Chapter 123 - He Stole My Heart, I Stole His Child
Phoebe POV
“Shit,” Addison cursed under her breath, staring at the forest ahead. The howls are getting closer, making me wince in fear.
She took me over to the water's edge, setting me on a smooth rock, cold and wet from the water falling nearby. She rotates her shoulders, probably stiff from carrying me. I told her I could walk, and could even run with them, but she still insisted on carrying me, telling me that she didn’t want me to struggle or get hurt.
I haven't been struggling lately, though. Ever since Luna Bailey started to give me her blood, I’ve been feeling almost back to normal. I know I could keep up with Addison, but I like the feeling I get when she starts to act concerned about me. She and Stephanie take turns staying in the hospital with me, and bring my brothers by my room to visit every day. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but they really are starting to feel like family.
“Wait here,” Addison grabs my face in both her hands, making me look at her, “You don’t move from this spot, Phoebe. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“She will be safe,” the pretty but old guy with the long hair and fancy glow-in-the-dark contacts carrying Bailey comes up to us, a little boy holding Aly following close behind. “The boy will shield them so they stay unscathed. I will need that vial you are holding.” The man nods down to the little glass container I’m holding filled with the jerk vampire Lord’s blood. I forgot I was holding it.
Addison takes it from me and places it in the man’s waiting hand. I watched Bailey's face as he adjusted her to put the vial in his pocket. She looks dead, which scares me. I don’t want her to die. I thought we were here to save her and to cure me? I can hear the warrior wolves howling as they get closer, and it seems like we just kidnapped her so she could die instead. Alpha Axel is going to be so mad. Scary mad. I’m kind of mad too. I thought this was a rescue mission. She isn't supposed to die.
The boy who is standing with the man that needs a hair-cut is holding Aly awkwardly, like he isn't used to holding a child. He is still a child himself. I want to take her from him and protect her myself, shielding her from the attack that is about to happen. She is sleeping so peacefully. Too peacefully with all the stuff going on.
“Rian,” Old Man Rapunzel calls the boy to stand in front of him. “Just as we practiced. You don’t let up the shield until you see your mother. Do you understand?”
“Of course I understand,” the boy huffs, rolling his eyes, “You only told me about a hundred times.”
“Attitude, young man. Arrogance will be your downfall in life. Do you remember me telling you that a hundred times?”
“More like 2 hundred,” the boy grumbled.
Oh, my, I’d like to knock the arrogance off him right now. By the way that Mister Hair Model is glaring at him, I think he’d like to knock him down a few pegs too.
The man then turns to stare down at me. “I can feel your unease, young one, but if you try to run and are outside the shield Rian puts up, you will fall in slumber when the Luna perishes and be in the way of battle. Stay put, like your mother said, or she could get herself killed trying to protect you.”
I look at Addison and see her watching me warily. “Please,” she whispers.
I don’t understand everything that is happening, but I understand that I can trust Addison. I want to trust Addison.
“I’ll stay here. I promise,” I tell her.
“Thank you,” she whispered, resting her hand on the side of my face. Her relief makes me happy, and also makes me feel a bit relieved too.
A gargled noise leaves Bailey, and the man curses, staring down at her. “They’re coming. Now, Rian,” he says as the most majestic, biggest set of wings, translucent and glowing with a green tint like his eyes, protrudes from his back, making me almost fall from the rock in shock. They are glorious, and more intricate than a butterfly, or maybe even a dragonfly's wings. I want to reach out and touch them, but am frozen in place with stunned amazement.
He takes off into the air, gripping Bailey to his chest. She is gasping, her face turning a shade of blue and I know she will be dead at any moment. My face burns at the thought of a world without someone like her. Someone who would walk into a lion’s den, or a rogue vampire’s hospital room, to save a girl she barely knew.
I watch in fascination and horror as the man flies to the top of the waterfall with Bailey. It looks like he is flying directly into the moon itself. There is a sheen glow to the water, silvery rainbows cascading down, making the whole scene look otherworldly.
The boy, Rian, comes to sit on the rock next to me, then stares up at Addison. “I would move a bit, unless you want to feel a little zap crackle pop on your hind-quarters, lady.”
