Chapter 21: Chapter 21

Estella hesitates to walk away. She looks at me then back at the gate.

“Are you sure that I can go?”

“Don’t worry, you won’t get fried,” Gwen rolls her eyes and pushes Estella outside, “See… nothing. Now go before someone sees you. I think I’ve made two much false alarms for one day.”

Estella turns to me, “I’m sorry that I couldn’t help you but, I’ll be back. I promise.”

“I know, just go home safely.”

“I always do.”

Gwen’s eyes moves around, “Run away before I I make you. They can be here any minute.”

She grabs my arm and pulls me away from the closed gate while I turn to stare at Estella one last time as she walks away.

“I don’t think she will come here again. I don’t want her to.”

“She will,” Gwen says as she rushes in to her room and closes the door, “I will keep in contact with her. The more people I meet, the more we will have on our side.”

What?

With a weird smile, she pokes her head out of the door and beckons someone in.

“What are you doing- oh.”

When Greyson steps in and closes the door behind him, I begin to understand… in a way.

“What are you doing in here, you can get caught.”

“The king already found out about me but the queen was there to help out and it came with certain conditions.”

“Conditions,” I frown at him, “What conditions?”

He pushes it aside and so do I.

I push away the way I feel when he calls her the queen.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” He shrugs, “Not that brutal.”

“What conditions, Greyson?”

I narrow my eyes and take a step forward but Gwen pushes me back.

“Maintain a good space, young lady. He can only get so hot. There’s a limit.”

“Exactly,” He smiles.

“What do you want, Greyson?”

He looks behind him, at the door and turns back to us, “I had to get out of the station since the alarm.”

“What alarm?”

“Oh, that was me. It was actually a false alarm. Estella had to get out of here without being caught.”

“Estella? Who is that?” He asks.

“A friend of mine.”

“I find that very hard to believe. When did you get friends.”

At his statement, both he and Gwen burst out in laughter and I roll my eyes, walking over to the door.

“I need to get out of here before my brain cells get deceased,” I mutter, open the door and walk away swiftly.

“Your brain cells?”

I jump immediately, only to see the queen- Gwen in front of me with a smile.

“You scared me.”

“Yes, I am sorry for that.”

I notice the way she twirls a ring in her finger, the ring Sebastian proposed to her with.

“It was a honest mistake but I want to ask if you would like to accompany me.”

“Accompany you?”

Her eyes flicks around my face nervously, “Sebastian’s birthday is coming up and I need to get a gift for him. I know that I could get people to follow me but I thought you would like to come with me.”

No, honey.

I love staying here all by myself, away from that bastard… but I give her a smile.

“I would love to…”

I don’t think she notices the way the words because she smiles immediately.

“Thank you, thank you! This will actually mean a lot to him.”

As she grows excited, I nod with my lips parted a little as I hold back my comments.

I doubt how it will mean a lot to him.

After all, he is a psycho, a really huge psycho and it seems that she is naive too.

“Yeah, I guess,” I squint, “Do we need any guards.”

“Sebastian would freak out if I don’t take security with me,” She beckons to… no one is in the hall right now.

Immediately, guards troop in and my exaggerating mind count them as a billion when there are barely ten in here.

“Come on, we don’t have all day to wait around.”

“Okay?”

The next second is a blur and I find myself standing in an entirely different place.

I look around with wide eyes, “How did I get here, to the parking lot. When did the castle have a parking lot.”

A car zooms towards us and when it stops, she opens the door, “You really need a tour.”

My minds starts replaying her words in different accents.

“I think I do.”

I walk towards her as she steps in to the car and I do so too, closing the door behind me.

When the car start moving, I sight a black SUV behind us.

“I’m guessing that’s where the guards are.”

Oh Goddess, I think I have read about this before.

“Yes. They have seperate cars to accommodate their weapons and gadgets.”

Gadgets and weapons?

Turning away from her as I blink, my eyes widen.

“Stop the car! Stop the ca-”

As the car zooms out of the main gate, a wave of electric shocks hits me with a force I can’t withstand and I resort to whither on the seat of the car.

The energy grows and my body bounces from shock, my lips parted but unable to say a word.

The high voltage of shocks I feel is as painful as it gets.

When I feel a click on my wrist, the shocks stops and fade in to nothing and I begin to gasp like a fish out of a bowel of water.

“Shit! That hurts more than the last time. I told myself that I won’t do that again but I seriously just did. What is wrong with me?”

The car bounces up with me along with it and Grace looks down at me.

“It seems like the shocks increased your ramblings to a hundred.”

I groan and stretch out my arm, “Just help me up.”

She also reaches out to me and pulls me up.

Her hand presses down on a cold metal on my wrist and I pull my hand back to inspect it.

“Is that a chain?”

