Chapter 36

Elouera

The moment their bodies crashed into each other, the sound was like a cannon firing in the darkness.

I squeezed my eyes shut as Stirling and Callan began fighting right above me. The sickening sound of bones cracking and swords clashing filled the air. I could feel the vibrations through the mud beneath my cheek.

Neither of them said a word. There were no insults or formal challenges like the ones nobles gave before a duel. They had completely lost control. Both men were powerful Alphas, driven wild by the intoxicating scent coming from my body. All they wanted was to tear each other apart.

Callan’s boot slammed into the ground just inches from my nose as he forced Stirling backward.

That gave me one precious second to escape.

I couldn’t feel my lower body anymore. My legs were completely useless, dragging behind me like dead weights. But fear gave me a little strength.

I dug my bleeding fingernails into the thick roots of a nearby willow tree and pulled myself forward.

Pain shot through my shoulders. The torn muscles in my back hurt even more as I dragged my helpless body away from the clearing.

I didn’t look back.

I could hear the two men growling and roaring as they fought in the rain. Their violent struggle was so loud that it covered the sound of me dragging myself across the wet gravel.

Ten yards.

Then twenty.

Ahead of me, the huge iron gates of the Royal Labyrinth appeared through the fog.

The maze covered ten acres of land and was filled with tall, tightly packed hedges made of blackthorn and yew trees. The Empress had originally built it to entertain her guests during the summer solstice.

But in the middle of the night, with freezing rain pouring from the sky, it looked like the open mouth of some enormous monster waiting to swallow me whole.

I didn’t care.

I pulled myself over the entrance and rolled blindly into the thick bushes, ignoring the sharp thorns cutting into my skin.

At that exact moment, lightning flashed across the sky, briefly lighting up the gardens behind me.

The maze was completely dark. The tall hedges blocked the wind and made the air feel heavy and still. I lay flat on my stomach in the freezing mud, gasping for breath as my chest rose and fell against the wet ground.

Get up, I told myself. You have to hide. You have to cover your scent.

Desperately, I scooped up handfuls of cold, foul-smelling mud and rubbed it over my neck, face, and collarbones. I even rubbed it into the torn linen bindings around my chest, hoping the dirt would cover the strong scent of wild honey and rain coming from my body.

But it was useless.

The heat wasn’t just burning my skin. It felt as if my insides were burning too. Every time my heart beat, Uncle Holden’s poison spread further through my body.

I wasn’t just giving off an Omega scent anymore. My whole body felt like a burning furnace.

Within seconds, the mud on my collarbones dried and cracked from the intense heat.

A weak, shameful whimper escaped my throat.

It felt as if my body was fighting against itself. The part of me that had learned to survive on the streets was screaming at me to keep crawling, find somewhere dark to hide, and die alone if I had to.

But the Omega inside me was fighting a different battle.

The unnatural heat had taken control of my body, and that part of me was desperate for relief. It wanted me to turn around and crawl back to the clearing. It wanted me to find whichever Alpha had survived the fight and surrender to him. It wanted me to let him bite my neck and claim me if that would finally stop the unbearable burning inside my veins.

The thought filled me with horror.

I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood. The sharp pain helped me focus, even if only for a moment.

No. I will not let them use me as a pawn. I will not become a woman whose only purpose is to produce heirs for the crown.

I forced my arms to move and continued crawling deeper into the maze.

The sharp blackthorn branches caught my soaked silver tunic, tearing the fabric and leaving deep, painful scratches across my forearms. I kept moving anyway, turning left, then right, and then left again.

The paths all looked the same, but that was exactly what I wanted. I deliberately lost my way among the twisting corridors. If I couldn’t find my way back, neither would they.

Eventually, I came across a small stone shelter with an old statue of a forgotten goddess inside.

I squeezed my trembling body behind the marble base of the statue and pulled my knees tightly against my chest, hoping the darkness would hide me.

For a long, painful minute, the only sounds I could hear were the rain hitting the leaves above me and my own rough, desperate breathing.

Then I heard laughter.

It wasn’t coming from the clearing. It was coming from the gravel path just beyond the hedge.

“I swear to the gods, it came this way,” a man said in a drunken, nobleman’s voice.

“You’re crazy, Julian,” another man replied, slurring his words. “The sickly little prince? An Omega? The Empress would have had him drowned at birth if she knew.”