She narrows her eyes at him, but does as he says. She is still standing in front of us to protect us from whatever may come.
The boy beside me lays Aly on the ground in front of us, then begins to chant incoherently, holding his hands out in front of him and his eyes begin to glow green. A glowing green, translucent barrier surrounds us. I'm studying his face, then looking around in surprise, but then something inside me freezes over, and I hear multiple gasps on the other side of the green shield.
Suddenly, my body feels lifeless, my world turning black as I slide forward off the rock onto the hard, cold ground. I feel nothing. I see nothing. I am losing all my senses one by one. The last thing I hear before even my hearing goes out is the sound of a wolf, howling the most heart-shattering cry I could ever imagine.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Katherine POV
The moment Bailey is dead, everyone knows it. It’s like the air itself is becoming dense with the weight of what her death means to us all. An airless sob leaves me, watching the fairy king fly to the top of the falls with my lifeless daughter in his arms.
She’s dead. I knew it was coming, but that doesn’t change the intense heart-ache I feel, because however long it takes to bring her back, the world would be a worse place without her light. It already seemed so dark and hopeless without her. I know there's hope. I trust her when she says she will not be dead for long, but that doesn’t lessen my sorrow at all.
“I am sorry, my love, but the wolves are less than a minute away, and the Alpha is on the warpath. We must be ready,” Tony whispered in my ear, rubbing my back.
I know Axel is on the warpath. I know because Bailey said it would be so. Anyone who heard his mournful howl, so full of anguish and suffering, would know that my son-in-law is out for blood.
Tony and I might be the only ones who can stop him before he ruins everything Bailey has worked so hard for.
Addison is guarding the children, and it looks as if both Aly and Phoebe are sleeping, huddled together on the ground. The little boy is sitting on the rock, his hands out in front of him as he chants something over and over again. His eyes are glowing green, and a green sheen barrier is wrapped around the area the kids are.
Bailey said the girls’ slumber would be connected to her, and they would remain in a state hovering between life and death until the ritual was complete. Looking at my granddaughter’s lovely face, I pray it doesn’t take long.
Fierce snarls are echoing around us, and a haunting scream breaks through, making the vampires hiss, knowing that the sound was one of their comrades, one of the scouts, being attacked by the wolves. The scout speeds back to be with the rest of us, blood dripping from his left arm and a nasty gash on his side.
“This is how it all started.” Tony’s face looked worriedly along the treeline. “Only the reverse. We were closing in on the Wolf clan, and the ritual to force their first shift was an attempt to stop the vampires. Now we vampires are trying to hold off the wolves to reverse the curse that has plagued their goddess for so long. It’s poetic, really.” He reaches out to squeeze my hand, “Let’s save your daughter.”
He rushes forward at the same time that a giant wolf with ferocious blue eyes breaks through the trees.
Axel.
He is snarling, steaming drool dripping from his canines. Those canines narrowly miss Tony as Tony ducks at the last minute, wrapping his arms around Axel’s waist and bringing him to the ground.
“Defend yourselves, but do not harm the wolves! Not if you can prevent it!” Tony yells out.
Vampires are colliding with wolves all around. The wolves are thirty for blood, but the vampires are trying their best not to hurt their attackers while keeping them away from the falls. One gray wolf collided with me, and I somehow maneuvered onto it's back, gripping it's neck to avoid its teeth. The wolf drops to the ground and rolls, but I hang on tight to its fur, not letting it throw me off.
From my perpetual vision, I see Tony’s eyes glow, and soon most of the wolves are no longer attacking, they are crouching on the ground, whimpering with their tails tucked. Even the one fighting me stops and crouches down before me, whimpering before rolling on their back, exposing their belly. I don’t know what image he is showing them, but it’s making their attacks cease. The wolves are all submitting to the image that Tony is making them see.
Everyone but the Alpha and another large wolf I recognize as the Gamma. They have been trained to not succumb to these kinds of tricks. Their auras are too strong for this ability of Tony's. Casey is fighting with three vampires, Felix being one of them, and Casey still seems to have the upper hand. He looks focused on getting to the kids, but I know Addison. I’ve seen her at training. He won’t have such an easy time getting past her.
