The Lycan King’s Mark (Nevara) by Tiffanie L. Campbell novel Chapter 144

The gunshot cracked through the square so sharply that for one disorienting heartbeat, the entire city seemed to go still.

Then the crowd broke.

Not into full panic–not yet–but into the first dangerous ripples of it. Hundreds of people rose at once, chairs scraping over stone, voices climbing in confusion as heads turned in every direction searching for

the source. The musicians near the fountain dropped their instruments mid–note. A vendor shouted for

someone to get back from his cart. Somewhere near the western side of the square, a child began to cry.

My hand tightened around Nevara’s instinctively as I stepped in front of her without thinking.

Kael was already moving.

One second he stood at the edge of the platform, his eyes sweeping the crowd in the same quiet pattern

they had all morning. The next he had a hand to the comm at his collar, his voice low, fast, controlled in a way that only sounded calm if you didn’t know what it cost him to keep it that way.

“Sound source?” he snapped. “Rooftops confirm. Outer ring lock down. No one leaves the square.”

The answer crackled faintly through his earpiece, too quiet for me to make out. He turned slightly, scanning the southern side of the plaza, then the rooftops, then the packed streets beyond the chairs where the crowd had started shifting in wide, uneasy waves.

I kept Nevara behind me as my own gaze swept the square. From the platform, the city suddenly looked different. What had felt open and bright only seconds earlier now seemed too full, too narrow, too alive with movement. Every body became a possible threat. Every raised voice sharpened the tension.

“Snipers?” I called.

Kael didn’t look back at me. “Still in position.”

That was something.

The officiant had stumbled backward, pale and silent. Sabrina stood rigid on the opposite side of the platform, one hand pressed against the front of her dress as she stared into the crowd with the same horrified focus as everyone else. Below us, the guards in the inner ring had already widened their formation around the stage.

Then Nevara twisted out from behind me.

“Mom,” she said.

I turned toward the front row.

Nathan was there, on his feet now, one arm braced protectively across Natalie’s shoulders as she stared

174

© Chapter 144 – The Shot That Stopped the Vows

+25 Points

at the chairs where they had been sitting. Her expression was the first thing that turned the unease in my chest into something colder.

Jonas wasn’t there.

Neither was Noah.

At first I told myself they had dropped under the chairs when the shot was fired. They were children in a

crowd. A single second of chaos was enough to hide them behind standing bodies and overturned seats.

But Nevara had already stepped to the front edge of the platform, eyes searching the rows below us with growing alarm.

“Where are the boys?”

The words weren’t shouted.

They didn’t have to be.

I looked again. Front row. Side aisle. The open space near Natalie’s chair. The first two rows behind them.

Nothing.

Kael heard it in her voice before I did. He turned fully toward the front section and his expression changed

-not panic, never panic, but something far worse in a man like him.

Calculation.

He was already moving down the steps from the stage when Nevara called Jonas’s name.

“Jonas!”

Her voice carried over the chaos of the square. Enough people near the front had begun to realize

something was wrong that the noise was changing shape. It was no longer just confusion over the shot. It was becoming something more focused, more dangerous. People were looking toward the platform now,

toward us, toward the front row where Natalie stood with her hands clutched at her chest.

“Noah!” Nevara called next, louder this time.

Still nothing.

I came off the platform fast, scanning the bodies nearest the front, pushing past two guards trying to

widen the security line. Nathan turned toward me, his face grim and already understanding the question

before I asked it,

“They were right here,” he said.

“When?”

“Just before the shot.”

Nevara dropped to Natalie’s side.

Chapter 144 The Shot That Stopped the Vows

“Where did they go?”

+25 Points

Natalie shook her head hard, tears already in her eyes. “I don’t know. I looked up when everyone stood,

and they were-”

She couldn’t finish.

My pulse had gone hard and heavy in my throat.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify