Chapter 35
The Game [Disturbed]
Crimson pools from my hand as I slide my fist out of his chest. I step away from their limp body and kick the sniper rifle that was aimed towards the back of the postal boxes.
Some elemny did not care to take the money, lied to Astin and Alad about it, and proceeded with wanting to kill Pandora Hart.
They want to protect themselves, which I can understand. What I cannot fathom are the lies. Decline the money and then proceed. I may have spared their life out of respect if they had done that.
To think I am aiding in fucking protecting the unawakened brat I want to kill…
How low I stoop for my hunt to go my way.
Nonetheless, I shrug off the disgusting feeling, move away from the top of the building, and hop down, landing swiftly on the ground.
Astin comes up from behind while he reloads his gun.
“I spotted two more on the roof at the postal lockers.”
“Were they working alone or together?”
“With. It’s an organisation within the Fountain of Silver.”
I grimace. “There seems to be an organisation working for Nancy everywhere we go. It’s like a damn hive we need to eradicate.”
“Do you want me to search further away buildings, sir?”
“Yes. Where’s Alad?”
“Here, Prince Reen.” Alad arrives with food.
Accepting it, we move away from the already-forming crowd while Astin flies off to find any more elemny working with Maya and wanting Pandora dead.
She seems to be a hot commodity. To make matters irritatingly worse, the fans have seen me, but fortunately, they keep their distance when they notice the blood soaking my hand.
“Where did you go?” I ask Alad.
I lean against the wall overlooking the postal boxes, but a hint of doubt rises to the surface at the thought that she may have fled onto another ship and taken her chances from there.
Either way, she would circle back here. It seems as if Pandora doesn’t have many safety options.
She appears to throw all her marbles in immediately, hoping her plan will work.
Headstrong…the girl has that aspect that’s at least admirable. Her aura was so confident and alluring that it was almost fuckable when she left the room and smirked at me.
“You haven’t eaten well enough since leaving the orphanage,” Alad says. “I was getting worried. You seem too fixated on this hunt to care for your health.”
I grunt my response before taking a bite of the beef burger, smothered in burnt onions, pickles, tomatoes, and a tangy relish that complements the creaminess of sour cream and chives. While I eat, I watch for anyone moving towards the post boxes.
“What if this isn’t the correct post office?” Alad asks.
“Then we aren’t the only idiots,” I say. “Snipers on three rooftops are as dumb as we are if this isn’t the spot.”
“What if she doesn’t care about what Maya said? She knows we’re hunting her.”
I shrug. “I will go door to door until I locate her.”
Alad breathes a laugh. “You’re the ultimate stalker.”
I arch a brow. “Then what does that make Walkyer?”
“A helpless romantic.”
I roll my eyes until they settle on the postal boxes.
A desperate, fame-hungry element behind the cameras flashes his camera across my vision, causing it to blur as they snap pictures of a prince roaming freely.
This won’t work. They’re causing too much of a distraction.
Pandora’s smart. She would see signs of us before getting to the postal box.
“We need a better vantage point, Alad,” I say. “We should overlook the area from the rooftops. Tell Astin to monitor the rear of the post office while we watch ahead. I’ll give it twenty-four hours.”
“And if she doesn’t come?”
“We will lure her into the Kingdom of Cloud…”
“How?”
“Put a passport to the Kingdom of Cloud in the postal locker, Alad. I want to continue this hunt for as long as I can.”
“Out of all of you, you seem to worry me the most, Prince Reen.”
“Good,” I state before I walk off on him.
As a hunter, I hate to think about my prey.
Will she wait until we leave to make a move?
If that’s the case and she wants a cat-and-mouse game, I will play it with her.
Hide and Seek is one of my favourite games to play, and if she’s too frightened to face me head-on, I will make her fear every corner she walks by to the brink of utter fright, penetrating her until she’s stun-locked in my presence.
My muscles relax when I’m away from the chaotic crowd and on a rooftop with nothing but music thumping below.
Leaning against the ledge, I fold my arms across my chest and scan the crowd.