“In a way, it is. It’s laced with wolfbane, silver and vervain.”

My eyes widen as I tilt my wrist, “Did you just say the two most deadlist things in a werewolf’s life?”

“It’s the only thing that can get out of the castle’s premises without dying from electric shocks. A temporary solution,” She leans back as she looks at me, “I hope that you won’t do something reckless.”

I am not agreeing to that.

“I won’t, I promise,” to not pull my bracelet off…

I state, my hands pressing on the bracelet to see if it burns.

It doesn’t.

“How did you get this?”

“I am the queen, I can get anything I ask for,” She smiles.

And… I don’t know where to classify that statement.

She looks up to my still body.

“I’m joking. Sebastian has a temporary and permanent solution. Although I don’t know the permanent one.”

“Bummer, you would have helped me, right?”

“I mean if Sebastian agrees to it then yes, but if he doesn’t then I can’t do anything about it.”

I scoff as she gazes away in reminisce or maybe it’s something else?

How am I supposed to know?

“I doubt that.”

“Sometimes Sebastian scares me,” She turns to me. I don’t know if she is actually paying attention to me though. “He is stronger, faster and so much better in everything while I am a human, a human that he can break one day.”

The car slows down and she pikes up her head, “We are here, get out of the car and please don’t try to run away.”

“I won’t. I told you that already.”

She stares at me for some seconds, obviously unaware of my internal smugness.

When she is sure of what I have promised, she opens the door and I follow after her.

The guards are behind us immediately we step down from the car and I look around, inhaling the warm scent of baked bread.

“There is a bakery up ahead. We can go there when we get Sebastian’s gift. It wouldn’t hurt anyone if we get a snack for him too.”

Actually it will hurt someone, and that person is me.

Goddess, why did I come with her again?

When she starts walking, I follow behind her and the guards ensues after us too.

I think that they are keeping a watchful eye on me or, I am being extra crazy today.

Yeah… I think it’s both.

“What are you getting for Sebastian?”

“You mean what are we getting for Sebastian.”

Her smile wants to make me jump off the bridge we walk on, to stop myself from smacking her across the face.

Oh yes! I just thought of that.

Is it me or is she annoying.

“I am not involved in this.”

“Yes, you are.”

She drags me in to a shop we stop in front of, and she heads to the counter, to a white woman.

“Do you need anything-” The woman pales when she stares up at Grace, “I’m sorry, my queen. I didn’t notice that it was you.”

The woman bows then smiles and Grace and all of a sudden, I feel like batching both their heads in.

Gosh, I am extra crazy today.

“This is a male jewellery store right?”

Maybe, she wants to get earrings for him… I didn’t know that he wears earrings…

“Yes, I also have a few female jewellery too.”

Grace looks around, “Actually, I am here to pick up something from my mate. His birthday is coming soon and I don’t really know what to get from him. Do you have any suggestions?”

“There are a few silver watches around. Will that be okay?” The woman peers up at her, all the while, ignoring me.

“If that’s not good then you can pick something else from a different store. I think you should look for something that expresses your love for him.”

I don’t have any love for him right now, only hate.

I then decide to talk…

“Thank you…” My eyes then scans her clothes for a name tag of some sort but I find none.

“My name is irrelevant, my dear,” She turns back to Grace, “Why don’t you get moving. You have a lot to go through.”

The warm smile she gives to me makes me almost regret thinking about smashing her head.

Almost.

“Thank you, Miss Irrelevant,” I smile and grab Grace’s arm, already walking out of the glass door.

Grace turns back to the shop when we are already out of it and glares at me, “That was rude. Why did you do that?”

Because I can.

“Because she was wasting our time. I don’t know how much time this bracelet will hold but I don’t want to be tempted to eat myself when I turn to barbecue.”

“You won’t become a barbecue, Minerva. The bracelet is highly effective,” She argues and I roll my eyes.

“It’s funny how I am putting my life in the hands of a bracelet and a mate snatcher,” I mutter lowly.

“What?” She frowns. She clearly didn’t hear a word I said.

“I am going to wait around the car,” I shrug.

“I can’t let you do that, Minerva,” She shakes her head, “I can’t let you out of my sight."

“And you won’t. send guards to watch over me, while you go find what you want to buy for your loving mate.”

She hesitates first.

“Okay, but don’t do anything stupid.”

“I don’t do stupid things,” I turn away and mutter under my breath, “I do crazy things.”

With one last look at my surrounding, I break off in to a sprint.

It takes a few seconds for her to realize that I am on the move but this I am already tasting the air of freedom.

“Minerva, Minerva!”

Guards trail behind me, almost catching up to me but I increase my speed and that’s when shocks erupts from my body, making me fall on the rough ground in pain.

My mouth can’t scream in pain as I watch Grace stand before me.

“I told you not to do anything stupid.”