Free and Unfettered 51 Breaking And Entering

Brooke was tearing himself up over it. Even though he and Deltan liked to fight, he still considered the prince his friend, deep, deep down inside. Aciel couldn't help but worry about him. Dark circles were forming under his eyes, and he looked more haggard by the day.

It had been a week since Deltan had been kidnapped, and their group of five had shrunk to four. Just one person was gone, but it left a constantly aching hole that they couldn't ignore. Against better judgement, the four of them had left Cosmos City after combing it thoroughly with their other classmates.

A group of five stayed back to inform their Teacher of what had happened in their negligence whilst he was away, while the rest of them set out to try and find Deltan. One week was already far too long. Being in the state of eternal sleep, he had no plausible way to defend himself.

At least they knew that there was no way it was the Vampire who had marked him that had taken the prince. Since he was still in the underwater part of Cosmos City, the person who took him must have been a citizen who knew about this hidden secret.

To their frustration, it seemed like Deltan was the exception and didn't have any hidden guards of his own. Even their teacher had his own hidden guard or two! A hidden guard with a Master was always able to track their Master down through their bond. Aciel felt a strong need to throttle that stupid prince. As the Eldest Prince, there was surely no end of people who were after his life. Why didn't he have a hidden guard of his own?! Cosmos City was safe, but not that safe! When they found him again, she was going to have a little 'spar' with him.

At least they struck off a few of the potential people who would possibly be the kidnapper. They were more than halfway through the list, keeping in touch via the transmission function on the bracelet their teacher gave them. It made things go a lot quicker, splitting up the work.

The place they were heading towards now was one of the summer residences of Baron Ruben Beverley. They had reports that he had been staying there from the one week before Deltan had been abducted up until now. Even if the chances were low, they weren't willing to overlook anything.

Aciel, Lucien, Eden and Brooke slay all the monsters in the vicinity as they neared the secret summer residence home to prevent anything from giving them away. It was around twilight now, the time when people were the least alert, working in their favour.

Silently, the four broke into the residence without alerting the guards. They mapped out every inch of the residence, noting the number of servants as well as the food and ammunition.

Aciel headed in the direction of the Baron's office, going through the drawers with great efficiency and familiarity. Doing the same thing over the past week had bred familiarity. She could almost call herself an expert now.

Aciel's eyes hardened when she read several of the Baron's correspondence letters. It puzzled her how he was being so arrogant when he had allowed his daughter to kidnap a prince of their Empire. It was almost as if he hadn't realized the Empire's might. Did he think really think he would get away with kidnapping a prince?

Aciel turned the drawer over, having realized that the drawer wasn't as deep as it should have been. Sure enough, it had a false bottom, with another few letters inside it.

The blonde quickly made perfect forgeries of the letters and left to head to their meetup spot, sharing the news.

Four pair of cold eyes looked at the letters of correspondence, reading through each one.

Lucien's eyes narrowed as he thought about what was bugging him.

"These are all fakes," he said. "If we had followed these, it would have led us on a false trail while giving them time to escape. But the ones hidden inside the false bottom are real. They contain too much detailed information that the Baron wouldn't want to make known. The other fakes still somewhat give a way out should they have been used as evidence."

Brooked bared his teeth in annoyance, feeling relieved that Lucien was still able to see things objectively. He had almost rushed off in his haste, which would have led to Deltan being in more danger than he was in right now. He felt a bubbling of disgust that was directed at the Beverley family. He didn't think that the whole family would be corrupted through and through.

Eden suddenly snarled. "It's that woman. The one Deltan sent to the infirmary for a couple of weeks because she couldn't keep her mouth shut about Teacher."

Without another word, the four of them left in unison, bypassing the vast amounts of security on the Baron's bedroom door with ease. They knocked out the guard standing outside the door before he had any time to shout, securing him with magic blocking rope and slapping a sealing rune over his mouth.

Eden hauled the body to the side, placing him in a corner where he wouldn't get in the way.

The door opened without a sound as Lucien stepped in, his eyes glowing eerily in the darkness. He did the same thing they had done to the guard on the Baron sleeping soundly in the bed. Lucien shut all the doors and closed the windows and cast a silencing ward on the room. The whole process took around five seconds, which was abnormally quick.

The four students gathered around his bed in the darkness, four pairs of glowing eyes staring at the prone form. He hadn't even twitched when they did all of that to him.

Brooke pulled out a dagger and stabbed the man in the thigh, feeling no sympathy whatsoever as the man's eyes flew open and bulged out at the pain, trying to cry out, but no sound left his mouth.

The four didn't say anything further as Brooke stabbed him a few more times in the darkness, somewhat venting the past few days of stress.

Baron Ruben Beverley shivered in fear as the pain assaulted all of his senses. He looked at the four pairs of glowing eyes in the dark, feeling terrified as the fear factor crept up a notch. He was being looked at with indifferent eyes, almost as if his pain meant nothing to them. These people… what did they want?

Could it be? Someone had found out that he had kidnapped the Eldest Prince? How could it be! He was sure that his preparations had been perfect, and whatever trails that he might have left would be considered false trails. After all, he had only taken a vacation because His Majesty had asked him to more than a week ago, excusing him from court. How did they get in?! He made sure that the wards placed on his room was almost impossible for a person to break through, let alone four of them!

That's right, it couldn't possibly be that they had realized it was him who had abducted the prince, so were they were on a personal grudge? Or were they mercenaries or assassins who had accepted a job on his head?

Baron Ruben tried to speak, only to realize that the seal on him made sure that he couldn't scream, let alone talk. It seemed like they had no intention of letting him run his mouth. Cold sweat drip down his neck. It looked like these four people were dead serious. They were not trying to negotiate at all. The power was all in their hands.

Chapter end