Page 41 of Her Royal Blood

“What are you doing?” the first soldier stood up and asked. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said, not knowing who we were.

We had that on our side, despite my blond wolf, no one knew us. Our coloring was rare enough that unless Polonius had made a proclamation to all of his troops to be on the lookout for blond wolves, no one would know it was the color of mages. Only, Polonius probably had sent out such a proclamation. We were going to have to fight.

I leaped for the guard on my left and Amadeus went for the one on the right, we were able to take both down by surprise. I bit the neck of mine and Amadeus swiped his paw and eviscerated his. Blood pooled on the floor making it slippery. For a second I thought that was going to be all we’d have to fight, but within moments we were surrounded. None of the warriors had shifted yet, we had the upper hand. I used my wolf telepathy to speak to Amadeus before the others shifted.

Kill whoever gets in our way and run for the roundabout. There’s a motor car there.

Amadeus and I both ran with the wind, there were wolves on our heels and I wasn’t sure how we were going to get into the cars without killing some or all of them. As soon as we reached the vehicle the other wolves had shifted. I nodded for Amadeus to shift and he must have known what I was asking withoutusing our telepathy because he did shift and opened the driver’s side door.

I wasn’t sure if Amadeus could drive but he left me to fend off the wolves. I used moves I’d learned while training for the Royal Guard and waited for them to attack me before I jumped over them and landed on the backs of two them, scratching at their flesh with deep strokes, I was able to disable them enough to make them pause, enough time to shift and grab for the door handle as two more wolves threw themselves at the car and broke the passenger’s side window.

“Go!” I screamed at Amadeus.

I didn’t care if he could drive or not, we had to leave. Amadeus stepped on the gas and drove the motor vehicle over three wolves that were standing in front of us trying to get onto the vehicle. Because Amadeus floored it, we were able to blast through them and down the hill at breakneck speed.

“Okay, okay, ease up,” I shrieked.

Yes we still had wolves pursuing us, but if Amadeus lost control of the vehicle we’d be ashes.

Ahead the huge iron gates were closing as guards pushed them shut. Amadeus wasn’t going to slow down, we were going through or over those gates whatever happened first; plowing them down or being catapulted into them as we drove over the speed bump before the last guard stand.

As luck would have it, we catapulted over the speed bump just in time to make it through the gates with a vicious scrape on both sides of the vehicle, but we were free. As soon as we cleared the gates, Amadeus took a sharp right turn and we were careening down narrow city streets.

It would take the guards a minute to get into the other vehicles. We had a little time to lose them. We were in Royal motor vehicles and not many citizens in Navarrah city even had them, in fact none that I knew of did. So instead of slowingdown, Amadeus just barrelled through obscured little streets with shocked citizens darting out of our way.

“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked, gripping the door handle and the dash, white knuckling them as if they were the only things keeping me alive.

“No,” he said in an almost mechanical trance.

“Shit, really?” I was in panic mode as I wasn’t sure how to get there by the small residential streets we were taking to avoid being found. “Okay, let me see, it’s near the docks, like about a mile away, so the other direction.” I craned my head back to see if anyone was following us and if we could turn around on the cramped cobbled streets.

No one was following us, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be at the end of one of these streets, worse we were driving blind with no way of knowing where we were going. Despite our shift, I was able to hide our things in the veil of nothingness. I had some dwindling magic and it was easier to hide things that weren’t living breathing beings. I pulled the capes, the spellbook and my bottle of memories out and started flipping through the spell book to see if there was some sort of navigation spell that could be connected to the essence of a person, though it was almost impossible to read while the car was racing through tiny streets nearly hitting innocent people.

“Maybe we can hide somewhere until we can find out where we’re going?” I was really grasping for answers.

“No need,” Amadeus said with a short and exasperated exhale, sounding just as unnerved as I was. “My wolf knows where the king is.”

“Why didn’t you say that?” I scolded my own father, completely exasperated and on the edge of losing all semblance of mental sanity.

“Why didn’t you ask?” I had to laugh watching him grip the wheel with the same intensity as I held the door and the dash.

In fact I started a fit of hysterical laughter as did he. What the heck were we doing? We’d both gone a little mad.

“I’m glad your wolf knows,” I said through my laughter and tears.

“Oh you have no idea how glad I am,” his laughter rang out.

While it was a harrowing and sometimes nearly deadly ride we were able to get to the king’s stronghold without encountering anymore Crypt Claw. We did wiz past one but Amadeus slowed down and ducked into another tiny street and since the soldier was on foot there was no way to follow us.

As soon as I was tucked into the underground passage that Amadeus’ wolf also knew the code to open, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m never driving with you again,” I teased, still feeling my heart in my throat.

“Neither am I,” he let the lingering laughter pepper the air. “I don’t even know how to drive.”

“Never…never. Never.” I shook my head at him as I got out of the car on two shaky legs.

Chapter 14

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