Does she still have the wigs? Would she use them?
The thought makes me contemplate how she would do things, but it doesn’t matter.
We will stop any elemny that goes to the postal locker.
Alad slides the letter into the postal locker and appears a moment later behind me. Only a brush of wind drifts in my direction until his feet settle on the ground.
We wait until dusk falls, and orange sparks streak through the sky, mingling with pastel pink and yellow.
The crowd of spectators in the streets thins out, and neon-bright lights flicker on in shops while stall owners pack up their businesses and leave for the night.
A calm wind seeps through the air, and the heat of the sun fades, causing disappointment to linger on my skin as the warmth departs.
When Astin calls, the stars hang in the sky, and the bright moon seeps silver light across the rooftops. Alad hands me the binoculars, and when Astin calls, I keep my eyes peeled on the postbox.
“Anything?” I ask Astin.
“Nothing here, sir. Should I move to another post or slum it on the ground—what the fuck?”
I snap a look at where Astin’s watching from the rooftop to see a blur move toward him, gripping an AK-47 sniper rifle—the same sniper rifle the man I killed was using. She must have taken the rifle and thought her best option was to attack.
She slams the end of the rifle into Astin’s head, causing him to fall unconscious from the blow.
Then, as if she knows where I am located, she turns in my direction, resting her gaze against the scope and easily pulling the trigger.
My head snaps to the side, and my eye twitches at the sound of the bullet breezing past and sinking into the wall that leads into the building I stand on.
“Prince Reen!” Alad exclaims.
I move the binoculars back and notice the rifle resting against Astin’s head. My smile broadens, and I feel…excited by the prospect of Pandora doing the unexpected.
“Hey!” a voice snaps through the receiver.
Alad hands me the phone I dropped, and I press it against my ear. “Pandora,” I say.
“Hey, Fucker,” she says.
Such a vulgar attitude. A mouth worth watching crimson spool from.
“How did you know we were here?”
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know when you see it all over the news,” she replies. “I knew you wouldn’t give me the opening I needed to get to the postal locker, so I had to take matters into my own hands.”
“And you have,” I drawl. “What do you want?”
“Whatever is in the postal locker,” she says. “I’m going to get it, and you will not do shit until I am out of this city.”
“And if I don’t do as you say?”
She digs the gun into Astin’s head and says, “I will blow his fucking brains out.”
“Do it,” I say.
“Prince Reen,” Alad hisses.
I ignore him and step closer to the edge. “Pull the trigger, Pandora.”
Her top lip curls, and her wide eyes narrow.
The finger resting on the gun slips against the trigger.
Alad comes up behind me, telling me we should do as she says or else Astin dies, but I ignore him and wait for Pandora’s decision.
We’re sizing each other up while we wait for someone to make a move.
Pandora’s hands tremble on the gun before she eases the pressure against his head, removes the clip from the gun, tosses it aside, and discards the bullets. My tight muscles relax, and Alad breathes easier now that there’s no life-threatening danger to Astin.
“Let’s play a game,” I say, because I want to reward her for not killing one of my men, even knowing he is an oblivious idiot.
Her sharp intake of breath stirs against my dead heart when she says, “I’m listening.”
“If you get to the postal locker before I catch you, you can have whatever is inside, and I will leave you alone for a day. But if I catch you, you’re mine to do with as I please.”
“You aren’t going to fuck me, are you?”
I chuckle. “Pandora, I don’t fuck what I deem prey. I kill it.”
“As long as you make it fast, I don’t care.”
I tilt my head to the side and tweak my eye. She doesn’t care to die. Why?
“You have a deal,” Pandora says.
When I look through the binoculars again, she’s legged it.
A sadistic and cruel smile stretches across my face. Tossing the phone to Alad, I step off the ledge to hunt my prey.
I enter through the building's entrance and stare at the ceiling. Frantic footsteps thump from a few floors up, giving me a general direction for where to locate the little mouse in my house.
The building is old, creaking as I move up the stairs.
An outdated apartment with peeling paint, thin walls, and too much movement from hollow doors.
