Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Eli
Cyrus’s broken Sam’s arm. His bloodcurdling scream echoes off the trees as he snaps the bone with blinding speed.
“Cyrus, you can’t kill him!” Pete yells, stepping out of the trees.
I can hear the chopper in the distance, so I know the cottage he’s mentioned can’t be far from our location, giving him a place to land.
“Like hell I can’t,” Cyrus snaps back, grabbing him by the throat, Sam clutching his hands as he struggles to breathe.
“He is property of the organization. Let him go, Cyrus! Let us deal with him,” Pete yells at him.
Four hunters step out behind him, guns trained on Cyrus. His chest lights up with red dots. I growl at them, and they glance in my direction but don’t lower their guns.
I feel Addie’s fingers slip from my fur, making me look down to find she has passed out and collapsed in a heap beneath me; her entire body is covered in blood and black and blue. His scent is so strong on her that it makes me feel sick to think of what this disgusting filth has done to her.
“Cyrus, let us deal with him, please,” Pete says desperately.
Cyrus growls at him before grabbing Sam’s head and twisting; at the same time, gunfire rings out.
Cyrus gets shot in the chest, making him stumble, a menacing growl ripping from him, and I lunge at one man, tearing into his arm.
His blood fills my mouth and sprays everywhere as I rip his arm off.
I let go and see the two men that shot him lying dead on the ground, their throats ripped out.
“Enough, no more!” Pete screams, stepping between Cyrus and the two men left.
One is trying to stem the bleeding off his missing arm. The other is cowering behind Pete. Cyrus looks down at the two holes in his shirt before digging his fingers in his chest; the sound of skin tearing can be heard before he drops the two bullets on the ground one at a time.
“Problem solved,” Cyrus says, walking toward me.
“You bloody idiot, the problem isn’t solved. You just created a bigger one,” Pete says.
Cyrus shrugs and continues walking before we both freeze, hearing gasps. Looking over in the direction of the noise, I see the man whose arm I’ve torn off pick it up. The bleeding has already stopped, his arm healing though the arm can’t be reattached.
That isn’t what’s shocked us; it is the fact that the two men Cyrus killed and Sam are sitting up, dazed but very much alive.
Sam is the quickest to react, lunging for the bleeding man and sinking his fangs into his neck before Cyrus can kill him permanently.
One drop of human blood is all it takes.
Hunters are running out of the trees from every direction.
They shoot the two new vampires before they can even get up while Sam puts up his hands in surrender and drops to his knees, a triumphant smile on his face.
The two men are now dead forever without human or Lycan blood to finish the transformation.
Sam, though, is now untouchable. He is immortal and no longer the hunters’ property but belongs to the supernatural council.
“You have been giving them vampire blood?” Cyrus bellows at Pete, grabbing the man by his throat.
He tries to speak, clawing at his hands as his feet leave the ground before Cyrus tosses him aside.
That’s why he doesn’t want him to kill Sam. This is against supernatural and hunters’ law. Feeding them vampire blood is illegal unless permitted by both parties.
“It was a backup plan. We have been losing too many men,” Pete chokes out.
Hunters surround Sam, guns on him.
“Can’t touch me now unless you want to spend the rest of your lives desiccating in a cell,” Sam taunts.
Cyrus steps toward him, and I see Sam’s eyes flick to Addie’s unconscious body on the ground with a smirk on his face.
I walk back to her, standing over her, shielding her crumpled form from his eyes.
Hunters step toward him, holding silver cuffs; I recognize by the symbols on them that they have been blessed by witches.
They clamp them on him, and Sam hisses as his skin burns but doesn’t fight back, instead letting them haul him to his feet.
He knows going with them is the only thing stopping Cyrus from getting to him.
“Tell Addie I will be seeing her soon,” Sam says as they drag him through the trees toward the chopper.
I growl at him. This can’t be fucking happening.
I shift back once he is gone. Pete puts up his hands as I approach him before punching him. His face is swelling, and he spits blood onto the ground.
“Do you have any idea what you have done? This could destroy our alliances, all because you wanted to cheat your way to the top. No wonder you get voted in every year, but not anymore. When the council gets their hands on you, I will gladly watch them rip you apart for what you have done.”
“We didn’t have a choice. Over 300 of us have died at your kind’s hands this year. We had to take precautions. We keep losing people, and there won’t be any of us left. Then what? Your kind takes over humanity. I did what I had to do,” Pete says.
Cyrus walks past me, picking up Addie off the ground.
Her frail body looks tiny in his arms as she hangs limply.
Pete stares at her, a frown slipping on his face.
We’ve always known he has a soft spot for Michael’s girls.
Even if they don’t know him, we know he always keeps tabs on them.
Pete is also how I got most of my information on her family; he is still friends with Debbie and is also the one who told her of Michael’s passing.
“Go. Take care of your mate. I will make sure Sam gets dropped to the supernatural council when I go hand myself in,” he says.
I am not happy, but we have laws. Nobody wants to anger the supernatural council or give them a reason to kill you.
