“You must be... the Mad King?”
The name scrapes against my nerves.
I do not answer. The darkness is loud enough that forming words feels like trying to speak underwater.
Peighton does not reach for me this time. I feel her behind me, trembling, but she stays still. Maybe she is too afraid to touch me when I am like this. Maybe she knows even her hands cannot cut through this storm. Not this time.
One of the wild wolfmen lunges and grabs Keira by the hair.
I fire on instinct, but another man slams my wrist at the same moment I pull the trigger. The bullet goes into the branches above. In the same breath, men swarm us. Arrows press to our throats. Rough hands rip Keira free of our circle and drag her out into the open.
They tear off her clothes. Wild grunts and pig noises fill the night. For a moment, Nikolai studies her, dragging his knuckle between her breasts and grunts.
“I like this one,” he murmurs, his smile wicked. “Nowher.”
And then—
Other hands reach for Peighton.
Everything inside me stops.
The voices. The panic. The static.
Silence drops into my skull like a stone off a cliff.
I hear my own laugh float out of my mouth, and a calm settles in my chest.
Then I clap.
Slow. Loud. Mocking.
They freeze, interested.
I pinch the arrow pressed to my neck like it is filthy and flick it away. The man’s brow twists, but it clear he’s curious.
“I’ve heard stories about the Chernobyl wildlings,” I say. My voice sounds too calm to my own ears in such danger, which is how I know I am far from sane.
It’s... better this way.
The Mad King.
I’m here.
Chapter 44
Gustav
“Iam unimpressed. You talk like wolves, but you behave like street dogs,” I say loudly.
A few men growl. One barks. Others sneer. One murmurs what someone already told them:
“He’s the one.”
I tilt my face up toward the gray sky.
“Mother. Did you hear that earlier? They called me the Mad King.” I pause as she replies in that fucking voice that makes my skin crawl.
I taught you to be a gentleman. You’re behaving like your father. I’m disappointed in you.
