Page 67 of Freed Wolfsbane

My shoes make hardly any noise on the cobblestone streets as I creep through the outskirts of the city. This far out from the city center, I’m mostly surrounded by lush trees, orchards, and the occasional squat building. My head is on a swivel as I check for anyone around me, but I don’t run into any Knights.

It’s almost like a ghost town out here. The only sound that interrupts the still and silent night is the crashing ocean waves. Pausing every couple hundred feet to snap a picture, I start letting my guard down as I see no one. I enjoy my meandering walk as I admire the stone residential buildings, the towering castle I can see in the distance, and the neatly laid-out streets as I walk.

As I’m passing from what were probably houses back in Dido’s time into what looks like warehouses and shops, I’m startled by raised voices from somewhere ahead of me. I almost drop my phone as I jump in surprise. My hand flies up to my chest, like it can stop the sudden pounding of my heart.

Shaking my head at myself because I never should’ve gotten so comfortable, I slowly creep toward the voices, not bothering to take many pictures of the shopping district as I go. I’m rounding the corner of a short sandstone building, trying to find whoever is talking, when I almost crash into a group of Knights.

In my haste not to bump into them, I stumble backward into a hard wall. Stones dig into my back, and I have to bite my cheek to keep from yelping in surprise. The trio of Knights round the corner as I try to flatten myself even further into the wall so I don’t accidentally touch one of them.

“I’m so fucking jealous of Louis,” a stocky, brown-haired man grumbles. “I can’t believe he gets to leave this shithole with the artifacts while we’re stuck here with a pissy Ryker.”

Well, I guess that answers what the boxes they’re loading up are full of. They’re stealing artifacts from the hidden city. I’m guessing they’re selling them to the highest bidder to fund their operation.

Dido growls in my mind.“I will take great pleasure in dismembering each and every Knight with our bare hands. They are destroying my home to provide funds for destroying my people.”

I’m so sorry,I whisper internally.We’ll get them back, I promise. If they’re being sold at auction, we can bid on them and then return them back here.After we take care of the Knights, of course.

She sighs in dismay but doesn’t say anything further.

“He’s been in a piss-poor mood since his nephew mysteriously died after they had to blow up the facility because of a shifter plague. I’m not sure I buy that mini-Ryker conveniently kicked the bucket after they had to destroy one of the most important labs. I bet ’lil Ryker was responsible for the outbreak, and the old man killed him in a fit of anger,” the tall, lanky Knight theorizes with a smile.

Wait, what?

Ryker is telling everyone they blew up the facility?

What a lying shit taco.

My mates absolutely kicked ass when they broke into the facility, rescued everyone, killed a bunch of Knights, and destroyed the whole thing.

I can’t believe he’s hiding what happened from all of his Knights and claiming it was intentional. I guess it would make him look pretty weak if the Knights knew that mangy shifters and mages managed to infiltrate his state-of-the-art lab, but still.

A grin curves my lips knowing Ryker has been pissed off since his facility was destroyed, though. I live for messing with his plans.

“Shut up, man. You know Ryker has ears everywhere. If he hears you, he’ll crucify you on the seawall and leave you there to die slowly like he did to Davis.” The baby-faced blond Knight shudders in revulsion, not that I blame him. That’s a pretty gruesome way to go.

The tall one rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything as the three of them continue walking past me, none of them realizing I’m even here.

Well, the good news is that we rattled Ryker. I bet he’d be downright ecstatic if he had figured out how to extend the curse, so we should still have time to stop him.

The bad news is that he’s probably itching for a fight and a chance to put us in our place. That’ll make it harder to take him out, but I didn’t expect anything about the coming battle to be easy.

After waiting a beat to make sure no one else is coming, I quickly take a picture and then round the corner. I zigzag my way through long since abandoned shops until the cobblestone road gives way to a grassy area.

I huddle beside a building as I look over the vast open space. It must’ve been beautiful once upon a time, but now, the green grass is trampled, the fruit trees are drooping, and the fountain is cracked and drained. Knights are milling around the space with black crates scattered everywhere.

Some of the boxes are open with guns, artillery, and more military equipment spilling out. I’ve never seen so many guns in my entire life, which isn’t even counting the multitude strapped to two hundred or so Knights wandering around.

Welp, there goes my hope that the island was mostly deserted. They have Knights stationed all around the massive wall, loading up at the docks, on the ships, roaming the city, and a bunch of them here. Based on how many they have crawling all over this one small area, I’d guess there are at least five hundred to a thousand of them on the island.

Fantastic.

Shaking my head, I pull out my phone and carefully walk to stand in front of the building to get a photo of this green space. I only take one because I don’t know how well the veil hides things that aren’t me, like a phone. The Knights would definitely know something’s up if a phone is just casually floating around.

“Two weeks?” a familiar voice shouts in disbelief. “That’s unacceptable! You have already had weeks to figure it out. And what have you done in that time? Nothing!”

“I’m s-s-sorry, sir. We’re working as fast as we can,” a trembling voice, which I’m pretty sure belongs to Clark from the lab, timidly responds.

My muscles lock up in remembered fear when Ryker turns toward me, the scar slashing across his face looking silvery in the moonlight. He shoves a hand through his hair before roughly yanking something out of his belt.

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