“NO, no, no-o-o-o-o! You can’t keep me from him! Let me go! I need to get back to Luca!”
I can’t let Sebastian near me. He will trap me, keep me from going back but the strong arms band around my squirming body and holds me still while he brings a bloody hand to my mouth. I try and turn my head, yelling that I hate them. Hate, hate, hate them all for doing this to me, for keeping me from Luca - but fingers pry my mouth open and the hot coppery blood pours down my throat.
My back bows as his blood enters my system and then I drop limp against the arms holding me as the glow overtakes me.
“Lay her on the chaise. She should be clear-headed shortly and begin to heal.” Sebastian tells them as I lay gasping at the changes coursing through my body as his blood begins to heal it and the fog slowly starts to clear from my head.
“You were bloody right, Bas. I’m sorry I doubted you. We need ta tell you what she said. I think her aunt may be a witch that’s hexed her ta try and get revenge on us for something. She said something about a sacrifice and she’s got a wee device that lets her control…”
I feel a surge of strength flow through me at the same time I hear Luca’s faint voice yelling my name. That’s all I need to jump up and fly from the room while they’re distracted. I hear them call after me but my feet fly faster than I’ve ever run before thanks to Bas’s blood in my system. I need to get to…Luca? Why do I need to see him so badly? My head is clearing even as my feet run down a hallway with a door at the end that I can hear his voice coming from. My thinking is becoming sharper and memories start to come back. I’m gasping in disbelief as I throw open the door and step into the room. He’s standing there, waiting for me and it’s like a switch goes off in my head. I’m back, I’m back with him and the fog disappears. I start walking toward him even as a wide grin splits his face and he lifts his arms for me to walk into. I hear the others run into the room but I only have eyes for Luca. Furious fucking eyes.
“YOU FUCKING BASTARD! I’LL KILL YOU!”
The last few steps between us disappear as I lunge for him. I see his face crumple and crack at my screamed words but before I can reach him, strong arms catch me around the waist and start hauling me back. I bare my teeth and swing out to slap him across the face but the hand I use is clutching the compass so it hits flush against his cheekbone and I hear the click of the moonstone being depressed. The familiar roaring of wind fills my ears and I try and yell out to them to tell them what he’s done but nothing comes out as my vision goes white.
When I land on the carpeted floor in front of the mirror, for the first time I don’t throw up so I shove to my feet and roar out the rage coursing through me. My mind is as clear as it can be with Sebastian’s blood in my system and I throw the compass at the wall in fury. It bounces back at me and lands in front of my feet. Hopelessness crashes over me and I sink to my knees and stare at my arms as the damage I have done to my own flesh starts knitting back together. He did this to me. That fucking bastard turned me into a psychopath. I’ll never forgive him for this. I cry out at the pain I know I’ve caused Bas and my wolves from the way I’ve been acting. They have no idea why I have done all these terrible things. Damn you, Luca! Damn you to hell!
I sit there for hours going over and over everything I have done to myself and them and trying to figure out a way to make it stop short of killing myself to end it all. I finally accept that killing myself here in my own time would end the whole cycle and that it’s the only choice I have. I push slowly to my feet to go run a bath and find my switchblade when a beam of sunlight flashes off the compass at my feet. I reach down and pick it up and hold it in front of me running my fingers over the numbered dials. If only I had this from the start. I could have gone back to France right away. Gone back to…Luca! This will take me back to him. I need to go back, back to Luca. As the last of Sebastian’s blood leaves my system the fog descends over my mind and only one thing consumes all of my thinking…I need to go back.
Sebastian
Isit on my horse in the field waiting for her to return, staring blankly at the trees on the other side. She’s come every day for the last seven and there’s no reason to believe she won’t return again today. Eden is getting sicker and sicker every time she arrives and the wolves begged me yesterday not to heal her again, to let her return and die in her own time. Seeing her body wither away and her mind locked into this madness is destroying them right alongside what it does to Luca. We tried to keep her away from him but she hides from us now and always manages to get to the house on her own somehow. If she can’t get in through the doors that we keep locked, she’ll press her body against the window of the room he’s in and when we approach her to pull her away, she presses that damn compass and fades away to try again.
