Chapter 35

Trisha’s P.O.V:

For an instant, the world stood still.

I could feel the heat of the fire scorch my skin. I could hear Lucas’s voice as he yelled my name. Through my closed eyes, I could see the light that the flames cast in every direction. What I couldn’t feel however, was the excruciating pain that came with being burned alive by Damien’s fire.

Startled into opening my eyes, I looked right at Damien as he stood facing me. His eyes held relief…and pain. He was covered in blood from head to toe, but his hands were regenerating slower than I’d thought it would. I could still see the white of his bones as muscles and tendons made their slow journey around the bones, trying to knead it back in the way it used to be.

I had to break the eye contact however, to look at the little boy in my arms. Neema was clutching to me for dear life, his eyes squeezed shut and his lips trembling. I knew that he was the reason we were both safe, unharmed by the fire that had engulfed Vandal as he took in more than he could handle.

My knowledge of Oracles was based on what I had been able to find in old books and manuscripts, all evidence having been lost in translation or purposefully erased so no one could get to them. I’ll need to know more about him and the prophecy surrounding him to get to know what he was truly capable of. For now, I was contempt with knowing that my son had saved my life.

“Neema? Son? Are you hurt?” I coaxed him gently into loosening his death grip on me while Vandal’s corpse burned behind us. Because nothing could escape those flames.

Neema gave a slight jerk as I called him son, his arms tightening around me for a second before he let go, but it wasn’t a jerk of fear or sorrow, it was of acceptance. It felt right. My little boy will never come back to me again, but Neema needed a mother, just like I need my son. Since the time he came to me, I’ve always had this feeling that my boy has returned to me.

“Mom…” It was a broken whisper but I heard it over the roar of fire.

Picking him up in my arms, I looked back at the burned out corpse that had once terrorized us every walking second of everyday. And now, he was nothing but a pitiful skeleton, which too, would soon turn into dust. It once again reinforced the fact that no one was truly immortal. Everyone died, be it human, or vampire or werewolf.

“Are you guys alright?” Lucas asked breathlessly as he moved to my side. His body had patches of burnt flesh, his clothes having seared to his skin from the flames that had scattered as Vandal burst into flames, but he too was healing.

“Yes.” I nodded my head, my back aching from taking on Neema’s weight for too long. “It’s finally over.”

“I hope the bastard burns in Hell for the rest of eternity.” Lucas growled at the corpse.

“He will.” Was Neema’s soft answer, the words holding a kind of knowing to them that didn’t belong to a child. I squeezed his tiny body in my arms and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek before handing him over to Lucas.

Then, I turned to Damien.

Something fundamental had changed about him, something really important. His stance was rigid, his face hard as he stared at me. It seemed like, instead of bringing us near, Vandal’s death had driven a wedge between us that was deeper than ever. It gave me more questions than answers.

“Why?” I asked him, moving closer so Lucas and Neema wouldn’t be able to hear me.

“You need to leave.” Was the hard, bitten out reply.

It wasn’t a surprise, I’d already seen how his eyes had become cold, how his face had closed up. The man who had fought his own father to save me, who had held me close to his chest and begged me to wake up, seemed like a distant memory. I couldn’t understand how a person could change so much in an instance, but I knew that something had made him close up completely.

“Why?” I asked again. Why do you suddenly want me to leave? Why did you suddenly turn so cold? Why can’t I stay by your side?

For a second I thought he wouldn’t answer, but the next thing I knew, his arms were around my waist and his lips were finally, on mine.

My breath caught in my throat, my body going completely still before coming to life violently in his arms. It’s like I could feel him through my whole body. Pain and pleasure erupted in my head as Damien kissed me with a fury I’d never known possible.

My hands went to his hair, gripping the silken soft strands that had occasional wet patched of blood and sweat. My body fit perfectly against his, like two pieces of a puzzle finally coming together. If I got a little closer, we would become one, no one could separate us again; that’s how close we were. I hadn’t believed in those clichés about soulmates and fireworks, but this felt exactly like that.

But it ended just as soon as it had begun, leaving me dazed and a bit unsteady on my feet. When I opened my eyes, that I had no recollection of closing, I found Damien standing near the entrance to the castle, fire creeping up the walls behind him. In one instant, he’d shown me what we could be, how perfect we were together…and then taken it all away in a flash.

“Leave!” It was an order.

I didn’t want to. Hell, I wanted to slap the shit out of the stubborn man and yell at him for asking me to leave.

But Damien wasn’t asking. He was giving me an order, as my King. And no matter what I felt for Damien, I could not refuse a direct order from my King.

“Let’s go, Lucas.” I said while backing away from him slowly.

“What?” Lucas asked incredulously as he handed Neema over to me. “Are you kidding me? He tells you to leave without an explanation and you’re just gonna bow your head and obey?”

“Yes.” Because this was the first time in two hundred years that Damien had given me an order. The first time in my life when I’d seen him so closed off that I didn’t even recognize him. And I was done chasing after him.

Turning away from the man who was and probably will be the only one who has ever held my heart, I used my vampire speed and walked away from Damien forever. Lucas followed behind me silently into the night and Neema held onto my neck tightly as I ran.

I didn’t look back. I couldn’t.

Damien’s P.O.V:

I watched them go for as long as my eyes would let me. My mind kept telling me that this was for their own good, but my heart couldn’t agree.

It was for the best. It was what would keep them alive…keep her alive.

I looked up at the sky to see dark clouds rolling in towards the castle, lightning struck at a distance. The flames around the castle began to die down slowly as the night air cooled down further in anticipation of the coming rain. But it wasn’t only the rain that the ominous clouds were bringing…it was something much too dangerous.

“They’re coming for me.”

-----End of Book 1-----