going on?"

"Nox is in Helsinki," the chief said.

"What the fuck, are you serious? Last thing you said he was in Spain or something!"

"It was obviously a ruse to lure us away. He is in Helsinki right now! Get to safety right now."

"Alright, alright, but what about Yuri?" I clutched my phone so hard, I would have broken it had I had my normal amount of power. "Nox could be after him, as well!"

"We’re trying, McKenn. Get to the safe house. Wait for further instructions."

"Aye, aye, Chief," I gritted and ended the call.

"I understand that Nox has escaped the prosecutors of P.A.S.H.?" Bates asked. He sat next to me, briefcase on his knees. I nodded.

"Yeah, we have to turn around," I said. "I have to warn Yuri!"

"Oh, I don’t think you need to worry about him, milady. The Prince is heavily guarded and more than capable to deal with any assassin that should be stupid enough to appear in the midst of hundreds of angry Bears." Bates gave me a warm smile. "In fact, I am pretty sure, Nox is more interested in getting you."

I wanted to protest, but right then, the limousine took a sharp turn into a sideroad, and came to screeching halt. I was thrown into my seatbelt so hard the air was knocked out of my lungs. My phone slid out of my hands, cluttering onto the floor between the seats. Coughing, I straightened, massaging my aching collarbone.

"Ouch! What the hell was that?" I wanted to ask, but the words got stuck in my throat when the door popped open.

A dark figure pushed into the car, long legs and arms, dark hair, a pair of white eyes zeroing in on me.

Nox grinned. "Glad to see me, Fae-Scum?"

I wanted to scream. To pull out whatever weapon I could find in this car. Bates’s briefcase. The fucking tiara on my head. A bottle from the minibar. But even before my muscles could so much as twitch, a cloth closed over my mouth. An acrid stench of alcohol and chemicals muffled my screamed curse, flooding my nose and lungs with acid fire. My vision blurred. My mind turned black as I sunk back against Bates’s warm chest, fighting his hand over my mouth… but the movie ended, the lights went out and I was left in the darkness.

Yuri

Power is a fleeting thing.At the critical moment, it's not a matter of who holds it — but how many people around you believe who holds it. That was the whole momentum on which Yli-Pekkala's plan was built. And for the moment, it seemed to be working.

King Yegor had fled the ball the second the crowd had recognized Kai and me as the true king and queen from the prophecy.

And there we went now, to the king’s residence, a mere fifty meters from to the Winter Palace, a mob of amped-up Bear-shifters in Tuxedos with Nicolai and me at the head. All around me the men were shouting "Long live King Yuri!" and suchlike, throwing their fists in the air, a raging crowd on the way to a showdown.

However, I felt as if I were walking under water. As if the entire world had the volume turned down.

What had been going on with Kai just now? She had looked completely shaken when I had put her in Bates's care. Was it the strange vision we had shared? And why had the ring come off her finger? This worried me deeply, and Bear, who was completely out of it, boiling with adrenaline, snarled in my mind, demanding to come forward. Without Yli-Pekkala's protection, Kai was at the mercy of any attacker.

King Yegor was waiting for us on the steps of the Royal Palace. He looked a lot like my father, but crueler, his features were hard where father’s had been soft. And he was smaller, although he made sure he looked intimidating in his suit. He even wore his purple royal coat.

His bodyguards were flanking him left and right. However, they would not intervene, nor would the ramped up mob behind me. Tradition demanded that Yegor accept my challenge. And that we would fight the battle for the crown among ourselves. The very thing he had intended to prevent from the start. Ever since he had murdered my father.

"What do you want, Yuri Kalinin, son of a coward?"

"I've come to claim you, Yegor, Kingslayer," I shouted after the crowd had come to a halt in front of the stairs, my words echoing off the wall of the looming palace. The crowd roared behind me, a wall of rage and excitement.

The king chuckled.

"You're welcome to do so, puppy," he shouted. "But I have something that belongs to you. So we should talk before we fight."

He held up an object between his thumb and forefinger. A small, round, rose-gold band.

Ice-cold terror chased a lance through me.

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