Chapter 24 #2
We softly chuckled at that, and I was thankful I understood the reference thanks to the movies I’d been watching each night with André and Dante since we arrived.
“I made myself believe that the humans were somehow still innocent because the truth was too much to bear,” Isis continued. “That the same people we were born to protect and pledged our lives to had become our undoing… and now I was truly alone.”
“But you did find more shifters like you,” it was my turn to remind her, and I reached for her hand too.
“I did.” A small smile curved her lips, yet a sliver of pain from her past was still evident in her dimmed gaze. “And yet sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.”
Her attention went to the queen with the echoing of her statement, and they exchanged a knowing glance.
“Once I found Dresden, or once he found me, I lost the last shred of strength I had left and all the delusions I’d built in my mind to protect me.
I crumbled before him, not just because of the crushing weight of loss that I carried, but because of the relief he gifted me…
It took a long time for me to recover and be able to trust that I would not lose this new family I had found. ”
Placing the glass on the table, Queen Luna knelt before Isis, pulling her into her arms. “You will never, ever, lose us, you hear me? You are my family for life.”
“Family for life…”
Watching them, the heaviness increased in my chest, the fog shifting and making me uncomfortable. I absentmindedly reached for it, trying to rub it out of me.
“I know that now,” Isis whispered, pulling back and wiping the tears that rolled down her cheek.
“We all have different ways of dealing with the hurt life gives us,” Queen Luna admitted, returning to her seat. “But one way or another, we have to deal with the pain, or the pain will deal with us.”
“At the worst possible moment,” Isis specified with a humorless chuckle.
As their caring gazes settled on me, I knew what this was—an intervention—but it was too late for me to fight it. The darkness and fog that had buried the emotions inside me, Nataha’s emotions, seemed to stir and expand with each breath, causing my heart to hurt.
I strained to hold it back. To push it as deep inside me as it would go. To smother it with my pure will until it died within me. Unfortunately, the darkness stretched more and more each second, tensing like a rubber band that seemed ready to snap at any moment.
Was that Natasha trying to resurface? Was she finally ready to come back?
A new feeling captured me with the thought, fear. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to do this, why couldn’t they just leave me alone?
My stupid throat began to close up.
“We know that right now you are being your strongest self,” Queen Luna offered.
“Of course, I am. I am Natasha’s Vampiress. I am her warrior, it’s the only reason I’m here,” I argued.
“Yes, she needs you the most right now,” Isis agreed. “And we know you’ll do anything for her, which is why you are trying so hard to be unbreakable, but we’ve legit been there before, baby girl.”
“Being able to push our feelings aside and ignore them doesn’t make us strong,” the queen added, the gleam in her eyes telling me she knew it all too well.
“What makes us strong is taking in that pain, accepting it as a part of us, feeling it ripping through our being like a storm but still getting up to fight.”
A knot formed in my throat, and I shook my head slowly, feeling my eyes begin to burn with incoming tears.
“I don’t want to fucking do this!” I screamed into my mind, fighting the feelings with the last string of will I had left.
“Let it be… We need this,” Star whispered, and I felt her agony already taking hold, spreading through me until it hurt to breathe.
Standing, I tried to leave, but the bands of darkness and fog finally snapped, dispersing inside me just as Isis and Queen Luna stood with me.
“I don’t even truly know what happened…” I confessed, my voice breaking.
The scattering fog suddenly revealed Natasha’s repressed memories in my mind’s eye, darkness swirling around the image of us walking along a corridor with Edith.
“Dante asked if you could stay in my room with me until Hannes arrives. Is that okay?” Natasha’s voice echoed in my ears.
“Of course.”
“Thank you for helping me, Edith.”
“My pleasure.” Before opening the door, I noticed Edith push a button on her watch, a light glowing on the screen.
It was a power band.
The chilled breeze from the river instantly swept our body when we stepped out of the castle…
The fog drifted again.
“Get in!” Edith hissed, kicking my back, and sending us scrambling to the floor.
A gasp escaped me, and I looked at Isis, not really seeing her while memories played before me. “I can see it now. I remember…” I breathed, pain unfurling within me slowly. “Edith betrayed us. She took me into the boathouse.”