“I didn’t say it made sense! I said I could smell it!” Julian snapped.

His footsteps came closer. His boots crunched against the gravel, unsteady and clumsy. He moved nothing like Callan’s trained soldiers.

My blood turned to ice.

These weren’t royal guards. They were young noblemen who had fled the ballroom when Callan drew his sword. They had spent the last six hours drinking spiced wine, and the alcohol had made them careless and reckless.

Now my scent had spread across the palace grounds, and they had followed it into the darkness.

Callan and Stirling were powerful Alphas who could still control themselves, even when their instincts were strong. But these men were different. They were drunk, spoiled, and ruled by their most basic desires.

To them, an unprotected Omega in the middle of a heat was not a person who needed help. She was something they wanted to possess, like a piece of meat thrown into a cage full of hungry dogs.

“Spread out,” a third man ordered. His voice carried a low, threatening growl. “The scent is strong here. So strong. It smells like sugar and lightning. She’s close. Very close.”

I pressed both hands over my mouth, trying to keep my breathing quiet. I squeezed myself farther behind the stone statue and prayed that the rain would wash my scent into the ground.

Then a torch suddenly lit up on the other side of the hedge, close to where I was hiding.

Its orange light shone through the gaps between the yew branches, revealing four young noblemen. Their velvet coats were soaked, and their cravats hung loosely around their necks.

But it was their eyes that terrified me most.

They no longer looked normal. Their eyes had turned a frightening, glowing red. Their mouths hung open, and saliva gathered at the corners as they took deep breaths, trying to follow my scent.

“Here,” Julian whispered.

He stopped walking and slowly turned his head toward my hiding place. His bloodshot, glowing eyes fixed directly on the dark space between the statue and the hedge.

“Right here.”

I wasn’t going to wait for him to reach into the shadows and drag me out.

I threw myself out of the hiding place and ran in the opposite direction. My boots slipped against the wet stones, but the sudden rush of fear gave me enough strength to keep moving. I wasn’t running properly anymore. I stumbled through the narrow path, hitting my shoulders against the thorny hedges as I tried to escape.

“There!” one of them shouted. “Get her!”

I heard their heavy footsteps rushing after me. They were laughing as they chased me. Their laughter sounded cruel, like hunters enjoying the fear of an animal they were about to catch.

I turned sharply to the right, but my boots slipped in the mud, and I crashed into something hard.

A stone wall.

I fell backward, scraping my palms against the gravel. Rain poured into my eyes as I looked up.

I wasn’t on another path. I had reached the central fountain of the labyrinth. The tall hedges surrounded the area in a complete circle, and a ten-foot brick wall stood behind them.

There was no way out.

I turned around in panic and dragged myself backward until my back hit the cold bricks.

Then the four noblemen slowly entered the clearing, blocking the only exit. Julian held his torch high, and its orange light cast frightening shadows across their faces.

They stared down at me as I sat in the mud, soaked by the rain and shaking with fear.

“Look at this,” Julian said breathlessly. His eyes moved over my torn clothes, which were now soaked and clinging tightly to my body. “The little prince, all wrapped up like a present.”

“Don’t kill her,” the third nobleman muttered. His voice dropped into a deep, frightening growl as he began unbuckling his thick leather belt. “Just hold her down. I want the first bite.”

I pressed myself against the wall, desperately scratching at the stone behind me with my fingernails. They began to bleed, but I kept trying to find a way out.

There was nowhere to go.

My body felt as if it were burning from the inside. My vision grew blurry, and the darkness around me seemed to close in.

Julian stepped closer and dropped his torch into the mud. Before I could move, he lunged at me and grabbed a handful of my wet hair. He yanked my head backward, exposing the side of my neck.

I screamed and fought with all the strength I had left, but he was too heavy. He drove his knee into my already injured ribs and forced me down onto the ground.

Pain shot through my body, making it difficult to breathe.

Julian opened his mouth. His sharp canine teeth began to grow longer as he lowered his face toward my neck. His teeth hovered just an inch above the pulse beating beneath my skin.

I was sure he was about to bite me.

Then, without warning, a huge hand covered in a black glove shot out of the darkness above us.

It grabbed Julian by the throat and lifted him completely off the ground.