The Silver lining in the dark!!

**Natasha’s POV**

I woke up with a jolt, coughing and spluttering in a dark room. I was finding it hard to open my eyes more than a slit. Every time I opened my eyes, all I could see was dark, even outside the window. I was not sure if I was sleeping throughout the days, or if my mind has mingled all days and nights into one long blur night, or if I’m in some realm which is always shadowed in darkness.

I was an utter mess, covered in cuts and bruises over my broken body due to being dragged by the hair for God knows how much distance, as I soon lost consciousness once we entered the unknown realm. The poison which they attacked me with had severely affected my healing abilities. I don’t know since how long I was trapped here, but I could feel the soreness of my eyes from the tears that must have flowed for days.

I was feeling groggy as if being injected with heavy drugs. Then a sudden pain shooted from my pelvis and spread throughout my body. I lost the very last of my strength that I cried until my tears ran dry and it hurt to breathe. My body shook with violent tremors until I curled myself up on the floor in a foetal position and held my knees tight to my burning chest. My uterus was contracting as if trying to get rid of the foetus and soon a metallic smell wafted through my nose. I braved my shivering fingers in between my thighs. My fingers got coated with sticky fluid, my own blood. And the continuous cramps were making it worse for me. I was caught in between wanting to die and fighting for life. My body was convulsing and every fibre in my being was screaming in pain.

My bloodied fingers traced over my tummy, trying to feel my baby with hope as a lone tear rolled my cheek. My brain knew that I had lost her the moment that poison was injected into me, but my heart was not ready to accept and was desperately hoping for a miracle. The day I conceived her, I had started to feel a mild connection to her, and since then all I had dreamt of holding her in my arms, cuddling her and protecting her from all the evil. And now I was looking at her leftover residue in the form of blood coating my fingers. They killed my baby. They destroyed a beating heart and reduced it into mere blood and dead pieces of tissue. One side of me wanted to hunt them and rip them apart, giving them the worst form of death that anyone could ever think of. While the other part of me just wanted to die in grief and pain, to get away from this cruel life and to reunite with my daughter in a better place where she must be resting in peace. I wanted to lash out, but every last bit of my energy was drained and every last ounce of willpower was crushed.

My next thoughts went toward Tasha. I haven’t heard a word from her since that day as if she has completely shut down from me hiding in some deep tunnel of my mind which was heavy with pain. Or maybe I am so broken that even my wolf refused to be there for me. I just wish that I could die from a broken heart. I wanted to be strong but I have no strength left.

That day I also lost connection to Damon and Lukas. My heart was literally exploding with panic. I wanted to find the hidden hope in me so badly that they both are alive and the people of Artena are safe from the monstrous army of Aurora. My blood ran cold at the mere possibility of never seeing them again. My heart was crying in the guilt of not keeping my end of the promise, the promise which I made to Damon about protecting our daughter at any cost. The one in which I failed miserably.

And then I sucked in a painful breath and tears clouded my sight when my thoughts reached Rhaegar. He was the only one I was feeling a connection which I wanted to end so badly. That’s when it all hit me. The conversation in which he hinted at the possibility that he is betraying me. That romantic moment when he gifted me, ‘The Diamond eye’. I didn’t take his words seriously at that time, ‘Promise me, you will never take it off, even if you hate me’. Was that the hint he was giving me about betraying? I ignored Damon and Lukas’s warning against trusting Rhaegar, and now I lost everything. I didn’t even realize I was crying so hard that I had barely enough energy to keep breathing. I felt so vulnerable like helpless prey left out in the wilderness to be preyed upon. The raw tears rolled down my eyes because I was such a blind fool. Goddess granted me a special gift of seeping into the minds of my mates but I ignored it and trusted that man who I thought loved me with every fibre in his body, mind and soul…just like I did. My heightened sense was still screaming that his feelings, his love was not fake, but then whatever be the reason for his betrayal, he killed my daughter and that makes him my enemy.

And with this, I swallowed my tears back and reached up, ‘The diamond eye’ that was hanging on my neck and snapped it off. The moment it came out I felt something which I can't explain but it seemed as if some kind of connection was lost. I fisted it in my hands and throw it out of the window into the unknown darkness.

**Third person POV**

Oblivious to Natasha, ‘The diamond eye’ fell on the rocky surface below coated with a thin dust of snow. It caught the attention of an old woman who was picking up the twigs from the crusty surface. Her frail body, barely able to stand, slowly moved through the rocks to touch the mysterious object. Her bare feet were shivering due to the frosty coldness, whereas her wrinkled hands were trembling as the recognition hit her weak, grey eyes when she saw the necklace.

With much difficulty, she grabbed, ‘The diamond eye’ in between her two fingers and thumb as she had lost the other two fingers of frostbite. The tears rolled down her pale cheeks as she looked up to the top of the tower. All she could see was a small window with metal bars through the layer of thick fog. She then turned around to the person standing under the shadow.

“Whose necklace is this?” She asked the man. The man moved out of the shadow revealing himself to be the Grim Reaper. The moment he looked at the necklace, he instantly realized that Natasha was wearing it.

“The new prisoner,” he replied trying to sound indifferent, but a part of his voice gave away his feelings of concern for Natasha and that old woman as well with whom he bonded through all these years. He was not a bad man after all.

“I want to meet the bearer of this necklace,” the lady said. Though she herself was a prisoner by looking at the rags that hung her body, and the shackles around her neck and wrists, but her impressive demeanour and authoritative tone suggested that she must be a royal, perhaps a Queen.

“Not possible. No one is allowed to go near her. But why do you ask?” Grim reaper couldn’t hide his surprise as the old lady had never before asked for or demanded anything in all these years, let alone meeting a stranger.