He ducks under an arm that is coming around his throat, jumps over Felix, snapping at him in the process and tearing a huge gash down his face. He lands in front of Addison, and Addison flexes her hands at her side, preparing to fight.
“You don’t want to do this, Casey. You will kill them all if you try to stop this.”
Casey snarls at her, feigning in one direction then going in another. Addison is faster than him, though, and doesn’t let him get any closer. He snaps his growling snout at her, but she easily avoids him.
“Rina!” Tony calls to me, barely holding the Alpha down now. Axel is thrashing in Tony’s hold, his mouth barely missing contact with Tony’s arms over and over again. “I can’t hold him. Try to talk him down.”
I rush over, bracing myself for whatever Axel may do if he gets free. Axel catches my movements and turns to snap his canines at me.
“AXEL!” I screamed, “SHE’S NOT GONE! YOU NEED TO STOP FIGHTING OR SHE WILL BE!”
He howls in agony, his head turning to the direction of Bailey and the fairy king on the cliff. I turned to see what he was staring at. Bailey is at the cliff’s edge, lying lifeless on the ground. The king produced a silver dagger from his robe,the blade glinting in the moonlight.
“No,” I whisper. What is that man doing? What is he doing to my daughter?
I closed my eyes, trying to replay my daughter’s words over and over again in my mind. I need to trust her. I have one job right now, and that is to stop Axel from interfering. I don’t know what that man is doing, but I will trust my daughter.
“Axel, please,” I took a step forward, “Stop. He’s trying to save her. He is breaking the curse.”
“He says only Taegan can break the curse. He thinks you’re lying,” Addison yells at me. She is marked and has access to the mind link. I don’t. I can only communicate with Axel one-sided. Addison is now having a hard time keeping the Gamma from getting any closer to the kids. It looks like they are dancing, they are moving so fast. Casey seemed to be gaining an inch at a time every few moves.
Please, Taegan. Hurry. If this lasts much longer, mistakes will be made that are irreparable.
While I am distracted, Axel breaks free from Tony’s grip, leaping over me and sprinting to the hill leading up to the cliff. Tony gets up and tries to race after him, as do I, but Axel’s determination overpowers our strength. He dodges us with every attempt to grab him, focused on one thing; getting to Bailey.
Tony releases his power over the wolves’ vision below. He is using all his strength to try and catch the alpha. The warriors shake out their furry heads to dislodge the vision, then all of them instantly go back to fighting our men. Addison and Casey are barely a few feet away from the children now. This looks like a losing battle, one that will cost us all more than we can bear.
Just as we get near the king, Axel being less than a meter ahead of us and getting ready to leap to attack, three giant figures break from the waterfall’s center. Three winged beasts, their riders all a sight for sore eyes.
Max, seeing his son, circles back and drops from the Pegasus he is riding, shifting to his wolf midfall, then lands right in front of his son, stopping his advance. The two giant wolves growl and snarl at each other, but I can see that Axel doesn’t stand a change in his maddened state of beating his father. He could if he was thinking rationally right now, but he’s not, and Max has an ethereal authority about him, a radiance that can not be overlooked. He is under the goddess’s authority, and his son can not overpower the goddess.
“Thank hell,” Tony gasped, stopping beside me watching the two alphas face off with one another. “We weren’t going to be able to stop him.”
“No,” I shook my head. I'm watching my grandson gracefully land his pegasus next to the king, dismounting it like a professional, not like a little boy. Max’s glow and authority has nothing on Taegan’s. He appears to be a god in a boy’s body. The way he carries himself is nothing like the little boy that left here weeks ago. He has an ancient wisdom rimming his youthful eyes. His head held high, with maturity and a divine supremacy that leaves me breathless in awe. He is shining in an icy blue hue, his face serious as he stares up at the king. The king bows his head to Teagan, and Taegan bows back, just as gracefully.
So much has changed. He is the answer to all of this. The only one that can bring my daughter back from the dead. I was uncertain if a boy could do it, but Taegan is no longer just a boy. He has power in him that looks like it could rival the goddess herself. It's oozing out of him in every way.
“Not thank hell. Thank the goddess. She just saved us all by sending us him.”