The crack of thunder rings out above me and I don’t even flinch. My eyes are heavy with sorrow and exhaustion as I watch her blink into this world. She rolls over and retches but her starved body produces nothing but dry heaves. I watch her try and push to her feet but her body is so weak and neglected that she falls back to the ground. I slide from my horse and walk slowly toward her until I’m standing over her. Her arms are splayed out to either side and I see that cursed compass in her hand so I move my boot to step on her tiny, boney wrist with just enough force to make her fingers fall open. She blinks her eyes at the bright sky and they slowly and sluggishly turn my way. Two more blinks and they fill with so much hate that I drop to one knee beside her.
She is so close to death now, it won’t be long. This will end. She will end and then so will I. The pain is so great and all-consuming that my eyes fill with a red tinge as a drop of blood falls from my eye and rolls down my cheek.
Vampires don’t cry, that is a fact. This woman though, this love, has so destroyed me and my family that here they are, something that shouldn’t be possible. I brush the tears away and stare down at the blood smeared on my hand and then back to emerald eyes that took everything from me and I can’t do it. I can’t let her die right here in front of me. I use my teeth to tear the skin at my wrist open and force the blood into her mouth. It won’t be enough to save her but it will be enough to see her home so I don’t have to watch the light dim from her eyes forever.
She hisses weakly at me with bloody teeth and rasps, “I hate you.”
I nod and brush the dull brittle hair from her forehead. The fire of it has dimmed with the disease consuming her. I wait for the moment, the moment her eyes change and fill with clarity. I need this chance to tell her when she’s herself and not filled with insanity. I need her to hear me.
“I love you, Eden…forever.”
Her eyes turn soft and I see the love return and it’s the perfect way to say goodbye to her so I press the moonstone on the compass and send her back.
“Know this, if I ever see you again...I will kill you myself.”
Her eyes widen at what I’ve done and said but I spin away, wanting that look of love to be the last memory I have of her. When I turn back moments later she is gone.
Eden
What…what just happened? Why would Bas send me back like that? Why would he threaten to kill me? I feel the glow of his blood in me and sit up as memories hit. My eyes flash around the room for a clue as to why I would do the things I’ve done and spot large writing all over the walls. NO, no, oh my god, how did this happen? I jump to my feet and race to the nearest wall and reach out to touch the words that are in my handwriting but gasp when I catch sight of my bare arm. It’s no bigger than a twig! My eyes go back to the words.
YOU ARE DYING OF STARVATION
EAT AND DRINK!
LUCA COMPELLED YOU TO GO BACK
KILL YOURSELF!!!
It all comes flooding back at once and I have to brace myself against the wall so I don’t fall from the shock of it all. Fuck! Sebastian gave me his blood. Blood that’s more powerful than what Luca did to me but it won’t last. I don’t have long before it will leave my system and I will forget again in the madness of getting back to Luca. I need to get out of here while I have the strength to. I need to go to the hospital so they can put me on a psych hold. That way when I start losing my mind again they will tube feed me and keep me on an IV. Fuck, maybe I should kill myself. NO! I can’t do that. I’ll get myself committed and wait for Bas or my wolves to find me in this time. We can still be together, I just need to stay alive long enough for them to find me.
I turn and search for my phone to call an ambulance or an Uber, someone to get me to the hospital fast before Bas’s blood can wear off. I toss the room but can’t find it so I race out and down the stairs and search everywhere. There’s a ticking of a clock in my head now as I know time’s running out so I just throw on a jacket and shoes and bolt from the house, right into a snowstorm. My teeth begin to chatter as I slip and slide through the fresh powder and somewhere in the back of my mind I ask when the fuck winter happened. I clutch at fences and buildings to stay on my feet as I travel through the freezing streets to get to the closest hospital which is located in the downtown core.
I start to wonder what I’m doing, where I’m going as I pass an open alley and almost fall on a slick patch of ice with nothing to hold onto. I manage to stay upright but a chilling laugh filled with madness rings out and freezes me to the spot.
