Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Eli
Cyrus, getting there first, tackles Sam. They struggle, and I am about to jump into the fray when my father’s voice reaches me.
“Get Addie!” he screams at me, going to help Cyrus kill Sam as they trade blow for blow, trying to tear each other apart.
I look around for her, her scent strong, before hearing my son’s cries. I realize she is down in a small gully at the foot of the tree. She is drenched in blood, her heartbeat faint. I grip her shoulders, shaking her.
“Stay with me, love,” I tell her, grabbing my son before biting through the umbilical cord still attached to him.
Sam screams, and I hear pack members helping tear him to pieces as they break through the trees to our location behind me up the little hill.
I hear his limbs being ripped off and tossed around the forest while he screams. Looking down at Addie, her stomach is torn open, and I roll her on her back, placing our son on her chest before pushing her insides back into her body.
“Cyrus!” I scream in panic, realizing my blood in her system isn’t healing her, which means her body is refusing the transition.
Her entire body is limp, and I hear her heart stop suddenly, just giving out. My father appears by my side; I pass my screaming son to him before starting CPR, my hands going to the center of her chest as panic washes over me.
“Cyrus!” I scream, doing chest compressions.
She needs his blood. Feeling a rush of air, his scent invades my senses before Cyrus suddenly kneels beside me, biting into his wrist and holding it over her mouth while I continue pumping her chest, trying to keep her blood flowing enough for his blood to get in her system.
I watch as he desperately slices his nails down his arm before holding the wounds on his wrist open with his fingers, bleeding himself out over her stomach, his blood leaking onto her gaping wounds and spilling onto my hands.
I continue pumping her heart, trying to keep her blood pumping, but I know she won’t have much blood left in her because most of it has spilled out of her and onto the ground.
I can hear my father trying to soothe our son as he screams, yet I can’t tear my eyes from her, her body going cold beneath my hands with each passing second, her skin turning gray.
“Don’t stop. Her wounds are healing,” Cyrus says, his thumb on her chin forcing her mouth open as he forces more blood down her throat. His eyes look past my hands at her stomach; she is healing, but why is she so cold? Why is she turning gray?
“She is going to die,” I choke, my throat becoming clogged at the thought of losing her. I can’t lose her; I would rather die than spend a day without her.
“I can feel the bond. She isn’t dead yet. We wouldn’t be able to feel her if she was dead. We just need to keep her heart pumping till my blood reaches it,” Cyrus says.
He is oddly calm while I am dying inside seeing her like this.
Cyrus is odd like that; he is the calm to my madness, though he has his own craziness that can consume him.
Right now, he is calm and focused, and I look down to see her abdomen has closed completely.
I can smell fire burning around us in different directions and know my pack members are burning what is left of Sam.
Tears slip down my face, and I can’t even remember the last time I cried.
My father’s hand drops on my shoulder, making me look up at him.
My son is clutched in his other arm while Cyrus works on saving our mate.
I continue to pump her chest, feeling her ribs breaking beneath my hands, yet I don’t stop, knowing it is the only thing keeping her heart beating.
“She will be okay, son. Addie is strong,” my father says, and I nod, hoping he is right. Needing him to be right; I won’t live without her.
Cyrus is tapping her face and checking her eyes, prying her eyelids open.
“Come on, Addie,” I hear him whisper, pushing her other eyelid open, and I notice her eyes have turned red.
Her pupils are still dilated, but the color has changed, which is a good sign, meaning his blood is spreading throughout her system, hopefully fast enough.
Yet I still hold my breath, expecting the worst, when I hear my father behind me start humming.
My son’s quietened his screams, and I notice the change in the air, smoke, and the scent of my father’s pack closing in around us.
I look up to see them all peering at her; even Porter has a solemn expression as he stares down at her before looking at my boy in my father’s arms. Cyrus starts to panic, the first sharp points of his panic hitting me when she still doesn’t come to her senses.
She should have awoken by now, her body healed, but my hands are the only thing keeping her heart going.
“Addie, please,” I hear him beg her, my heart breaking at the sight of him clutching her face, her red eyes peering up, vacant and hollow, her face still slack and drained of life.
“We were not fast enough,” Cyrus gasps before he breaks down, falling back on his butt in the dirt. His entire body heaves with sobs, and I feel the bond growing weaker before dying out completely. A cold feeling settles over me before agony tears through my chest, making me scream.
I hear some pack members howl into the night out of respect for her.
Yet I feel nothing but pain, and I fall backward against Cyrus, who clutches me, his hands wrapping around my chest as he screams in anguish against my back.
