Chapter 167: Princess Get Save By Gunmen
After finding a way to break free and helping Beam out of her chains, Princess stood over her for a moment. Beam still looked incredibly weak, her skin pale and her breathing shallow from the silver drain.
"I could have killed you for spitting those words out..." Princess said, reaching down to grab Beam’s arm and helping her to her feet. Her voice was steady, but there was still a lingering heat in her eyes from the anger Beam had forced out of her.
"You would have done it a long time ago if you really wanted to," Beam replied, leaning heavily on Princess as she tried to find her balance.
Just as they were talking, a low, guttural sound vibrated through the air. Something moved in the dark, something huge. Two glowing eyes snapped open in the brush, reflecting the moonlight. It was a hedge-wolf, a feral, twisted thing that lived only to hunt.
"So Yuki’s plan is for a hedge-wolf to kill us out here," Princess said, her body tensing as she stepped in front of Beam.
"Well, it’s just me that’s in trouble then. Unlike you Alphas who regenerate fast and can take a bite... I’m going to be ripped apart in seconds," Beam said, her voice trembling slightly.
"It’s just one. We can handle it," Princess said, her own eyes beginning to glow with a fierce light. Then she quickly dimmed them when she realized the sound wasn’t coming from just one direction. Leaves crunched and branches snapped all around them. It wasn’t just one. There was a whole pack shifting through the shadows.
"Well... we should just run...."
Before Princess could even finish the sentence, Beam was already running, her survival instincts overriding her exhaustion.
Princess followed close behind, but the hedge-wolves were faster. They lunged from the darkness, eyes locked on their prey. One of the beasts slammed into Princess’s side, the weight of it knocking her hard to the ground.
She let out a growl as it lunged for her throat. She moved with a blur of speed, using her fangs to slash deep into its ribs before shoving the heavy body away. But as she scrambled back to her feet, she saw they were completely surrounded. The wolves circled them in a tight ring, snarling and snapping their jaws.
"Well, looks like there’s nowhere to run, Beamer..." Princess said, keeping her eyes moving, tracking every wolf in the circle.
"I know that... let’s just fight to the end then," Beam said, her eyes finally glowing a faint, shaky yellow as she prepared for the impact.
Just as the bigger wolf crouched to attack...
Bang... Bang... Bang.
The sudden thunder of gunshots rang out from different angles, lighting up the woods for a split second. One by one, the hedge-wolves dropped dead, their bodies thudding into the dirt.
Princess and Beam stood frozen, stunned by what had just happened. They stayed alert, back to back, waiting to see who had pulled the trigger.
From the thick woods emerged a group of people holding tactical rifles. Their faces were covered with black masks, and they moved with a military precision. At first, Princess thought they were bandits or another wing of Yuki’s gang.
The group parted to let someone through, a man with dark hair and a solid build. His face was also masked, and he held a heavy revolver casually at his side. He glanced down at the dead hedge-wolves with a bored expression.
"Rip all their hearts out. Make sure they’re dead. I don’t want any of them getting back up," he ordered.
Immediately, his men moved in, checking the carcasses and ripping out the wolves’ hearts with efficient, bloody movements.
"So, what are you two young ladies doing here in the middle of the night? Don’t you know this is a dangerous zone for your kind?" he asked in a husky, gravelly voice.
"We were just trying..." Beam trailed off, her mind spinning as she searched for an explanation that didn’t sound insane.
"Let me guess, kidnapped by someone named Yuki Bangs?" the masked man said, tilting his head.
"How did you... are you working for her?" Princess asked, her eyes narrowing into a glare. She shifted into a fighting stance, ready for round two.
"I don’t fucking work for anyone. And we are not bandits, if that’s what you’re thinking," the man said. He pulled out his phone and tapped on the screen a few times. "So, which one of you is Princess Kings?"
"What do you want with me?" Princess asked, her voice guarded.
"Okay, I need you to make a payment into this account right now," he said, stepping closer and showing her the glowing screen.
"Why would I pay you? Is this some kind of bandit robbery after all?" Princess asked, completely confused by the turn of events.
"We are not fucking bandits. Do you really think we were just magically roaming the woods at this hour and suddenly decided to save your lives for fun? Someone named Kiara Petro booked us online. She gave us your GPS details and a few pieces of your clothing to track your scent. She said one of you, Princess Kings... would pay the fee once we found you. So whoever that is, place your thumb on this damn screen so I can get going," he said, shaking his head.
Princess stared at him for a second before reaching out. She placed her thumb on the screen. The app processed the biometric for a second and then displayed in bold green letters: Payment successful.
"Alright, we’re done here. Let’s move to the next gig, boys," the man said, turning back to his team.
"Wait... can I book you again? Right now? I need you to kill someone for me," Princess said, her voice cold.
"You should’ve said that before I accepted another job on the way here. And you don’t book like this anyway, you do it through the app. Also, we kill monsters and feral beasts, not people," the man replied over his shoulder.
"Yuki is a monster. She has my girlfriend. I need to find her and I need to kill her."
The man stopped and looked back. "I used to be a big fan of Yuki. My daughter and I used to watch all her fights together. That girl loves Yuki to the bone... she even worships her. Her entire room is filled with Yuki’s posters," he said. You could tell by the crinkle of his eyes that he was smiling under the mask, a sad kind of look.
"Well, you should tell your daughter that her idol Yuki is a monster..." Beam added bitterly.
"I wish I could..." he said, his tone dropping. Then he straightened up and gestured toward a path. "I can only give you a ride back to your place since it’s on the way. That’s all. Nothing else."
The masked man and his team drove them back in a rugged transport vehicle, dropping Princess and Beam off at the beach house before disappearing back into the night.
Inside, the house was mostly quiet. Kiara was sitting on the sofa, casually painting her nails a bright shade of pink. She looked up as the door swung open, seeing Princess and Beam staring at her with completely deadpan expressions.
"You’re welcome," Kiara said, waving her wet nails casually in the air.
Princess and Beam had a thousand things to say, questions about why she ran off when things got bad, how she found a mercenary app, and how she managed to hire a team of professional hunters.
But they were too exhausted to even start. Instead, they walked right past her, their eyes scanning the living room for the others.
Kiara didn’t wait for them to ask. She told them the others were already gone. They had left a note on the counter saying they went back into the woods to search for Faye on their own.
