Chapter 259. The Competition VII

Chapter 259: 259. The Competition VII

Maisie

Slipping away and finding my way around the sentries was the hardest part. The entire school grounds were crawling with more of them than I’d seen in one place in my whole life.

But I was eager. I was angry. I was hateful. Determined.

Exonerating myself was a side mission. The main reason I’d come back was to put a knife in the Queen’s heart, the same way she had inspired me to. I cared more about that than clearing my name.

It was my only objective. My only aim in life. My goal. Because if anything were to get better, I needed to topple the Queen off the chessboard.

I’d thought it all out. I’d need to get close enough to her to do it. I’d considered a hundred different methods while I trained my body, but nothing had kindled the fire inside me as much as giving her exactly what I had received.

But that meant getting into the castle somehow, and I couldn’t do that as a prisoner being tracked every second of the day. They would find me before I ever set foot in her harem.

It was why I had ever given thought to clearing my name. That, amongst other things.

But if she was going to be here today, on neutral grounds, I didn’t need to wait.

Soren would make a great king. And maybe Mercer would understand one day.

Sweat tracked down my temples as I waited for the sound that heralded the Lycan Queen’s arrival.

I’d been here long enough to learn the pattern of the sentries moving through the stadium, speaking into the comms in their ears and scanning row after row of students. They were looking for me. They couldn’t track me anymore.

The nape of my neck still hurt from using my claws to dig out the tracker and rip it out.

If the Queen died today, there would be no need for it. I was likely going to get executed for murder before morning.

"You’re not thinking straight," my Lycan said. "This is too sudden. Too rash. You are too angry."

She was right. My hands were shaking around the stolen quiver from the fighter’s arsenal of weapons. I couldn’t hold the daggers. I’d tried and found that I was too tense to hold it right, not to speak of coming close enough to the Queen to do what needed to be done.

The arrow was my best bet. And it did help a ton that Arielle Kent, the fighter from Hellsgrave, had a total of thirteen arrows. Twelve of them were silver tipped, but the thirteenth had an ashen tip.

I wondered just who Arielle had in mind when she had that added to the quiver, but it didn’t matter. I would take it as the Goddess’s blessings today.

Knowing what terrible luck I had, there would never be a chance as good as this one.

I tuned out my Lycan’s rambling and watched the entrance from the service stairwell high above the main sitting area. I counted down every miserable second that trickled into minutes.

And then, the air changed. A stifling heaviness that hadn’t been in the stadium an hour ago filled the space so rapidly, conversations died instantly.

I uncoiled from my low crouch as every student in the stadium rose to their feet, the screens around the stadium capturing the moment they all lowered their heads in a ceremonial bow in deference.

I barely heard the herald announce her arrival. Barely heard much else as more than a score guards marched in, paving the way for the sole figure striding inside in a midnight-black regalia.

The feeds at every corner switched to a close up video of the horrifying redhead devil with the Goddess’s eye on her brow.

It didn’t matter how many times I met her. It always felt different somehow.

Her red hair was smooth as silk down her pale, ageless skin. She didn’t even look a day older than the last I’d seen her. If anything, she looked younger.

Her black skirts billowed around her like a pool of black waters and she walked with her head held up high, her shoulders pulled back and her spine straight. And with every step she took further into the hall, that awful pressure poured out of her in waves, making even the strongest wolves tremble in her wake.

Sweat broke across my skin. Just how much power could one being possess? And did it all come from that stone?

Behind her came her mates, all five of them hedging around her protectively.

My breath hitched when Kara walked in next. She looked far older than the last time I saw her. Her childish glee was completely gone and she looked like a stone statue as she trailed behind, hands clasped in a lady-like demureness on the curve of her ivory-laced dress.

My eyes automatically scanned her body for injuries, for signs that she was being tortured and hurt, but she looked... good. She had filled out quicker than I thought possible and almost looked like a woman.

And I stiffened when I caught sight of another shock of red hair.

Mercer walked in dressed in a deep green embroidered jacket laid over a black suit.

And on his arm was Tessa, dressed in a matching green velvet gown that fit her body like a glove, her long legs parting the slit in the gown as she walked. Her hair was styled in an intricate updo with little curls tracking her unblemished, unscarred skin.

And for a single moment, all I could do was exhale. Hard. And fight the urge to use my one ashen arrow on her and not the Queen.

Eventually, reason won over rage and I tore my gaze away from them, returning my attention and focus to the Queen. With any luck, after I was done with the latter, before I got caught, I would pay the former another gracious visit.

As swiftly as the stifling aura came, it ceased at once, and Lycan Queen Lysandra tipped her head towards the crowd and the cameras, and her lips coated in black lipstick curved as she rose her hand and waved.

The stadium erupted in cheers and screams as they began chanting for her with love and adoration, worshipping her like she was the holy grail they’d die on.

And I knew then that she had to die.

Because no one, absolutely no one, made me feel as strongly as I did now. It consumed me so thoroughly, my hatred and need for vengeance, that I felt my mouth water as my fingers found the ash-tipped arrow.

In that moment, I didn’t feel like Maisie Adams. I didn’t know who I was. It was irrelevant. I was death, and there was no greater pleasure than gifting her this curse she had given me.

The arrow head cut into my skin and bled my fingertips.

I had never used a bow before, but I had always been a quick study. And I had to thank her for months of fighting every assassin she sent my way, for it had thought me more about survival than any training Instructor Warren could have given us. It thought me about weapons, the systems to them, and it sure made my grip and aim much, much better.

My hands still shook as I drew back the string until my shoulders burned and the fletching duginto the corner of my mouth. But it was inconsequential.

I squinted and aimed as the Queen moved, still waving, right into my line of vision. And the entourage of guards moved, away, giving me one perfect shot at her, for one impossible second.

And I exhaled.

This was for my child. This was for every moment of pain she had caused me. This was for me.

I had just begun to let the arrow slip when I caught a glimpse of something. It was so startling that I couldn’t initially process what I was looking at.

It was easy to miss if you weren’t looking, but once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.

I began breathing hard and fast as I stared hard at the small curve on her stomach, at the shape that had no business existing on the body of a monster.

And I knew the Goddess hated me. She had to have despised me and condemned me to hell because...

The Lycan Queen was pregnant.

My arms locked. The arrowhead wavered. All the months of planning, all the nights I stayed alive on pure spite, shattered to bits in front of my eyes, leaving something so raw, so wounded in its place that my body went limp and the bow clattered from my grasp, hitting the ground at my feet.

I... couldn’t kill her.

I had nothing in my arsenal that could’ve prepared me for this. I could get around becoming a murderer to avenge my loss, but I couldn’t kill a baby. I wouldn’t.

Tears filled my eyes and my lips shook.

Why? Why did she get to be blessed with a child after she stole mine? Was the Goddess really as much of a fucking bitch as Gruer thinks? I’d been through enough that I had lost my faith that there would ever be justice or repercussions for the evil, not unless I bestowed it myself, but now, I wondered if the Goddess even existed.

As if she had known exactly where I was all this time, the Lycan Queen turned her head. Her gaze cut through the crowd, through the shadows and every step I had taken to stay hidden, and her eyes clashed with mine.

They were dark.

They crinkled. And though she had been smiling for the crowd, her expression morphed into something knowing. And I knew the smile was for me.

It was one of sheer mockery.