“Because this necklace once belonged to me,” she said with a smile, though her eyes were teary.

**Lukas’s POV**

‘I can't believe what I just heard,’ I thought to myself as I moved out of Bella’s chamber towards Damon’s chamber while holding ‘The diamond eye’, the part of the necklace that belonged to Rhaegar. Aaron snatched it during their fight. It has been two weeks since that fateful day when Natasha was taken away from us. I never really trusted that Rhaegar, but always tried to keep my opinion to myself as I didn’t want to hurt Natasha. She has heightened senses, so if she trusted Rhaegar then I had no reason to suspect him.

The moment that poisonous dart hit her, I knew it was ‘Deisinth’, the only poison that could affect Morrighan. I heard about it from Aurora. The trail of blood that soaked the ground when Natasha was dragged through her hair shook my core as the realization hit me that she must be pregnant. The poison was potent enough to kill thousands with a just a single drop, and my heart bled because I know that the baby could have no way to survive the toxicity.

Damon was already on his knees crying hard even though the silver shackles were digging into his skin. I somehow know at that moment that Damon had already known that Natasha was expecting a baby and if we go by the logic then the baby has to be of Damon. It didn’t matter to me if the baby was mine or Damon’s, because my heart ached as much as Damon’s, but I had to bury my wrath and feelings for a few minutes as Aurora’s army was unleashed upon the people of Artena.

The first wave of those fugglies was already taken care of by Harold and his men, but a horde of around fifty such creatures was too much even for them. They needed our help. I looked at Damon.

“I’m going to kill that bastard,” Damon spoke with a hatred of unspeakable level. He was talking about Rhaegar.

“I’m with you, but we need to take care of them first,” was all I could say, and then I motioned him at Aurora’s minions, and that was his cue to hold onto the pieces of himself and channel his anger to rage. Harold’s men were quick enough to free us from shackles. Damon finished for me before I got the chance to respond as seven of those minions ran at us at once. He raised the blade which Harold had thrown at him and twisted his body, slashing the sword sideways aiming for their throats, taking all seven of them in one go. I spun around and grabbed one of those ugly things, swung it around a few turns before flinging it off onto the horde of around ten fugglies throwing them off-guard. Harold’s men took the advantage of that situation and chopped off their heads.

“Be ready!” Damon said pointing in the direction of the horde of the last twenty rushing at us all at once. Those mindless creatures have no sense of how to launch an attack, all they were doing was just following the minion in the front who was acting as a leader but clearly was as dumb as others. Well, that would be an understatement as there was no actual leader, they all were puppets of Aurora, and once she left the realm all the hell broke loose. They were too easy and quick to defeat.

“Attack!” I roared holding up the sword and running for the horde that was mindlessly moving at us. I leapt in the air to take down five at a time. Damon rolled his sword in a circular motion slashing the throats of at least three of them with their bodies rolling over and dumped beside the pile of other dead bodies. And then with a series of continuous jumps, spins and movements of the swords, we both blocked their every move and took out every last of them either by slashing their throats or chopping off their heads, and it was a piece of cake considering how brainless they were, figuratively and literally.

Once we were done with them, Harold and his men took over the task of looking over at the casualties on our side, which was only one, poor Brar, such a loyal and brave person who died in vain. Damon and I rushed to Bella who was crying holding onto Aaron, who was barely breathing. We all had very little hope for Aaron as he had been stabbed in the heart by his own kind which was the sure shot way to die. Aretha who treated him was too astonished to find out that Aaron’s heart was not on the left side of his chest cavity. He was that one in a million lucky person whose heart was on the right side. Rhaegar must have definitely known about this and that was the only reason that he chooses to fight Aaron so that he can prove to king Louris and others that he had killed Aaron, but in reality, he saved his friend.

Aaron woke up today morning and wanted to talk to Damon and me, but since Damon was still not in his senses, I decided to go alone instead.

“This is the other half of the legendary necklace, ‘The Diamond eye’, the part that belonged to Rhaegar,” he said handing it over to me.

“And why are you giving this to me?” I asked in surprise.

“Rhaegar mind-linked to me when we were fighting. He asked me to sneakily take it out from his pocket and hide it. And then he was going to stab me on the left side, and I’ll have to pretend to be dead. He knew that my heart was on the right side but others didn’t.” Aaron spoke.

“What was that betrayer trying to achieve by doing this?” I asked.

“He is my friend. And trust me that if he would have known about the baby then he would have never poisoned Natasha.”

“So, are you suggesting that Natasha is at fault for not informing Rhaegar beforehand about the baby and for that mistake of hers, she deserved to lose the baby?” I was barely holding onto my rage when he tried to defend that spineless bastard. Bella put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it to calm me down.

“No, I am not saying that. I’m really sorry for Natasha and her baby, but I need to convey the message. Rhaegar told me to convince either you or Damon to wear, ‘The diamond eye’ as it works only on mates. And he also gave this vial that contains his blood. You will need this to go to the place where Natasha is held captive,” he said. I looked over at the small vial hanging by the chain containing the crimson swirling liquid. I was literally controlling the urge to throw away this damn necklace and smash this vial filled with the bastard’s blood, but then my mom’s words, ‘think sensibly’ echoed through my brain walls.

‘Rhaegar has done this for a reason, and Natasha is held somewhere which Rhaegar knows of and also knows that his blood will lead us to her, so this time we need to follow that bastard’s instructions and I have to convince Damon for this.’ I thought to myself as I held, ‘The diamond eye’ while rushing towards Damon’s chamber.

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