Vampire King Chapter 27

Tracking Themi
Tracking Them Down
Rainer
Those two f**in** had a head start on me, but that doesn’t stop me from tracking them down It’s not too hard. I just follow the trail of dead bodies they leave in their wake. Lex was able to get the guard on their trail as they left the library, so as I rush after them, I encounter one dead guard after another, leading through the field outside of the castle into the woods nearest the side of the castle that faces their home kingdom.
I have a feeling I know exactly what these f**rs are trying to do. They could run all the way back to Scarlett Thunder, but I have no doubt they’ve got some sort of help waiting for them at some point on the other side of the wall that runs along our lands. They will do their best to get over that wall and into a waiting vehicle, I’m guessing, and since I can’t drive through the woods, they’re hoping I won’t be able to catch them before they get to their escape vehicle, likely driven by someone from their own pack.
stationed Crescent Peak has warriors throughout our lands, and I’ve sent a message to those that are along the border, but there are so many back roads and winding paths through here that there’s a good chance the Maxwells will be able to sneak through if I let them get to that car before I stop them
Lex was with me, but I outran him about four miles ago, so I know I’m on my own when I finally do catch up to them. I’m not afraid at all. They’ve got to be beaten down from the number of guards they’ve encountered, and I have no doubt Opal is no match for me anyway. Jacob likes to talk a big game about how many shifters he’s killed, but I think he’s full of s**
I’ve run past all of the other guards as well, which means it’s up to me to track their footprints now, and I see them clearly in the forest floor, as well as a path of snapped branches.
The wall is less than a mile away when I emerge from the woods and see the two of them running in the distance. I am gaining on them, and with every stride I take, I get closer to taking them out. Opal is ahead, of Jacob, and he is limping slightly. He’s likely done the majority of the fighting. I have to wonder why he even let her talk him into this to begin with. Sure, he probably loves this sort of game, finding someone weaker than him and picking on them, but he has to have known that Opal was signing his death certificate with this scheme.
As I run, I check in with Kane, knowing he wishes he was the one out here hunting them down, but he has to stay with Emory. He has to make sure she’s okay. I can hear in his voice when he responds to me that she’s alive. Otherwise, the fury within him would be raging even hotter than it is when he tells me to try to bring them back alive.
I will do my best, but if I have to kill one or both of them I will.
Jacob pulls up as Opal continues to run behind him, and I can’t help but curse under my breath. This is the
if I can’t bring worst case scenario. He is sacrificing himself for his sister. She will be able to get away
him down immediately, and even though he’s wounded, it won’t be an instantaneous death for him The wall is high, almost thirty feet, and it’s nearly smooth. But it’s not meant to keep vampires in or out. It’s partially meant as a deterrent to vampires attacking us, to slow them down, but it’s mostly to protect our villages from the wolf shifters in the area. Wolf shifters are powerful creatures and can jump high, but they couldn’t possibly leap over that wall, and they wouldn’t be able to scale it either. And wolves don’t climb ladders….
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Tracking Them Down
Opal will find a way to get up it if she has more than a couple of minutes…..
“Well, it looks like the king sent his best chum to do his dirty work,” Jacob smirks at me, standing in a fighting position with his hands out in front of him.
Is this really the same ***ole I was sitting across from at dinner just a few hours ago? How did we get to this?
“You really wanna die for her?” I ask him, as I continue to run at him full speed.
“You only think you know what happened, but you’re wrong. It wasn’t Opal who planned this. It was Lex!” he yells back at me.
“The hell it was!” Lex shouts about a quarter mile behind me. Our hearing is superior….
Jacob keeps his hands up as I fly at him, slamming into him. He tries to kick me away at the last second, but I am ready for it. I grab hold of his leg and whip both of them out from under him, behding the one leg up as I slide, past him. I hear a sickening crunch as his leg snaps. He falls backward, onto the ground, his head landing near my hip as he groans in pain from the break.
Releasing his broken limb, I move around quickly so that I am on top of him just as Lex whi**es past us.” Get her! There’s gotta be a car!” I tell him.
“I’m going!” he shouts back. I don’t hazard a glance in Opal’s direction when I have her brother in my grasp like this, but I know she has to be close to the wall.
I flip Jacob over so that he’s prostrate on his stomach and grab his arm. “How the f**k do you like it?” i shout at him and pull on it, twisting it behind him the same way Emory’s arm had been twisted when I’d seen Kane carry her past me in the hallway.
I intend to dislocate Jacob’s arm, but in my fury, I accidentally rip it off. Dark blood and ash come streaming out as I look at the limb and decide there’s nothing more to do with it, so I toss it away.
His screams of agony fill the night sky, and in the distance, a flock of birds takes flight, terrified by the sound.
