Free Web NovelChapter 173: Yuki Caught Us
"What the fuck?"
The words felt like they were floating in the air, detached from me. I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t. My mind went completely blank the moment MG said Kali swallowed Henry.
I looked back at Helen. She was still unconscious on the ground, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm that was about to be destroyed. I wondered what was going to happen when she finally opened her eyes and found out her son was dead. I had never seen Kali spit out anything she swallowed once it went down, except for our phones that one time.
And one thing circled my mind: regret. It was a heavy, cold weight in my gut.
The entire reason Helen participated in my kidnapping, the reason she bled me like a cow and kept me locked in that living room, was because she wanted to heal her son. He was her only child. For a woman who once looked me in the eye and said she wished she could give her own life just so he could live another day... I wondered how she was going to feel when she found out the boy she loved was gone.
"He must have stepped on Kali, and you know how she operates when she feels a threat," Malo explained. He looked down at the snake, his voice low and apologetic.
"Why did you bring her?" I asked, staring at the thick, scaly body of the snake wrapped around his arm.
"We had no idea what or who we were going to face out here, Faye. If I could have brought a whole tank into these woods, I would have," Malo said.
I was about to ask more, but my head started spinning. The trees began to tilt, and my body felt like it was made of lead. I was giving out.
We needed to leave. We needed to leave right now. Because the moment Helen woke up and found out the truth about Henry... I didn’t know how crazy she would become. She was the one who knocked out Yuki and brought me outside just to find her boy. If she lost him, I was sure she could kill every single one of us right here in the woods without blinking.
"We have to leave now," I said, leaning my full weight on Malo’s shoulder.
"The van is just down the road, tucked behind the bend," Haley said, pointing through the thicket.
As we started moving, a sharp, white-hot pain shot through my lower body.
"Oh fuck..." I screamed, doubling over.
"Faye, are you okay? What’s happening?" Sasha asked, her voice high with panic. She reached out to steady me.
"No... I feel dizzy... I can’t move my legs..."
Immediately, Peamah moved in. He didn’t say a word, he just lifted me off the ground like I weighed nothing.
"You better heal my hand after all this is over," he muttered under his breath, though his grip on me was firm and steady.
The moment we reached the roadside, almost within touching distance of the van, Peamah suddenly let out a sharp grunt. He dropped to his knees, his face contorting in pain.
I froze as I slid from his arms.
A thick wooden stake had pierced through his back, the jagged tip coming out from the front of his shoulder. Blood started to soak through his shirt instantly. He was still trying to hold me, trying to keep me from hitting the pavement.
When I looked up toward the tree line, my heart stopped.
It was Yuki.
"You really think you can escape from me that easily?" she said. She was glaring at me, her face twisted into something monstrous.
Peamah’s eyes turned a fierce, predatory green as he slowly lowered me the rest of the way to the ground. He gritted his teeth and stood up to face her, his muscles bunching. Sasha stepped in, helping me stay on my feet as I leaned on her.
"Wow... is that really Yuki?" Malo muttered, his eyes wide as he backed away toward the driver’s side.
Peamah reached over his shoulder, his fingers trembling as he gripped the end of the stake. With a roar of pain, he pulled it out of his shoulder and dropped the bloody wood onto the asphalt. He let out a low, vibrating growl.
Yuki tilted her head, staring at me like I was a prize she had almost lost.
"So you have another beta. Watch me as I kill him right in front of you," she said.
Her eyes began to glow a deep, toxic purple. Long silver claws extended from her fingertips, gleaming in the morning light. She lunged forward with a burst of speed.
Peamah charged at her too, his roar echoing off the trees.
"I’m going to kill that bitch," Sasha said, stepping forward, her own eyes flashing.
"Wait... let’s get Faye into the van first!" Haley grabbed her arm, trying to pull her back.
Malo ran ahead, fumbling with the keys to start the engine. The van roared to life, but nobody was moving.
"I can’t leave him..." I whispered, watching Peamah.
He was fighting hard, throwing heavy punches that would have crushed a normal man, but he was bleeding badly. The wound in his shoulder was deep, and his wrists were already slick with his own blood. He was losing. Even with his massive size, Yuki was faster, stronger, and completely overpowering him.
Then she slammed him to the ground with a sickening thud. Her silver claws sank into his shoulders, pinning him to the dirt.
"You see, Faye..." she said, turning her head to glare at me while Peamah struggled beneath her, "if you had just stayed in the mansion like a good girl, you wouldn’t have to watch your beta die a slow death."
"Let him go!" I screamed, my voice breaking.
"If you want him alive, come here. Now."
Her hand shifted, her claws hovering right over Peamah’s chest, directly over his heart.
"Faye, don’t go!" Sasha held me back, her grip tight on my waist.
Sasha’s eyes scanned the area frantically, then she spotted the wooden stake Yuki had used on Peamah. It was lying just a few feet away.
With a sharp flick of her mind and her telekinesis, she launched the stake straight at Yuki’s head.
But Yuki reacted instantly. She didn’t even look up.
She caught the stake mid-air with her free hand.
And then she threw it back.
It flew straight at me.
Sasha didn’t hesitate. She stepped right in front of me, shielding my body with hers.
The stake pierced through her stomach with a wet, hollow sound.
"No!" I screamed as Sasha dropped to her knees, her hands clutching the wood.
Haley let out a piercing cry, rushing to her side and trying to catch her before she hit the ground.
Yuki released Peamah, leaving him gasping for air, and walked slowly toward me. She reached out and grabbed my shoulder, her grip so tight I felt the bone creak.
"That’s the thing about betas," she whispered in my ear. "They only exist to protect the moon wolf. Even if it kills them in the end."
She yanked me off the ground, dragging me toward the woods. I was too weak to fight her. My legs were like jelly.
"Come. Let’s go back home," she said.
I looked back over my shoulder one last time. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
Malo was running toward me, his face a mask of horror. Haley was sobbing, hunched over Sasha’s bleeding body. Peamah lay motionless in the road.
Everyone who came to save me was broken.
I tried to struggle, to fight, but I had absolutely no strength left. All that blood loss from the week had finally caught up to me. I couldn’t fight back.
Then suddenly, the air shifted.
Someone moved faster than I could even see.
A blur of gray and black slammed into Yuki with the force of a freight train. They dragged her away from me, the force of the impact throwing me to the ground.
I watched as they disappeared, crashing straight into the dark woods.