My entire body is shaking as I stare at her dead body lying at my feet.
Three hundred years and not once have I seen him cry; he is always so strong with his emotions, but her death’s broken him.
Broken me, and I pray it takes me with her.
I can do nothing but stare at her. I feel dead inside, feel nothing as I continue to stare before I hear a thump, making my eyes dart to her chest. I have to be imagining things because thirty seconds go by, and I place my head in my hands before hearing another.
I feel Cyrus stiffen behind me, his cries stopping as we both listen.
Everyone falls silent; you can hear a pin drop.
Another thump, this one louder and stronger, and I move toward her, dropping my head on her chest before feeling her heartbeat against my ear, slowly picking up the pace before it starts beating rapidly like a hummingbird’s wings flapping against a strong wind.
I clutch her face, my tears spilling onto her, when she suddenly gasps, her back arching off the ground.
Her eyes widen like she’s been submerged in water for a long time as she sucks in a breath.
Cyrus shakes his hands, clutching her like she is our lifeline, and she is.
Without her, life isn’t worth living. She tries to talk, gasping before she sniffs the air, her fangs protruding.
I notice the moment she comes to, everyone scatters except my father.
Newborn vampires are dangerous, unpredictable, and savage, yet I see tears slip down her face as she peers up at us.
“Our baby?” she stammers.
“I have him. He is fine,” my father tells her, her eyes darting up as Cyrus pulls her up against him.
“Sam?” she says, her eyes darting around in panic.
“Dead. He will never come near you again,” I tell her, cupping her face in my hands.
Her eyes dart to my pulse in my neck before she looks away.
I can feel bloodlust rolling through her, feeling her fear of feeding on us.
All her senses are now heightened, and I know she is a crazed mess in her head, yet she tries to focus on what is going on.
I can feel her fighting her urges as she reaches her arms up toward my father, wanting our son.
I pull her hands down, my heart breaking for her, but she can’t touch him yet, not until we are sure she won’t hurt him.
“Not yet. I can feel your hunger, Addie, and you don’t know your own strength yet,” Cyrus tells her, and I feel sadness bleed into her before she nods.
Her eyes dart around the forest, and it has to be weird for her to be able to see in it. “My sister?” she whispers before darting to her feet with blinding speed. I blink, and she is gone.
“Shit!” Cyrus says, but I am confused.
What does she mean, her sister? I never saw Taylor.
“Go, son. I will look after him, I swear to you. I would never harm my grandson,” Maverick says, but I hesitate.
It is one thing being beside him when he has a hold of my son.
I can hear Cyrus chasing her before hearing her wail loudly, her scream filling the night.
I can just make out Cyrus trying to calm her, and I look at my son in my father’s arms. He nods, handing him to me, and I take his tiny body in my arms, cradling him to my chest to keep him warm, though he is a hybrid.
“Want some help with her?” he asks, and I look at him.
I look down at my son in my arms; he is right. She might attack him in her devastated state, and I am about to hand him over when I feel the wind brush past me, and he is suddenly gone from my arms.
“Addie, no,” I tell her, panic kicking in.
She is so much faster now. I can feel her tumultuous emotions destroying and eating away at her, my son clutched in her arms. I catch up to her, and she stops, looking at me.
“She is dead because of me. I killed her. Took her from Maya,” she whispers, tears slipping down her face before hearing movement behind me.
My father steps toward Cyrus, who has Taylor’s blood-soaked body in his arms. My father takes Taylor from him.
Addie is crushed at the loss of her twin.
Her guilt is so strong, making even me feel guilty as her body trembles, and I stare at my son worriedly when Cyrus approaches her.
She pulls him closer, kissing his head, and Cyrus’s hands grip her arms before she sighs, handing our son to him.
She then walks off, heading toward the village.
Cyrus and I look at her, watching her leave, and my father stops next to us.
I look at Addie’s carbon copy in his arms. Now that she has gained weight and is healthy, they are indeed identical.
“She is a twin,” my father says, shocked.
I nod, looking in the direction Addie has gone.
“Is she going to be okay?” my father asks, looking at Cyrus and me, but we both shake our heads.
Addie is anything but alright. I can feel how broken, confused, angry, and guilty she is, and every emotion, along with some I can’t even name, is swallowing her.
It is only a matter of time before she snaps.
She needs blood, but she is denying her nature, denying herself, and the longer she goes like this, the worse the bloodlust will get.
I understand she fears it, and can’t accept that she is alive while her sister is dead.