Page 53 of Accepted Bonds

As we walked away, I glanced over my shoulder from the corner of my eyes, watching as the remaining eight operatives, who had besieged the restaurant, retreated from their positions scattered throughout the nooks and crannies of the restaurant.

32

Aurora

Just after we pooled into the corridor that led into the restaurant, the hidden leader turned to stare at me for a few seconds with an inscrutable look.“Oh, wait, I heard you’re a mixed-blood werewolf with magic?Can someone search her for weapons and put a Kian Ring around her neck?I’m going back to the dessert table.”

Something about the hidden leader’s behavior was weird.It was almost like he was giving me the perfect opportunity to fight back by gathering all the men he’d brought with him around me and away from the crowd that I was afraid to hurt.But remembering the distant look in his gaze when he stared at me, I couldn’t see any sign that he was trying to help me, so the only possibility was that he’d underestimated me and he didn’t expect me to know how to fight.

Regardless of his reasons, I took advantage of him turning away from me and pretended to move in cooperation with the man who wanted to search me for weapons while swiping my hand across my neck.I picked one of the pill-like balls attached to the necklace I chose to wear this morning.Then I pinched the ball to activate the shrunken shield bubble orb hidden in it and muttered a one-word spell to infuse it with my intent to cover everyone at the far end of the restaurant.

“Hey, place your hand in front—”

Before the man who wanted to search me could finish speaking, I’d already thrown the shield bubble orb that was activated and rapidly expanding in my hands into the restaurant, knowing that it would encompass everyone in the restaurant in a tough bubble-like balloon.The shield bubble was tough and could endure at least three attacks on its own and several more attacks for as long as my magic reserves remained.The shield bubble would also give my mates a chance to attack our unidentified adversaries without getting hurt by the laser rifles in their hands.

There was a low poof sound as the shield orb burst into a balloon, covering everyone in the restaurant before the hidden leader of the attack group could walk deeper into the restaurant.

Knowing that they would default to attacking me now that I rebelled, I dropped into a squat, placed my hands on the floor, and swung my legs in an anticlockwise movement to knock the men standing around me to the ground.

I didn’t have time to activate the second shield orb attached to my necklace, so I grabbed the laser rifle of the man that fell close to me and ran into the shield in the restaurant which I was actively controlling with my magic to prevent the leader of the attackers from entering.

Just before I entered the shield, I heard the low hum of a laser rifle getting activated and felt the air behind me heat up.I knew that someone had fired a laser rifle at me, but it was too late to change my forward trajectory at that moment, so all I could do was shift to the side as far away as I could move from the incoming heat.

However, I couldn’t avoid getting hit.When I stumbled into the shield, I couldn’t help but scream as the smell of burning flesh filled my nose and an unbelievable stinging pain spread down the side of my waist.

Thankfully, before I fell on my face and broke my nose or something, Aiden grabbed me and pulled me farther into the shield as Levi grabbed the laser rifle in my hand and started shooting the attackers.

The leader of the attackers slid away from Levi’s shooting range, allowing Levi’s first shot to hit a blond-haired attacker.

After Levi shot down two men, shots started firing at the shield and I couldn’t hold in the groan that left my lips as I struggled to stay awake.I needed to be conscious to keep the shield at maximum strength so it could protect the crowd of people enveloped in it from the attackers’ shots.

As the whirling sound of the laser rifles going off filled the air along with the thuds of the shots hitting the shield, I just focused on staying conscious as Mateo pulled off his shirt and laid it out on the floor so I could lie on the floor instead of in Aiden’s arms.

Yells came from the corridor and then shots from the far end started coming, taking away some of the attention of the remaining six attackers who were shooting at the shield bubble with their rifles.

I watched as Caden kneeled beside Levi, pulled out the gun he had been wearing in his belly band holster since we got to Mac Tire City, placed the muzzle outside the shield bubble-like Levi had done, and started shooting.

Even though I was trying to stay awake, my sight was already blurred by the time the attackers were all subdued.

I closed my eyes for several seconds as Aiden yelled for someone to send a medic, but forced them open again when I heard the familiar raspy chuckle that belonged to the leader of the laser rifle attackers.Because of the alarm coursing through my body at the realization that he was still alive, I was able to force myself to focus on him where he was kneeling in front of Levi, staring at me with his hands cuffed behind his back.

He had a smile on his face as he mouthed, “Good job.”

It was then that I realized as I closed my eyes that he’d done everything intentionally.He never planned to win.By pulling his men out of the restaurant before asking them to put Kian Rings on me, he’d tried to give me a chance to avoid getting abducted.The question now was, why?

I closed my eyes just to rest for a few minutes, but the darkness that had been hovering behind my eyes finally claimed me.

33

Levi

After Aurora covered everyone in the restaurant in a shield bubble, it took several minutes for us to bring down all the attackers with laser rifles for several reasons.The first reason was that the attackers quickly found good spots to hide from my shots after I’d taken down two men in the first minute.The second reason was that I was distracted.

Whenever Aurora groaned in pain, I couldn’t help looking back at her, where she was surrounded by Aiden and Mateo.Even when I restrained myself from looking back at her, her pained groans made my hands tremble.

I didn’t get my head in the game until Caden kneeled beside me.He didn’t look at me as he drew his gun and started shooting silver bullets that probably couldn’t hurt our attackers.However, him being there, and his clenched jaws, reminded me of what I needed to do.I needed to end these motherf*ckers that had hurt Aurora.

So just as gunshots echoed in the corridors and support from our side arrived, I shot another attacker in the chest.At the same time, Caden’s bullet hit one of the attackers.The shot didn’t kill him, but it made him a few milliseconds slower as he ran to take cover from the guards shooting from the outer edges of the corridors.I shot him down in that second and shot another attacker running away from the corridor with a wounded arm.

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