Chapter Twenty-Four
Y ou can never really predict how a body is going to react to its own demise.
Sometimes it’s a silent death. Other times, the body flails around and screams.
There could even be a lot of blood, or none at all.
Do you know what you don’t see a dying body do every day?
Explode.
Yep. Forsythia stabbed that fucker in the heart. There was this millisecond of blissful silence, and then it sounded like a watermelon bursting open.
Only, instead of yummy bits of fruit flying everywhere, it’s this black jelly goop of yuck.
The three of us sit and just stare. Eyes wide. Mouths slack.
Even Lucian is in shock. He got me past the point of bleeding out before that happened, thankfully, or I might have died before we all unfroze again. Maybe. Probably not, but still.
Big surprise here, but my mouth seems to be the first thing to break the spell.
“What the fucking eww just happened?”
Forsythia whips her head in my direction.
At least I think it’s Forsythia. She is covered in black goop and all I can see are the whites of her eyes. She raises a finger– again, I’m just guessing here– and points right at me.
“This is your fault!” Her voice is so high-pitched I bite back my laughter.
She starts shaking. “It’s everywhere. Everywhere .”
Lucian loses his shit and actually falls over laughing. Her murderous eyes turn towards him and I take the opportunity to let go of the laughter I had been holding in. Only mine is complete with grunts, because it fucking hurts to laugh right now dammit.
A pained cough has us all freezing again.
Forsythia whips her head back and focuses on the mass underneath her, which is also covered in black goo.
Lucian moves to her side quickly and I roll my eyes at him.
“Nah, big guy. I’m fine. I will just drag myself over there. It’s cool.” I mumble under my breath.
More coughing.
“Blake, I don’t know if you want to see this.” Forsythia’s voice is so quiet it’s almost a whisper.
The shock and worry in her voice fills me with a newfound strength. I lift myself off the ground and walk over to the others, keeping my arm held tight across my stomach.
I hate how abdomen wounds always feel like your guts are about to fall out and you have to hold them in. It’s fucking weird.
And speaking of fucking weird…
You know that moment when you see your mother for the first time in almost thirty years and she doesn’t even look at you like she recognizes you?
No?
Just me?
Cool.
The even stranger part is that she looks almost exactly like she did before. Long and lean frame that would show her athletic build and tall stature if she were standing. Dark deep set eyes that are only slightly too far apart. A short thin nose above two plump lips, that once upon a time may have even kissed me goodnight after a bedtime story.
Or maybe that was all in my imagination?
She reaches up and grabs Forsythia’s arm, causing Lucian and I to both jump, prepared to jump in if our mate needs us. But Sythia holds up her hand and we ease back.
“You saved me. Thank you.” Euyriale croaks in a voice I only barely manage to recognize.
“What do you mean saved you?“ Forsythia bites back, throwing her hands around wildly and displaying her obvious irritation. “You are the reason that creature existed in the first place!”
Euyriale coughs again, but Sythia makes no effort to move away, still effectively pinning her to the ground.
“Yes, I know.” Was that– guilt I heard in her voice? “But I know where I went wrong. I can fix things. You can help me this time. I know with the Noctifer Witch’s powers, we can make my spell better, greater even.” Euyriale continued to babble on, but I stop hearing her.
Not only does she not even recognize me, but her mind is so warped that all she can think about is doing it again?
What the fuck is wrong with her?
“No.” My deep voice startles me a little, but I push the rest of the words out. “This ends now. She won’t stop. We have to stop her.”
Forsythia looks up at me and I nod, reassuring her of what needs to be done, but giving into my cowardice and turning away. I put my trust in my mate, much like I have been asking her to do with us, and let her take care of this.
This time, I’m protecting the little boy that lives deep inside me from the horrors of his mother, telling him that it was not his mother he just saw. Only her ghost. Just a ghost.
She never loved me the way I always yearned for, and I know… deep down I know that she never will. She is not capable of returning the foolish love that I never knew I still held on to.
The tiny bit I kept hidden deep, buried away, trying year after year to convince myself that it didn’t exist at all.
I close my eyes on my pain and steady myself on a tree trunk, as Euyriale begins to curse and yell. A tear falls from my eyes and I fight the urge to scream out my unwanted pain. The undeserved mourning.
Please, Gods make this stop.
There is a loud thunk sound, followed by a deafening silence.
A cold breeze blows through the clearing and I let the chill on my skin be my reason for shuddering.
I have no excuse for the tears that coat my cheek.
Or the tiny sob I force myself to swallow.