Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cyrus
I wake up in a cold sweat, panic gripping me when Addie’s thoughts are no longer invading my sleep.
Instead, I only see darkness, making me sit upright.
I can still usually hear her even when she is asleep, and I like watching her dreams. But now I feel cold for some reason.
I feel for her; she isn’t beside me. Looking over the top of Eli, I see she also isn’t beside him.
I shake him, and my heart starts racing just as the door bursts open.
Eli jumps at the bang of it hitting the wall. The light flicks on, and a panicked Maverick comes in, wearing only his checkered boxer shorts.
“I fell asleep. I fell asleep,” he says in a panic.
“Huh?” Eli asked, sitting upright, flicking the lamp on, and rubbing his eyes. “Addie, she didn’t come back from the bathroom.” Then he rushes out.
“What?” I ask, jumping to my feet.
“She went to the bathroom. I tried staying awake, but I dozed off. Before realizing it, I couldn’t smell her scent. I checked the bathroom. She wasn’t in there.”
“You let her go by herself?” Eli roars, jumping from the bed along with me.
“She told me to wait inside.”
Eli is out the door in a blur, and so am I as I chase after him.
He stops outside in the fields, and I feel for the bond, looking for a direction and finding myself pulled toward the solar panels in the fields off to the side of the village.
I look in the direction I am being pulled.
Dread consumes me, and I gulp; she is in the forest, and that means Sam’s got to her.
By the feel of her, she is a far distance already.
I know she won’t go into the woods by herself willingly; he must have used something to get her to comply.
Maverick comes over, screaming for everyone to get up. Men rush from the cottages, shifting and stripping their clothes off. Growls sound around the village as it comes alive, lights turning on as people step out of their homes.
“Find my mate! She is in the forest somewhere. I want everyone out looking for her,” Eli orders before using the bond and letting it pull him toward her.
She is deep in the forest, and I can feel how cold she is, meaning he is running with her. Porter and Maverick rush into the tree line, and I hear everyone shifting, also hunting for her. The trees blur past me as I weave in and out of them, letting the bond guide me.
I pick up her scent, but it is so faint as we follow the trail toward her.
We are a good way into the forest when I suddenly hear her start screaming for us before pain washes over her.
Eli growls, her pain pushing us harder as we desperately search for her.
The pack members, also hearing it, start running toward her location, circling around us and closing in the direction of where we are being pulled to.
We know she has to be close to the forest edge; it’s now become a race against time before he steps out of the forest with her.
She is still a good half an hour away from us, and that alone scares me because they can’t be far from escaping, and god knows what will become of her if he clears this forest. If we catch them before he leaves, we have a chance of ending this once and for all.
We push ourselves harder, and I am running faster than I ever have out of pure fear, getting closer as I run through the blurred-out forest, indicating they have slowed, her pain like a beacon urging us forward.
Her fear is so strong, I can almost taste it in the back of my throat when we suddenly get a whiff of something that makes my blood run cold as the breeze shifts: the scent of her blood.
And by how strong it is, there is a lot of it as the breeze carries her scent to us.
Pain washes over me, making me double over and gasp. Eli is also forced to grip a tree. His eyes snap to mine behind him.
“The baby,” he chokes out.
This isn’t good. She can’t go into labor now while we aren’t with her; the baby will literally tear itself out of her, and she hasn’t got my blood in her system.
There is no guarantee she will survive the transformation with Eli’s blood in her system.
Rarely would any human survive that transition, and my blood would be more dominant over his, making her a vampire.
But without it, not only will she die during birth, but if by some miracle she comes back, the shift may kill her for good.
I knew something was up with her earlier, and I went against my instincts.
She hasn’t hidden anything from us in ages, and she’s never blocked me out until tonight.
I just assumed she was having flashbacks.
She usually tries to keep those from me, but I know what he did to her, what she endured at his hands.
I now feel stupid for not prying; this mistake may just cost her her life.
* * *
Adeline
Every time I stop, he hurts Taylor. Even though she’s told me to run repeatedly, I can’t leave her in his clutches. I know he won’t hesitate to kill her.
“Run, Ada! Save yourself,” she tells me before I hear the sound of flesh on flesh as Sam hits her, her body hitting my feet as she lands on the ground. I try to pull her up when she is suddenly gone.
“Shut up!” Sam growls at her, and she groans.
“Let her go!” I cry out, trying to reach for her, yet I can’t see where she is.
He growls, pushing me forward. “Keep walking.”
Sam, becoming annoyed with how slow I am moving, tosses me over his shoulder, his shoulder digging painfully into my abdomen as he grabs Taylor, too, doing the same with her, and he starts running.
Agony is the only way to describe the pain, like my insides are being torn apart savagely.
I choke on air, finding it difficult to breathe, when suddenly I feel grass whipping my feet and know we are out of the forest. I also know by the light coming from the car parked up ahead next to Eli’s.
Sam places me on my feet before opening the boot.
He tosses my sister in it, about to lock her in, and I attack him.
He wraps his arms around me, pulling me away from the boot.
He grips the back of my hair, his fangs protruding from his top lip.
“Enough, or I will kill her in front of you,” he snaps, and I go limp. He starts walking toward the boot to shut it, and Taylor sits up, looking at me.
“Run, Ada!” she screams, and I listen, taking off through the grass but not getting very far before his arms lock around my waist, ripping me against him again.
“I wouldn’t suggest trying that again. You are really testing my patience, and I am growing rather angry with you,” he says before squeezing my stomach in his vise-like grip and making me scream.
I feel blood run down my legs and throw my head back. I hear him grunt, but he doesn’t let go, instead dragging me toward the car. I realize he has left the boot open, and I pray Taylor will get out.
