Filed To Story: Traded To The Lycan King Novel (Colette & Merikh) by MG Wattsons
A hand catches mine and Penny groans, her body flying up a few feet before we tilt back down and she uses her nail to cute my ankle free. I land on her and she pushes me aside with unmatched speed, back on her feet in a fighting position.
“Where are they?” I whisper and she growls, her lycan rippling through her as her spine shakes and fur pushes out before quickly receding. She is fighting it for control.
“I can’t tell if there is anyone here or not.” She says.
“Well we weren’t expecting you.” Someone says, stepping out of the woods. A woman emerges her hands up to show us she is nonthreatening. “When someone comes rushing after our king, we grow a little suspicious.”
“Your king?” Penny asks, stepping closer to me as I find my balance and stand, hobbling on one ankle, my other burning with the rope burn and being yanks so hard. It wouldn’t surprise me if it is sprained.
“Are you not chasing your father, King Caspian? I assume you are here hoping to catch him before he leaves for his city.” She asks curiously.
Penny doesn’t drop her guard, instead she chuckles softly.
“And who are you?” She asks the woman.
“I am the general of the siren warriors. My name is Saree.” she says.
“Right,” Penny says skeptically. “Nice to meet you. Are they still here?”
Saree seems to look behind us, her eyes snapping back and she gives us a fake wide smile.
“You just made it.” She says, motioning toward the sunset. “He is that way.”
Now I feel it too, the gut instinct, the way my wolf is on edge. I play through this woman’s words, the way she speaks and how she addressed me as Caspian’s daughter. Would he have told her that before anyone else?
“Why did you say ‘his city“?” I ask her, tilting my head. “Is it not also your city?”
She meets my eyes and then within a second they roll, and she lifts her hand, snapping it. Too many sets of hands land on me, taking me to the ground as I writhe and scream.
“Luna!” Penny roars, her lycan breaking out as she bounds toward me, her claws swiping men off me with ease. She tears one in half, throwing him to the side. And I jump up, extending my hands out as I close my eyes and focus. I can feel the water, so strong, so much of it bubbling as it comes to the surface.
Then pain strikes the base of my skull and I stumble to my knees, disoriented and blinking as Penny disappears under a mass of too many men. When they move away, she morphs into her human form, her body bloodied and beaten.
“Penny!” I cry out, my tears unstoppable as I look at my battered friend, her left eye swollen shut. “What the are you? There is no way you are a siren.” I ask, and the woman cackles.
“Well, at least you aren’t dumb. You are right, I am not a siren. What I am is not important,”
“The second I heal enough, I will gnaw on your head until your eyes fall out, you Bi-” Penny stops mid sentence, her eyes growing wide as she looks down a silver rod, breaking through her chest.
I sob uncontrollably, trying to calm my shaking hands so I can do something, anything, to save her.
“Did you know Lycans are almost impossible to kill?” Saree says in a singsong voice. “Unless you leave the silver weapon placed in their heart. Similar to a vampire in that way. Though a wooden stake is much easier to get your hands on than a silver one.”
“Please, don’t kill her,” I beg, and she cackles.
“No can do, Princess.” She then snaps her finger and the rod clicks, causing Penny to cry out as blood garbles her остус
voice.
“I’m sorry, Luna…” she murmurs before falling forward.
“NO! NO! PENNY!” I roar, water rising from the ground as I force myself to stand. The woman snaps once more and the same pain as before racks through my skull, before tearing away at my conciousness, the last thing I see is Penny’s lifeless eyes staring up at me.
It feels like my brain is going to explode; the pain searing at the base of my skull throbbing away like a time bomb slowly ticking closer and closer toward something awful.
There are people around me. Voices arguing and the sound of snapping that makes my head twitch. I slide my eyes open, blinking as blurry shapes take form in my impaired vision.
“Oh, hey. She is waking up.” I hear someone say, sounding excited.
“Leave her be you fool,” another person hisses. “They put it in that cell for a reason. She is dangerous.”
“I’m not dangerous.” I croak. But I regret the action, a stab of pain causing me to wince, my eyes aching.
“They don’t put just anyone in that little cage, sweetheart. Hate to tell you this, but they want you to be as weak as a I blink at the smaller blur, trying to force my vision to focus, but nothing happens and tears roll.
human.”
The memory of Penny’s eyes, the way they stabbing her through the heart from behind. How they ambushed us. And how they knew…how they knew where we would be.
My skin grows cold the more I process everything. What if they ambushed Merikh as well? What if they didn’t take a gamble by guessing what I would choose but covered both of their bases?
Merikh could have ended up exactly like Penny. My chest grows tight, and a whimper tumbles out. It’s my fault Penny is dead because of me. I pull my legs to my chest, hugging them tightly as the tears fall. They are hot and furious as they burn down my cheeks, growing from a soft place of pain to a raging storm of agony.
Penny was more than a gamma. She was a friend, someone I knew without a doubt I could always count on for more than what the gamma bond demanded. And she died because I was stubborn, because I am alive when I shouldn’t be.
“Shit. See what you did, Lenard?” Someone hisses.