Chapter 427-My Boss Vs Fox King

Verity:

My sleep shattered in an instant, and I jolted upright in bed.

As I looked around in confusion, I realized the other side of the bed was completely empty.

My eyes darted toward the bedside clock.

It was two in the morning.

What the hell was happening outside?

The door was already open when Ragnar suddenly rushed back into the room.

He glanced at me, then ignored me completely and hurried straight to his bag.

Without thinking, I threw the blanket aside, jumped out of bed, and ran outside.

Near the vending machine in the motel courtyard, a woman sat on the ground with her daughter wrapped tightly in her arms.

Nearly everyone staying at the motel had come outside.

Some were trying to console them, while others stood nearby looking just as frightened and confused.

Our driver suddenly hurried toward me.

"Ma’am, you need to go back inside. It isn’t safe out here," he warned.

I frowned at him, then glanced back into the room to see what Ragnar was doing.

He was frantically rummaging through his bags.

"What’s going on? What happened?" I asked the driver.

He pointed toward the woods, his turning face pale.

"The child said she saw... she saw the Fox King in the woods," he stammered. "She said he was coming to kill her."

Goosebumps instantly spread across my entire body.

Just hearing that name was enough to put a crushing weight on my chest, especially because the Fox King was my mate.

He wasn’t just someone with whom I have felt the mate bond with. I had mated with him. I had slept with him. I had lost my virginity to him.

Then something suddenly clicked.

I looked back into the room and saw Ragnar pull a strange-looking compact gun from his bag.

And whatever it was, it did not look good.

I rushed back inside to stop Ragnar.

I had no idea what he was planning to do, but before I could shut the door and confront him, he brushed past me so quickly that I nearly slammed into it.

I immediately ran after him.

He strode across the motel grounds, motioning sharply toward the crowd.

"Everyone, go back to your rooms!" he shouted.

People scattered at once, hurrying away at his command.

Our driver exchanged a quick glance with me before rushing upstairs, while I kept moving briskly after Ragnar.

"Ragnar! Ragnar, stop!" I yelled.

"I said everyone go back to your rooms. Are you not included in everyone?"

He stopped abruptly in the middle of the road and turned around to snap at me, but I was moving too fast and crashed straight into his hard chest.

My nose hit so painfully that for a second, I thought it had started bleeding.

"Ow!" I cried, covering it with both hands.

Ragnar took a few steps forward before slowing down. With visible reluctance, he turned and came back to me.

"Verity, why? Why the fuck would you...?" he demanded in frustration.

Then he bent down to check my nose, carefully pulling my hands away. Even while examining me, he looked restless and panicked, constantly shifting as though every second mattered.

"Okay, your nose is fine. Go back inside. Now."

He straightened abruptly and started walking away again.

"What the fuck do you think you’re doing?" I shouted, rubbing my nose as I hurried after him.

"Verity, don’t test my patience," he yelled without even looking back.

Then he disappeared into the woods.

And, of course, I followed.

I didn’t know what had happened, what the child had actually seen, or why she believed the Fox King had been trying to kill her.

More importantly, I couldn’t understand why Ragnar’s first instinct had been to grab a gun.

And where the hell had that gun even come from?

It didn’t look ordinary.

Why had he been carrying something like that in the first place?

Ragnar moved quickly through the woods, using the flashlight on his phone to illuminate the path ahead, while I kept stealing glances at the weapon in his hand.

Strange symbols were engraved along its surface.

The handle had an intricate golden design, something that looked like either a snake or a dragon, though I couldn’t be sure because he was moving too fast.

"Ah, for fuck’s sake," he groaned when he realized I was still following him.

But I had to.

I couldn’t let him kill someone who was my mate.

Maybe that sounded selfish, but I wanted to know what was actually happening before anyone put a gun to my mate’s head.

And, strangely enough, the Fox King was the only mate I felt emotionally connected to.

The others were the ones I was supposed to hate.

A sudden movement rustled through the trees, and Ragnar immediately aimed his gun in its direction.

The moment I saw his finger hover over the trigger, something came over me.

I lunged forward, grabbed his muscular arm with both hands, and forced it toward the sky.

He didn’t fire.

Instead, he shot me a glare filled with anger, surprise, disbelief, disappointment, and something far more unsettling.

Suspicion.

A deer emerged from behind the trees and darted into the darkness.

"I wasn’t going to shoot until I saw him," Ragnar hissed. "But why the fuck would you jump in like that? Were you trying to save a serial killer?"

The words spilled out in a single furious breath.

The veins along his neck stood out, and his eyes were bloodshot. I had never seen Ragnar this angry, not even when he fought the Lycan.

This felt personal.

For someone who had insisted that the Fox King was nothing more than an urban legend, a myth people whispered about, Ragnar’s reaction suggested otherwise.

"Because..." I faltered, slowly stepping away from him.

He lowered the gun and rolled his neck as if trying to rein in his temper.

"Verity," he warned, his voice dropping dangerously low. "Why would you want to save a serial killer?"

Then he tilted his head slightly, studying me as though he could see straight through whatever excuse I was about to give him.

For the first time, Ragnar didn’t look sexy.

He looked terrifying.