I want to kill him now so that I can help Lex with Opal. I glance over my shoulder and see that she is at the wall, leaping up, trying to find some sort of crevice or c**k to wedge her fingers into. It won’t take much. If a bird or a hailstone has hit it hard enough to chip away at the flat surface of the rock, she will find a place to work her fingers in. Then, she can use that divot to rocket herself higher up and over the
wall.
I see a group
of guards coming through the forest, and I hope these are more competent than their counterparts who are littering the ground every three feet between here and the castle. We seriously have to look at our guard program, that’s for d***n sure. How can we have the world’s best army but such pi**poor guards?
A few of them are running faster than the others, and I am tempted to hoist Jacob up and carry him back to them, but I don’t. Instead, I wait for them to get there and take him into custody. They chain his one remaining arm to his body and lift him since he can’t walk on his broken leg. It’s beginning to heal already. –but it’s still twisted.
When I am assured they will get him back to Kane alive, without him managing to escape again, I turn to check out the situation behind me.
Tracking Them Down
+25 BOS
Opal is at the top of the wall, thrusting one leg over the top. She turns and flips Lex, who is about halfway up, the bird and says, “It was nice f**
“No!” I shout, outraged that she’s getting away. We need to get her. She has to pay for what she’s done.
I’ll address her comment to Lex later.
By the time I reach the wall, he is almost at the top. I make short work of following the exact path that Opal used to the top, seeing the places where her fingers and toes bit into the surface since she’s chipped away slightly more at the rock.
When I reach the top, I toss a leg over and survey the situation.
I do not see her anywhere.
“F**k,” I mutter as Lex joins me, dragging himself over. He almost slips and falls all the way back down, but I grab the prince’s hand and help him up.
“Come on!” he shouts, ready to run after again, but two things are stopping me. One, I see a puddle of fresh oil on the ground on the asphalt near where we are sitting, and two, I can hear the roar of an engine in the distance. We don’t have much need for vehicles when we can run almost as fast as one, so I’m certain that car is the one she’s in.
“We’re too late,” I tell him. “Unless our guards can stop them at the border before they pass back into Scarlett Thunder, she’s gotten away.”
“F**k, no!” he yells, slamming his hand into the top of the wall. It rumbles a bit but doesn’t break. It’s made out of strong enough materials to keep us from just pounding right through it.
“I’m afraid so,” I tell him. “And you and I both know that getting her back is going to take a declaration of
war.”
“He’ll do it,” Lex tells me, saying what I already know. The way he feels about this girl, Kane will tell Opal’s father that if he doesn’t send her back, he’ll fight him to the death.”
A feel a slight pain in my heart as I know that Lex is speaking the truth. Emory is special to me, too, for reasons I can’t quite explain, but I know how she feels about Kane, and I know how he feels about her. I’ve already determined I have to resign myself to the fact that the two of us will have to remain friends.
Still, I understand why Kane will not hesitate to start an international incident in order to get justice for her. She deserves it. What did the girl ever do to anyone?
Lex, on the other hand…. “You were f**g your brother’s b**h fiancée? All that talk about how you couldn’t stand her, and this whole time, you were screwing her?”
The prince looks ashamed for one of the first times in his life, for as long as I can remember. “I know. It’s just… she’s a good lay. And Kane isn’t interested in her like that, so I figured he probably never would bed her.”
“Not even after they were married? She was supposed to have his baby, remember? That was the whole point in this.”
“Oh, I’m aware,” he snaps back, and I am reminded that Lex never did like the idea of Kane having a child. That would prevent the younger brother from ever taking the throne. “I just didn’t know if he’d ever do that
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Tracking Them Down
even, and besides, there are other methods now days to get women pregnant.”
The image of a turkey b**er comes to mind, and if I wasn’t so f**ng pi**d, I might actually laugh. 1 look off in the distance one more time in the direction that Opal disappeared in before I say, “Let’s head back to the castle. We’ve got to make sure Jacob doesn’t get away.” I pause for a moment wanting to ask Lex if he was screwing him, too, but I decide I don’t want to know, not because I care that Lex is bi but because, at the moment, I hate Jacob so much, I don’t want to think about it anymore.
I leap down off of the wall and land with a thunderous boom that shakes the trees in the distance. I wonder how Opal managed not to do that. But then, she’s not nearly as big as I am. Lex’s landing Isn’t quite as loud as mine either.
As we
we walk back toward the castle, I do say, “You’ve gotta take this as a sign that it’s time to grow up, Lex. You’re well over a hundred years old. Stop acting like a teenager, and get your head out of your a**
“Don’t worry,” he promises me. “I get it. I can’t trust anyone anymore. I thought those two just liked to have fun and act s**d like me, but they took it way too far.”
We enter the forest, and I say, “You did do the right thing in calling for help.” He nods, but he doesn’t look like that’s much of a consolation. “Your brother will be happy about that.”
He shrugs. “Unless the girl dies. Then it won’t matter what I did. Nothing will be good enough. As usual,”