Sam would now have to stand trial, but that also means Addie is now going to have to testify against him, which could speed up the process of us having to change her, a topic I know she will never agree to.
* * *
Adeline
I wake to the feeling of warm hands brushing my face.
“Addie, wake up. Open your eyes for me,” Cyrus says.
My head is pounding, my eyes pulsating along with the throbbing of my head.
“That’s it. Wake up for me. I need you to drink,” he says, pressing a bottle to my lips.
Opening my eyes, they feel like sandpaper. He tips the bottle to my lips, and I choke and sputter on the water, making me cough as it goes down the wrong pipe. The coldness is soothing despite nearly drowning me, and I grab the bottle in my shaky hands, gulping it down.
It tastes funny, metallic, but I don’t care. I am thirsty. I would drink from a puddle to quench my thirst.
“That’s it. Good girl,” he says, rubbing my back.
I stare at the bottle in my hands and see the water tinged red. My heart is pounding as the events of the nightmare I have been living come forward, smashing me in the face, and I jump, looking around for him, the man who has tormented me for God knows how long.
I expect to be in the forest still, but looking around, I see I am in a car sitting on Cyrus’s lap. Eli is driving, and my heart rate slows. Cyrus grabs my face, making me look at him.
“You’re safe now. You’re with us,” he says.
“Sam?” I ask, swallowing the bile in my throat.
“The hunters took him. They will deal with him,” Cyrus answers, his eyes flickering red, and I let out a breath.
It’s over. He can’t get me now.
I stretch my aching limbs only to find they no longer ache, my skin no longer marred from Sam’s punishments.
“I gave you my blood. It was in the water,” Cyrus says, pulling me back against him.
“I want to go home,” I tell him, resting my head on his shoulder.
“We are taking you home,” he says, but I shake my head.
“No, I want to go home. I want to go home to my family,” I tell him, and Eli growls softly, but I don’t care.
“Let’s just get you home first. Then we can figure out what to do next. If you want to go home tomorrow, I will take you home,” Cyrus says.
“You know that’s not an option, Cyrus,” Eli says from the front of the car.
“Yeah, well, everything has changed now. The options have changed. I won’t argue over this, Eli. Now, eyes back on the road,” Cyrus tells him, rubbing my back softly.
I feel his lips press to my head, tingles spreading across my forehead. Eli doesn’t say anything, but I can tell he is angry at me for wanting to go home from the way he speaks to Cyrus.
* * *
It is nightfall by the time the car stops. I stretch, and the car door opens. I climb off Cyrus’s lap and step out of the car. Cyrus drapes a jacket over me to shield my bare skin from the cold breeze.
I follow them to the door, waiting, while Eli unlocks the door before flicking the lights on. The foyer lights up, and I step inside.
“Are you hungry?” Cyrus asks, but I shake my head, afraid I might throw up if I eat.
“I want to shower,” I say, looking around the house.
“I will grab you a towel. You want me to run you a bath?” Eli says.
I feel my heart rate spike, thumping erratically in my chest. I never want to have a bath again, the horror of what he did each time making my breathing hitch and lodge in my throat. I shake my head, unable to speak. Cyrus touches my back, and I jump, moving away from him.
“You okay?”
I nod, moving toward the stairs and climbing them to the bathroom.
I turn the light on before stepping in and locking the door.
Walking over to the basin, my hair is all matted, but my skin is clear of the harm he has caused it.
Looking down, I am barely clothed—still in the lingerie he put me in, though now it is stained and ripped from running in the forest. I rip them off, hating the feel of them on my skin.
My skin is stained with my blood, though the wounds heal thanks to Cyrus’s blood in my system.
I turn the shower on before hearing the door handle twist, making me look at the door. I hear one of them knock.
“Just leave it near the door,” I tell Cyrus, knowing he was meant to grab me a towel.
“Addie, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just leave the towel near the door, please,” I tell him before hearing him walk off.
When I am certain he is gone, I open the door, grabbing the towel before shutting the door and locking it.
I scrub my skin raw with the loofah before washing my hair. Yet no matter how hard I scrub my skin, I still feel filthy. Filthy from his touch. My skin feels like it is crawling with his essence, tainting me.
“Addie, I got you some clothes. I will leave them next to the door,” I hear Eli say from the other side of the door.
I hop out, wrapping a towel around myself before unlocking the door and cracking it open. Eli is standing there with some pajamas in his hands. I reach out to grab them, but he doesn’t let go.
“I get that you had a rough time with Sam, but please don’t shut us out,” he says.
Rough time? They think I had a rough time? None of this would have happened if they hadn’t interfered in my life.
I find his words insulting. Since when is being raped, held captive, beaten, and forced to play out some psycho’s fantasy just a rough time? That isn’t a rough time; that is torture.
I say nothing, just take the clothes from him and shut the door.
I get dressed quickly, chucking the clothes on before wrapping my hair in the towel.
When I am done, I chuck the thin scraps of fabric I was forced to wear in the bin beside the toilet.
Walking out, I don’t see them but can hear them talking in their bedroom.
I silently sneak down the hall before shutting myself in the spare bedroom and locking the door.