Chapter 10

CLAUDIA. Panic takes a hold of me. Suddenly, I feel my entire body going numb. I can feel Ruth beside me and I can hear her saying something, but it’s like my mind is tuning out. All I can hear are muffled voices. All I can feel is my heart hammering inside my ribs like it wants to get out. I blink a couple of times as we get pushed back by the ongoing commotion. For a moment I’m certain that I’m not seeing things correctly, but I’m wrong. Gamma Kiernan is really here, and he’s looking for me. “No way you’re getting in,” the men at the entrance keep telling him. “Pack it up and leave!” “I will not leave until you bring Claudia Hale here,” he insists. “I can smell her scent in the air. I know you’re hiding her. Back off, and no one gets hurt.” “How dare you threaten us?” With that, the chaos ensues. Now there are so many men blocking his way, and soon enough, women are clamoring to shoo him out of the pub too. I can see his expression. I know that he can take these men down if he wants to, but he’s restraining himself. The urge to step up and show myself before things get ugly overcomes me, but then Ruth wheels around and dunks my head down, preventing me from getting seen. “Why the hell are they looking for you?” Ruth demands. “Did you do something?” “No,” I begin to say, but that’s when I feel a strong hand dragging me back. “Ow!” I complain under my breath, feeling myself getting yanked back into the corner by this strong person. I turn around and see Max. He’s squeezing my arm so hard that I can almost feel the bruises appearing. “Let me go!” He just glares at me. “You are not going to show yourself to that upstart. You’re going to stay here behind the bar. Understand?” “No!” I snatch my arm back from him. “Do you want your people to get hurt?” His eyes flash with anger. “You’re really assuming we’re the ones who’d get hurt? You put too much faith in those men who don’t do anything but sit on their asses and command the lower people to fight for them.” I realize that he’s referring to the palace royals, including Achilles. His claims are so false that I square up to him, shoving him back. “You have no idea what you’re talking about! Those men risk their lives for us!” “Maybe for you,” Max growls dryly, “but never for me.” The next events happen so fast. So much so that I don’t even get the time to react. Max just grabs me by the shoulders, pushes me right into the broom closet, and props a chair against the doorknob to basically lock it from outside. I fall on the floor, flat on my behind, but then I spring up to my feet to try to ram it down. “Let me out!” I scream, but I doubt anyone would hear me from the absolute meltdown happening outside. I could shift into my wolf and break the door, but I think I would end up demolishing half the pub in the process. So even though I want to end this, I just stay by the door, pressing my ear against it and listening as best as I can. That’s when I hear Max announcing, “Silence, everyone. Let the man speak.” The people immediately shut up, which surprises me. It seems that everyone really recognizes him as their leader. I can almost picture him stepping up to Gamma Kiernan. “Thank you,” Gamma Kiernan says. “As I was trying to say before I got swarmed, I need Claudia Hale.” “Why?” Max asks in a calm, almost lazy tone. “Because the Alpha King says so,” Gamma Kiernan replies in a similar voice. “We don’t want any trouble with the King, do we?” “Oh, no, we don’t,” Max answers, but this time, he sounds perfectly sarcastic. I can hear the others around him letting out a laugh. “We really don’t. But you see, Claudia isn’t here.” Silence fills the air. I want to scream at the top of my lungs to alert everyone of my presence, but I’m stunned. Petrified, really. Did the Gamma really say that it’s Alpha Achilles who’s asking for me? But why? Why would he look for me? It hasn’t even been a day since I left. Does he regret all the things he did, all the things he said to me? Did he realize that I didn’t actually do anything wrong, and he punished me out of pure pride and possibly stupidity? Now that’s something I want to hear. I want him to say sorry. I’m about to scream when suddenly, I hear Gamma Kiernan saying, “I can smell her. Do not fucking lie to me.” Somehow, I’m able to sense something about to go wrong before it even transpires. I make a move to ram the door down before things can break out, but it’s too late. Before I can even do anything, I hear Max saying in a low voice, “Deal with this bastard.” And then, hell breaks loose. It’s so loud I can almost see it. The men in the pub all yell for battle and the sounds that follow root me to my spot. More screams. Thuds from bodies hitting the floor and the walls. Broken glass. Snapping wood. Arrows whizzing. Wolves howling. Gunshots. So many gunshots…. Soon enough, the smell of blood fills the air, and my heart nearly stops. It seems to go on forever, the sound and the smell and the carnage. I can make out specific voices like Gamma Kiernan’s, telling his men to stand down and leave. I can hear Max telling his people to pursue them, to drive them back and make sure they learn their lesson. On and on and on it goes. But just when I think that it’s never going to end, silence follows. It’s almost eerie. One can hear a pin drop. Who got shot? Did anyone die? The thought of death because of me is what finally breaks me. I ram down the door without shifting into my wolf form, but when I arrive at the bar, it’s too late. I can hear the sound of horses whinnying outside, their hooves hitting the ground in loud thuds as they run fast. I see the flash of the red carriage through the broken windows. I look all over the floor to see if anyone has fallen, but aside from the smears of blood, it seems that everyone made it out alive. At least, from this party. I don’t know if I can say the same about the people from the palace. Suddenly, Max enters the pub, sporting a broken nose. He tears off a piece of his shirt and uses it to dab on the blood, but I march toward him and snatch it right out of his hand. “What did you do?” “Showed them that they have no business here,” he says simply, taking the strip of fabric back from me. “The only thing I should be hearing from you is thank you, unless…” Everyone in the pub looks at me. Ruth is the one who gets up and turns to me. “What did you do, Claudia? Why are they looking for you?” Max crosses his arms. "Give us a good reason why we shouldn't kick you out of here. Now."