Chapter 140 140
Amy's POV
I looked at the small container in my hand. It was sealed and. It meant it had been kept carefully for a very long time by someone who understood what it was. Small enough to close in my fist completely. My father was looking at me with an expression that said he has been waiting a long time to give this to me and he was scared and certain at the same time.
I didn't have time to ask everything I wanted to ask. I opened it.
I don't know what I expected. It was a liquid. Small amount. It was so dark. I tilted it back and swallowed it before I could think about it too hard. For about two seconds nothing happened.
Then everything happened. It started in my chest and it moved outward fast. It was not painful. It felt something that big moving through me quickly, but it wasn't pain. It was more like pressure releasing. I felt like something that had been compressed for my entire life suddenly has the space it was supposed to have.
I felt my bloodline. I don't know how else to say it. I felt my parents specifically. Just for a second. This is the same power my father had hidden for a long time.
Then my power came in completely and the room lit up. I heard Richard say something. I didn't process the words. I was already moving.
Brian moved first toward Damien and I cut him off before he got two steps. I grabbed him by the front of his jacket and I threw him. He hit the far wall and I didn't wait to see him slide down it before I turned to Richard.
Richard was backing toward the corridor exit. He still had the antidote in his jacket. That was the priority. Everything else was second. I crossed the room fast. He tried to get through the door and I slammed it shut in front of him with one hand and the frame cracked from the impact.
He turned around to face me. For the first time since I had met him he looked genuinely scared.
"The antidote," I said. "Give it to me."
"Amelia—"
"NOW!"
He reached into his jacket with a shaking hand and held it out. I took it without touching him any more than I had to and I turned immediately to get it to Damien.
That was when the contraction hit and it was not like the ones before it.
My legs went numb. It wasn't a choice. My body just stopped cooperating with me completely and I went down on both knees and the sound that came out of me was not something I planned or controlled. My father was beside me before I finished going down. A warrior on my other side. Both of them catching me before I hit the floor.
"Amelia, are you okay?" My Dad asked me.
"I'm fine," I said. "I need to give the antidote to Damien first."
Brian had gotten back up. I could see him across the room, disheveled and angry, recalculating. I could also see two of my father's warriors moving toward him and he was watching them watch him.
Richard was trying to edge toward the broken wall my father had come through.
I looked at my father beside me. "Don't let him leave," I said. My voice came out strained but clear. "Either of them."
He gave a sharp signal to his warriors without taking his hands off me. Another contraction. This one built faster than any of them and it didn't fully stop before the next one started and I understood with complete clarity that my body was done waiting.
I looked at the antidote in my hand.
"Get this to Damien," I said to the warrior on my left. "Right now. His heartbeat is unstable. Tell him I said to stay awake."
The warrior took it and moved. I looked at Richard making his way toward the wall. I was not finished.
I got one foot under me. My father grabbed my arm. "Amelia—"
"I'm not done dad," I replied. "I need to kill him and avenge my family, every Lycan who died in his hands deserves their justice."
"You are literally in labor—"
"I know!" I got the second foot under me and I stood up. My legs were shaking and my power was still running visibly through my hands and my entire body was doing something enormous and I was going to finish this first. "Hold onto me dad."
"You are so unbelievable."
He made a sound that was part disbelief and part something that sounded almost like pride. He kept his hands on my arm.
I looked at Richard. He had stopped moving. He was looking at me standing there, lit up, shaking, very clearly in labor, and I think he understood in that moment that there was no version of this where he got out cleanly.
"You killed my parents," I started, saying it directly to him so he understands to the gravity of his actions and stop being deluded enough to think he was right to kill people. "You almost took all my good years from me. You have been hunting me and my child and the person I love and you are done. You took his good life away from him and made him suffer his entire life growing up. It's all your fault he turned out this way. All of it is done."
He opened his mouth. I sent a wave of power at him that knocked him off his feet before he could speak. He hit the ground hard and stayed there.
Brian came from my left. I turned and he saw was going for the corridor door. The warrior who had taken the antidote to Damien was the only one between him and it. Brian hit him low and got through.
I started after him. That was when my body stopped cooperating entirely and completely and for good. I went down on both knees and this time I did not get back up. My father caught me and the warrior on my right caught me and I grabbed both of them and I held on and I did not let go and I made as little noise as I could and it still wasn't very little.
"He's coming...." I breathe hard and groaned in pain. "He's coming!"
It was fast. I think because I had been holding everything back for so long my body had something to say about that and it said it quickly. I don't know how I managed to do it but it was faster than I thought. My son came into the world screaming.
He was loud and furious in the way that all healthy newborns are furious about the transition, which I completely understood because I was also pretty furious about everything right now.
The warrior who had found me on my father's right caught him. She had clearly done this before or had training for it because she moved efficiently and confidently and the moment he was in her arms and still screaming she looked at me and said "He's perfect."
I couldn't speak for a second. I was exhausted.
He was screaming and that was the best sound I had ever heard in my life. Then I saw Brian at the edge of my vision.
He came back. He doubled back through the corridor while everyone's attention was on me and now he was here and he was moving toward the warrior holding my son and his face had a look on it that I recognized from every moment in this situation where he thought he was about to get what he came for.
He reached the warrior before anyone could stop him. He grabbed my son. The screaming didn't stop. I completely lost my mind immediately.
"Give me back my son!!! You're dead Brian!!!"