Lycan's Prey by Jessica Hall

Chapter 68

Yet before I beat my brother, my Mother’s voice grows closer, laced with authority and the saccharine sweetness reserved for wedding talk. “Has anyone seen Soren?” she asks one of the passing staff. She dives into a conversation with them about the wedding, her words clawing at the air, reaching out for me.

“God knows who she’s enlisted now,” I mutter under my breath.

“Have fun,” Damian’s laughter needles at my back. The desire to turn around and wipe that smug look off his face is almost overwhelming–but I know better. I dart away, leaving him

behind.

I race towards the staircase, each step taking me further from the dreaded wedding plans. My mother’s voice swells, tugging at the edges of my sanity. “…and the linens, they simply must match the drapery!”

Panic, sharp and acrid, fills my throat. She’s getting closer, probably armed with fabric samples and more scratch and sniff floral catalogs, where she got those overnight is beyond me. I bolt for the stairs, skipping two at a time, praying for a few moments of peace. The cool relief of escape washes over me briefly–until Damian’s traitorous timbre reaches my ears

once more.

“I just saw him head upstairs, Mother. He told me to tell you he was getting some more catalogs, he has an idea for the reception.” His words drip with feigned innocence. I’m going

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life from him and hang him by his tail when I see him next!

closet. No time to curse my luck; another door, just a few desperate strides away,

steps echo on the stairwell, a steady march toward me. I can’t let her find me, not now when every fiber of my being screams to keep running. There’s only one place left which is also the most obvious, the last place in this game of hide and seek, my room.

through the door, heart hammering against my rib cage, and press my back to its solid comfort. Safe,

whisper to the empty air, to the walls, to any deity that might

voice, sharp and betraying, slices through the silence. “I think I saw him head towards his room!”

smug tone I know too well. He might as

click–clack of my mother’s heels is like a countdown to my doom, each step another tick on the clock of my waning sanity. I’m one scratch and sniff away from losing my sense of smell. With panic nipping at my heels, I rush into the closet, hands frantically searching the hanging clothes for a hideout, where is an invisibility cloak

I hear the shower running, mom won’t walk in on her showering, but I bloody

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of my chest. The shower tiles are slick beneath my feet as I nearly slide into Bree, who’s just a silhouette behind the fogged–up frosted

blurt like an idiot.

octave before my hand lands over her mouth, silencing her mid–scream. I shut the shower door, ignoring the way the water lashes at my clothes, plastering them

hiss, barely audible above the drumming of water on the

tension coils in my chest, a spring wound too tight, ready to snap. “If