As we get closer to the car, I notice she is gone, and so does Sam as he shoves me toward the back door, his head whipping from side to side looking for her, a menacing growl tearing out of him.
I struggle, kicking the door shut when he opens it, and I start thrashing.
I hear my sister’s war cry before Sam suddenly drops me, falling to the ground himself.
I land on top of him, only just scrambling off him before she brings a tire iron down on his head.
Blood sprays everywhere, and I crawl to my hands and knees before using the car to haul myself up.
I get to my feet, and she keeps hitting him, his face caving in, and he gurgles, choking on his blood.
The sight is gruesome, but I know it isn’t enough to kill him before she drops the tire iron and grabs my hand.
She starts running, pulling me with her as we both run for our lives.
We head for the coverage of the trees, running on pure adrenaline.
The long grass is whipping my body where my clothes are torn, the wind pushing against us.
I look over my shoulder and see him roll onto his hands and knees, flicking blood from his eyes with his hand, his face all bloody before he glares at us.
I turn back, running harder while clutching my stomach.
We run harder when Taylor suddenly stops, making me run past her, a strangled noise leaving her lips.
I stop, nearly stumbling from our hands breaking apart, and I turn to see why she’s stopped.
She has a look of shock on her face before it twists in pain.
Her mouth opens and closes as she gasps before her hands clutch at her stomach.
Blood starts pouring out of her mouth and down her chin, and she gurgles as she chokes on it.
“Run,” she coughs out, spluttering on her blood when my eyes land on the tire iron protruding through her stomach where her hands clutch it. “Run,” she gasps before falling to her knees, and I scream.
“No, no, no!” I cry, rushing to her. I try to pull it out in my panic, and she gurgles, the tire iron remaining embedded in her body as she slumps forward onto me.
“Taylor, please, no! No!” I cry.
My heart is torn to shreds as I push her back, trying to stop the bleeding.
I clutch her shaking hands, holding the tire iron that is sticking out of her stomach, but she just stares at me, blood running down her chin and onto her chest. I cover my mouth, not knowing how to help her.
This is my fault; she is going to die because of me.
Tears run down my face. I killed her. If only I had done what he had asked.
Hearing a growl makes me look behind her to see Sam back on his feet and walking toward me with a furious look .
Taylor falls to her side, her eyes staring blankly in front of her, and I force myself to tear my eyes away from her dead body and start running.
My agonized screams at losing my sister are deafening as I take off running from him.
“You will never escape me, Ada. I will kill you before I let them keep you!” I hear Sam scream after me as I break through the trees.
I know he isn’t even running now; he is just stalking me because he would have caught me by now. I hear howls in the distance and know Eli and Cyrus are looking for me, and I pray they’ll find me in time before Sam does.
“Addie?” Sam’s voice comes in the darkness.
I duck behind a tree, trying to be quiet as I sink to the ground pressing myself against the tree.
“I will find you, so why don’t you step out and come here before you make me any angrier?” he says.
My vision becomes blurred with my tears, and I cup my mouth, trying to muffle my cries that don’t seem to stop.
I hear him getting closer when pain tears through me, making me double over. I clutch my knees, trying to breathe through it, but it has no end before I feel blood pouring from me and running down my legs and wetting my feet.
I stumble onto my hands and knees when a violent urge to push overcomes me. An agonized scream tears out of me as I duck down. Sam instantly finds me and tries to rip me to my feet.
“There you are,” he says, jerking me toward him, the contraction easing off as he yanks me toward him.
I grip his shirt, and the urge comes back again. No, not now, please. Not now.
“Ada?” Sam says before gripping my hair and yanking my head back, a scream leaving my lips as my hair is pulled painfully from my scalp.
“Baby is coming!” I scream at him before pushing, my legs giving out as the urge overwhelms me, my hair ripping from his fingers, but each time I push, I can feel my attempts grow weaker.
“We haven’t got time for this,” he snaps at me, reaching down and grabbing my arm, dragging me after him.
My knees scrape the ground as he drags me before jerking me up to my feet with a sharp tug, and I feel my shoulder painfully slip out of my socket.
I scream at the sickening popping sensation.
Sam doesn’t even care and starts walking, not letting my wrist go.
Any tighter, he is going to snap it as I run, trying to keep up with him, only to be ripped upright every time I fall.
“Please, stop,” I cry out, the urge to push returning, and I groan when I suddenly hear a growl behind us.
Sam stops, looking around while I clutch my stomach, a pained cry escaping me as another contraction washes over me with the intense urge to push.
Suddenly, Sam is tackled, but he still holds my wrist. My body is thrown against a tree from the force before tumbling toward the earth and knocking the air from my lungs.
Pain radiates everywhere, and I am drenched in blood.
I can’t seem to catch my breath before pain tears through my stomach.
I can’t move, my back throbbing where it hits against the tree.
I just scream until I can’t anymore, and I feel like I am being held down by weights, my body going limp.
I don’t even scream when I feel my son tear himself from me, and I am too weak to move.
I can hear fighting around us somewhere before hearing the cries of my son ring loudly through the night, making a sob leave my lips that he is okay.
Yet I can’t reach him, my limbs heavier before I lose feeling completely, my body going numb, the noises drowning out around me as I feel my life fading away.
My heart thumps erratically before growing slower and slower.
I am dying; I know I am dying. I can feel the life fading out of me, the blood rushing out of me, before I feel sparks rush over my skin.
“Stay with me, love,” I vaguely hear and know it is one of my mates before hearing the tearing of flesh and the horrendous sounds of wolves tearing him apart.
Sam screams a bloodcurdling scream. My heart palpitates in my chest, and I gasp before it gives one hard thump.
I feel nothing, hear nothing, and see only darkness as I am sucked under into my death.