Isis nodded but words failed me as Ryker’s face appeared.
“Natasha held back my memories too,” I let them both know when my own voice rang in the memory. “Prepare for the fire…”
“Let my daughter go! She has nothing to do with this.” Anastasia’s voice came from the swirling fog that revealed her being held against the wall. Arnoldt’s claws pierced her neck, letting blood drip onto her white outfit.
The first tear fell from my eyes as I remembered the horror we felt. One scene after the other came out of the darkness, what I witnessed increasing the pain in my heart.
“Mark my words, Edith, you will never have a moment of peace again. I can see the future, remember that. No matter where you run to, I will always know where you are.”
The fierceness in my mother’s voice cut through me; she was still trying to defend me even after they took her because of me.
Like an endless caress, the bands of fog slowly continued to drift around every dreadful moment.
“Don’t even bother trying to contact your mates. Edith and Edward here are wearing blockers. Nothing can get through them.”
“Starlight called Dante for help, but they had power bands that blocked the guys from us,” I whispered, my eyes brimming with tears that could no longer be held back.
“Francoys, the Punisher of the Martel Dynasty,” I spoke the name out loud while his voice still echoed in my ears.
“He masterminded the attack; they want my hybrid blood to create more hybrids… Now that they know about my fire, they’ll surely want to recreate it too.
The same way they have dupped the Vampiri powers with those power bands they wear. ”
“You promised to let me have her before you killed her!” Ryker growled through the fading darkness and my hands fisted as I blocked my bat claws from coming out.
He was disgusting.
“I’m going to burn his fucking balls off before I kill him!” I hissed, tears of rage replacing those of pain and falling from my eyes.
Isis’s gentle hand rested on my arm. “Whose?”
“Ryker’s.”
“It will be my pleasure to help you,” she growled, her she-wolf coming to the surface.
A gasp escaped me when the following image flared. “My mom’s neck was ripped open when she fought back.”
“It’s okay,” Isis assured, soothingly rubbing my arm. “Her venom will heal whatever they do to her. She’s a fighter.”
Whatever they do to her… not whatever was done.
More tears fell freely with the realization, and I turned to look at Isis through my swaying vision. “Not if they find a way to block her powers too.”
“They can’t do that. She’s an Ancient, remember? Countess Dariah was only a child when her father used her blood to turn Anastasia so she could help him raise her and protect her. Your mother is far more resilient than all of us. She’ll be fine.”
My gaze went to Queen Luna, who offered me a reassuring smile, but a thorn of fear had already pierced my heart…
Blue flames flared to life in my mind’s eye, pulling me back into the disturbing memories. Horror instantly gripped my being while I watched my fire burn through everyone who tried to help me—including the men I loved.
Yes, I’d already witnessed that through my Vampir Mother’s mind, but the sobs still lodged in my throat because now they weren’t just images from someone else’s mind anymore. They were my memories, vivid, and real, and they were burdened with the agony I felt that night.
It all coursed through me, destroying me.
Just like Natasha in the memory, I lifted my hand to my mouth, trying to contain the sobs ripping through me.
I failed. Natasha’s hurt, Starlight’s, and mine burst free once and for all, making my chest shake with each sob.
I watched the memories unfold until we collapsed on our knees on the beach—the helicopters taking our parents away.
“Mom!”
Our scream echoed in the night as we lost the parents we had only just found.
Pulling me into her arms like she’d done so many times, Isis held me tightly, and I stopped fighting it because I could barely breathe.
I hugged her back, feeling Queen Luna embrace us too.
She gently kissed my head, her hand caressing my back while my cries echoed through the room, finally released.
All I felt was weakening loss and agony ripping through me, just like they had promised, but I wasn’t certain I was strong enough to fight my way to the other side of this anymore.
The sound of the door opening reached me, and Isis and the queen’s hold loosened. Strong arms took hold of me instead, and I fell into them, feeling them lift me into their safe embrace.
Hannes’s delicious scent drifted into my nose when he cradled me against his broad chest. I clung to him, hiding my face in his neck while my tears rolled down his skin.
Turning around, he carried me out of the room while André and Dante silently followed.