Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I can’t believe she is gone, dead. Tobias looks as broken as I feel.
Imogen lay in his arms drenched in blood.
I pull her shirt down, not being able to stare at her belly torn open.
The damage to her body is haunting. Seeing it makes me remember her pain and fear.
I’m sure it is going to haunt me forever, feeling how much she wanted us and how helpless she felt in that moment.
Could literally feel her begging with everything she had for us to get to her.
We failed her and that I know will drive me insane with guilt.
“Take her, we need to leave,” Tobias says almost angrily. I know he is hurting, but I hate the way he said it. Dumping her in my arms and tearing his eyes away from her. I start toward the path we came up, his voice echoing through the wind over to me.
“What are you doing, Theo, we need to find our child,” he growls harshly.
“I’m not leaving her here,” I spit back at him, clutching her to me, refusing to let go. I can’t leave her. I can’t leave her here alone in the cold.
“We don’t even know who took the baby. That’s our priority now. We can come back for her, we don’t even know how far whoever took the baby is. You carrying her will slow us down,” he growls, stepping toward me. He goes to take her and I shove him away, growling at him threateningly.
“Fine, I will go by myself, then.” He shifts, taking the form of his beast. He shakes out his fur, turning away from me and heading back up toward the house, obviously looking for any scent.
I continue down the path. The storm is still raging around us, yet I don’t feel its rage. I can’t feel anything. I’m numb.
Completely empty, dead inside. I kept trudging, pulling Imogen closer, trying to shield her from the storm.
It makes me feel warmer having her in my arms. I have been walking for around five minutes when I notice a gold light coming from somewhere.
I glance around but can’t see anything that would cause the light that is on the ground in front of me.
Adjusting Imogen, I notice the glowing gold light s coming from her wrist. I pick up her limp hand and realize the light is coming from the strange bracelet that sits on her small wrist. I run my fingers over the pendant that is glowing.
I recognize the intricate pattern woven around it.
But I can't remember where I’d seen it before.
I inspect the bracelet closely before I hear her gasp before jumping forward, coughing like she has been under water and is taking a breath after holding her breath for a long time. Her eyes open to a magnificent gold color the same as her bracelet, glowing before she looks at me.
“Imogen,” I gasp, clutching her tighter.
She is rigid in my arms, stiff like a board.
She glances around, confused, before looking at me, her hands going to my face as if to see if I’m real.
Before her hands clutch onto her belly. Her hands claw at her shirt as she pulls it up.
She abruptly thrashes in my arms, screaming, forcing me to drop her.
She lands on the ground with a thud but springs to her feet faster than I can imagine.
“Where is he?” she says, peering around frantically.
“Tobias?” I ask. Her eyes dart to mine. I take a step back from her, her eyes are blazing with something I can’t decipher.
I’ve never seen eyes like hers before, never seen that expression on her face.
I know every one of her expressions, made mental notes of all of them. Yet this look I’ve never seen before.
“My baby, where is he, Theo?” I shake my head, not knowing how to answer when I didn’t know.
She takes off up the path back toward the cottage.
She run so fast I can’t keep up with her.
I make it back to the house to see her barge through the door.
I hear Tobias barreling up behind me, before digging his claws into the earth and sliding into me.
He looks at me with his black obsidian eyes with a hopeful look on his face, wondering if he felt it right.
The bond is surging alive with Imogen’s anger.
He shifts, and we both chase after her. We hear doors opening and closing upstairs before she races past us, screaming for the last name, we thought we would hear it coming from her lips.
“Bianca, Bianca.” She comes running back out and stops next to us before staring down. She sniffs the air, before dropping to the floor, her hands running over all the blood on the floor. She wipes at it with her hands clawing at the floor, digging through it looking for something.
“Where is he, where is my baby?” she says, peering up at us with a look of pure fear and desperation on her face. Tears run down her cheeks. I glance at Tobias, he looks just as shocked as I feel at seeing her.
“We aren’t sure, we got here too late,'' I whisper.
Her face crumples up and my guilt hits me saying it.
She wails and screams loudly at my words and rocks back and forth, her hands becoming drenched in her blood that is congealing on the floor.
The bracelet on her wrist glows brighter and brighter, flashing like a beacon.
When she lets out the most heartbreaking guttural scream I have ever heard, the noise seems to burst straight from her chest. Light consumes everything as her bracelet explodes blindingly, and so does she. Her emotions knock me through the bond. Before I see darkness as I am thrown backward.
I hit the ground with a thud, having the air knocked right out of me.
I roll to my side, trying to get to my hands and feet.
Tobias groans loudly, making me look in his direction, but all I see is dust and dirt.
I jump to my feet and gasp at the site before me.
Imogen is still in the same position cradling her belly and rocking back and forth sobbing.
But that isn’t what shocks me, it’s the house. Or the lack thereof.
It's gone, blown to smithereens like it never existed; I peer around as all the trees flatten, creating an enormous circle like a crater. Nothing is left standing. My mind is jumbled trying to figure out what she just did and how she did it.
“Did she do that?” Tobias whispers, coming through the dust toward me, his body covered in dust and dirt.
I don’t know what to say. I can’t explain what I just witnessed.
The dense forest literally has a huge part of it blown away, leaving nothing but debris everywhere.
I walk over to Imogen, who is on the ground.
I touch her back, and she flinches, turning her head to look up at me. What is she?
“She took him, she took him,” she repeats.
Her eyes blaze with fury and sadness and that same strange look I can’t decipher.
She blinks slowly, like she is understanding what she said.
Her face transforms into hatred and darkness as her fangs protruded making me jump back.
She looks like an angel of death. The feelings through the bond are dark and cold, a hatred so cold I would hate for it to be directed at me.
I shudder, realizing the darkness she is surrounding herself with.
The only thing I can work out is that she is a vampire, but vampires don’t possess power like she just showed.
She looks crazed and her eyes shine brightly with a hunger I’ve never seen, in a color that is out of this world and ours.
“Who took him?” Tobias asks, holding his hands out like he is trying to catch a wild animal.
Her eyes flick to him. He, too, takes a step back from her.
I feel her anger coming through the bond, but this isn’t like any anger I have felt.
This is burning hot, threatening to boil the blood in my veins, anger that is all consuming and rabid.
Staring down at her, she used to be so pure, so innocent.
Now, though, she looks lethal and murderous.
I don’t like this look on her, it scares me wondering what she has become out of this.
“My sister,” she spat. I can feel her hunger as her anger takes over, the darkest parts of her taking over and she isn’t even fighting against the darkness, instead embracing it, letting it wash over her and take control.
Stepping toward her, her head cocks to the side, her eyes snapping to mine, watching me like a predator.
I can feel Tobias’s confusion through the bond matching my own.
Imogen is an only child; who is she talking about?
“Bianca” she says, answering both our thoughts.
“I’m going to fucking kill her,” she spits, so vehemently, I flinch at her words because I know she means them.
I stare at her and something is off about her.
I would hate to be Bianca when she finds her.
And I have no doubt she eventually will, nothing but determination and anger washing through our links, her emotions overriding everything we feel.