There is no insulation, so when I reach the fifth floor out of seven, my prey lands with a resounding thump down the stairs and eyes me from across the hallway.
A wave of dark hair falls in front of her, an unnerving, unwavering, settled look.
Without missing a beat, she legs it down the stairs, her frantic steps skipping stairs at a time.
My focus lowers to the floor. Heat and fire flush my surroundings, and the flooring crumbles.
Chipped plaster, dust, and mice squirm as I land on the fourth floor.
As I rise with flames coiling around my shoulders, Pandora is ten feet away from me.
Her gaze settles on me before she shoves her shoulder into an already cheap door and runs inside.
The sound of glass shattering churns my stomach at the lengths she will go to win the games I enjoy playing.
I enter the room and eye the broken window.
Then my focus lowers to the room underneath this when a shadow emerges from my side.
My arms raise defensively, and I push her arm away as she bounds toward me with a dagger gripped firmly in her hand, knowing how to wield it.
In one swift motion, I twist her body around, shove her away from me, and she stumbles out of the room.
She goes to run again when my eyes narrow.
Plaster crumbles away from underneath her, and Pandora trips, landing on her knees.
Through her obscene amount of swear words, I grab her leg and drag her toward me.
She twists in my grasp, and my eyes widen as she slams her boot between my legs.
It catches me off guard enough to slacken my hold on her as I grip my cock.
“That’s what you get for having an arrogantly big dick!”
I laugh because, fuck me, she makes it hard not to get excited about how willing she is to fight for her life, even after her resolve against death. Confusing, but also…enlightening at the prospect that she thinks like me in a way.
She moves toward the stairs when flames lick up the staircase.
She stumbles back until she hits my chest. Whirling around, she drives the dagger toward me, but I am faster.
I grab her wrist, tightening it until there’s a strain.
Then I kick her legs out from underneath her, and she lands with a thump on her back.
I sit over the top of her, move her legs on either side of me so that she can’t kick me again and go to grab her by the neck to snap it when panic settles in her eyes.
I’m near the tenderness of the kill when an ear-splitting scream tears through her lungs.
A pink hue shivers across her body as a defence mechanism, shimmering with a sense of beauty and danger.
Her dark hair burns white. The walls and floors tremble, and as my focus rolls in that direction, glaciers of ice slice outward and narrowly miss my head.
“Fuck.”
I press my hands on either side of her, heating the floor, and as it collapses, ice and spears of crystals slam into either side of where I once knelt. As we fall, my hands snake around her waist and head, and I twist my body until my back slams onto the floor below.
Air leaves my lungs, and I cough up dust, ash, and flames. Breathing is a struggle, but I push through the ache, prop myself up on my elbows, and look down at the creature passed out on my chest. Her dark roots burn until her white hair is no longer visible.
My fingers touch her cheek, and I tilt her head to the side to look at my prey.
Pink, plump lips part, and slips of deep breaths inhale and exhale.
Her neck exposes itself to me, but the itch I felt a moment ago depletes, and I don’t know what the fuck to do, but I know what I can’t do.
I can’t leave her here after what I witnessed from the floor above.
Everyone would use her as a weapon of mass destruction if anyone other than the Knights of Eraminia could control those powers.
It wasn’t only ice but pink crystals that broke through the walls.
Footsteps come up from behind me. “Now, do you understand why I do not want her dead?”
I grimace.
Standing, I grab Pandora’s arm and throw her over my shoulder. She grumbles, but there are no other signs of her waking.
“Did you know she could do that?” I ask Alad.
“Astin told me a tale of an ice elemny he met during the Kingdom of Crystal’s fall. He told me he witnessed a girl with unimaginable powers. I did not think too much of it then, but seeing her do all this, it’s hard not to believe it now.”
“Does Astin know how it happened?”
Alad looks away. “He tells me it’s too dark for anyone but Pandora to tell.”
“I see.”
“What are you going to do, Prince Reen?”
I eye the unawakened little lamb hanging over my shoulder, my frown deepening as I move into thought. “I don’t know anymore,” I admit.