Page 107 of Fake Fae-Ancée
"You are seriously out of your mind."
He shook his black feathers. "I know where your ex-husband is. I know where Anastasia is. If he sees you're no longer in any danger, we can stop them."
I blinked. My heart was racing, adrenaline rushing through my aching limbs.
Did the guy I'd been hiding from for months because he wanted to slice me up like a fish offer me a deal?
Still, I didn’t lower the gun.
"Come with me."
"Why should I trust you?" I hissed. "Why would you help me?"
"I only answer to my contractor. But this time, my contractor is wrong in what she’s doing. I must stop her." Nox looked at me impenetrably.
I held his gaze. Calculated my options. I had no idea where Yuri was. And I had to stop him. I couldn't let him marry someone else. Everything in me screamed to run to the church where he was about to tie himself to that princess from hell, and drag him out by his hair.
Nox apparently knew where to go.
"I am your only chance to save him."
Damn this fucker!
Chances were that this was just another trick. But I had no other choice.
I lowered the gun.
"Let’s go," I said.
Nox opened his massive beak and snarled. And before I could react, he had grabbed me by the waist with one of his gigantic claws and pulled me up into the icy heights of Helsinki's night sky.
Yuri
The ceremony was probably supposedto be a short, but Yegor had apparently not fully anticipated the long and complicated ways of the Orthodox Church of Bears. The patriarch had been talking for twenty minutes now, and the few people present in the chapel — three armed members of the royal guard, the reigning King of Bears Yegor III, the happy bride, who didn't look so happy anymore, and yours truly — started to shuffle their feet.
I didn't think about the angry mob of Bear-noblemen still waiting in front of the Royal Palace, unaware of what was going on. They were expecting the fight between the king and the challenger to start soon. Instead, the subjects of the Bears would be bitterly disappointed when I would come out of the palace, married to a totally different woman than I had been "engaged" to when the night had started. There would be no new king. And the prophecy wasn't true either.
Baba had been mistaken.
I wasn't thinking about Anastasia, either. She had been hastily put into a wedding dress that made her look like a hateful meringue. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her bouquet of flowers trembling.
I thought peripherally about how I would have taken Yegor apart, piece by piece, limb by limb, if I had gotten my rightful chance at a fair duel. But I should have heeded Baba's words more: Yegor would defend his stolen throne by any means necessary. And that's what he was just doing.
The only clear thought in my head was to get Kai to safety. Bear paced in the prison of my mind, completely out of control, huffing, snorting and snarling. I had no illusions that Yegor would not leave her alone once the ceremony was done and over with. This wedding would not stop him. He would do anything to make sure the prophecy didn't come true after all. I had to find Kai. I had to get her to safety. That was all that mattered.
"I'm sorry." Anastasia's whispered words nudged me out of my thoughts. I blinked, casting her a sidelong glance.
"It's a little late now," I whispered back, my words obscured by the Patriarch's droning sermon echoing through the chapel.
"All this time, I thought this was all I wanted..." I startled when I saw the tear running down her cheek. "But it isn’t."
The patriarch stopped in his spiel, looking down on us from his pedestal, his long beard and robe giving him the look of a confused wizard.
"Does the bride have second thoughts?" he asked, bewildered.
Yegor next to the patriarch scrunched up his face, but before he could even draw a breath, the ceiling above us exploded in a violent crash and a million shards of glass in all colors of the rainbow were hailing down on us. Anastasia screamed.
A huge black shadow crashed into the chapel like a furious angel of revenge, black wings outstretched enough to brush the ceiling. In a splayed claw, like a stray candy bag, hung Kai.
