Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 582

Chem 5

all happened to fast * fath of movement at the edge of the platform, a small hooded figne waiting up the steps, and then the knife coming down in a quick, hard are that made the blade catch the red light overhead.

Andrei threw himself sideways just before the knife collided with his chest. The Made caught nothing, but air, narrowly avoiding its mark, and for a half second, everything on that platform went completely still. The crowd went quiet, the guard behind me stiffened, and the air grew more stifling than ever.

1 stared at the figure, my chest heaving, heart pounding a mile a minute.

Could it really be…?

Then the hood fell back, revealing the face I thought I had seen in the crowd, but hadn’t had a chance to make out fully before he dispapeared. Now, my son’s face was on full display, and I knew I hadn’t imagined it.

He was in so much more danger than I ever thought.

“Max!” The word tore out of my throat before I could stop it. “RUN!”

He was already spinning to try again, the knife raised over his head, his face set with determination. He looked so much like his father in that moment that it hurt to watch. Because he looked so much like Andrei, and yet he was trying to kill him, and Andrei was trying to kill Max, and…

Goddess, help me.

“Seize him!” Andrei had already recovered, straightening up, his eyes black with fury. He pointed at Max and two guards lurched forward immediately.

“Max, run!” I screamed.

He didn’t run. Of course he didn’t; he was too fucking stubborn for that. He planted his feet and slashed out at the nearest guard, catching the man across the forearm. The guard recoiled, blood spraying, and Max used the opening to dart sideways, but there were too many of them and only one of him. They crowded around him before he could escape, and then his form disappeared.

Andrel turned to the guard behind me.

“Hang her,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Now.”

The guard didn’t hesitate. I felt a hard palm suddenly slam between my shoulder blades, and then the stool was abruptly kicked out from under my feet.

The rope pulled taut.

The world went white.

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, couldn’t do anything except try to gasp, my feet swinging uselessly in the air. The shackles bit into my wrists behind my back. The noise of the crowd became a roar and then a strange, muffled nothingness, like my ears had given up making out the sound. My vision pulsed at the edges, dark and then light and then dark again.

I was going to die here.

I thought of Hope, who was probably napping at this very moment, completely oblivious. I thought of Jane, sitting at the kitchen table doing her homework with impatience so she could get back to her healer studies. I thought of Max, standing on that platform with a knife in his fist, his father’s jaw and his mother’s stubbornness and his whole life still ahead of him, snuffed out like a candle in the wind.

And then the pressure released.

The rope slackened so suddenly that I dropped, hitting the platform on my hands and knees hard enough to split the skin. I gasped and the air that rushed in was the best and worst thing I’d ever felt, burning all the way down. I pressed my forehead to the wood and just breathed.

“Mom.” Max’s hands grabbed my arms, pulling me upright. He had the knife in one hand and a length of cut rope in the other, and he was already looking over his shoulder. “Can you walk?”

“Yes.” My voice came out hoarse. I grabbed his wrist and got to my feet.

The platform was in chaos. The guard who had been behind me was on the ground, something having put him there in the time it took me to nearly die. Two more were converging from the left. Andrei was standing at the edge, chest heaving, staring at me with fury in his eyes.

Max and I ran.

We went off the back of the platAform, dropping down into the narrow corridor of space between the castle wall and the outer structure. My legs were unsteady under me but I kept them moving, one hand trailing against the wall for balance. Max kept pace beside

me, checking over his shoulder every few seconds.

“The Next “This way.” He pulled me left, toward a gap the miter wall I hadn’t noticed before

We made it maybe thirty feet at most before figure stepped into the gap ahead of us

Andrei filled the space completely, one hand braced against each side of the well. blocking the only way out. He wasn’t out of breath. He just stood there and looked at us, and the expression on his face was the coldest thing I’d seen from him yet

He had a sword in his right hand. Long, heavy, with a blade that gleamed in the light Freshly sharpened.

Max stepped forward.

“Max.” I grabbed the back of his jacket. “Don’t.”

Andrei’s eyes moved to Max. He turned the blade slowly in his hand, and something

the way he looked at my son sent a wave of cold through me that stood out

against the heat in the air.

bok one step forward.

And then another.

Max raised the knife.

Andrei moved.

It was faster than I expected even knowing what he was. He closed the distance in two strides, his head coming up to knock the knife from Max’s grip. Max ducked

w but not quickly enough, and Andrei caught him by the collar and ard, raising the blade.

away from the hauled him

Everything pened at once.

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