The Celestial Rose BoxSet

by Annalee Adams

  “Have you eaten today?”

  “Yes, at breakfast”

  “That was six hours ago, Taylor.” Lucian said. “Wait here.” He demanded and rushed over to the vending machine, fisted the glass through, and grabbed a selection of chocolate and candy. “Here, eat these.”

  I laughed. “Ah, Eli told me about your mealtime habits.”

  “Okay, so I have a lot to learn, just eat them please.”

  He said please... he was definitely concerned. “Okay,” I said, opening the first bar of chocolate. “Want some?”

  “No, Taylor, I’m all good. Just eat the damn bar already, you’re worrying me.”

  “Fine.” I smirked. “But my mother always taught me sharing is caring.”

  He groaned and opened another bar ready for me.

  Mother laughed. “He’s right, you know, you need to eat. Those babies are taking all your energy.”

  “I can’t wait till those damn things are out.” Gabriel groaned.

  “Really, Gabriel, quit moaning.” I said.

  Michael laughed. “She has a point, mate, you whine way too much lately.”

  Gabriel snarled. Charmeine walked over to the doorway that Michael had barricaded. “It looks quite out there. They’ve gone.”

  “Yeah, probably to tell Lilith we’re here.” Gabriel said.

  “Probably.” I said. “We’d better go.”

  “How are you feeling?” Mother asked.

  “I’ll be okay, just a funny turn that’s all. How are you doing?”

  “I’m much better now. Do you think you can stand?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, can you?” I smiled. We helped each other up with Lucian's help and Gabriel supporting my mother’s right arm.

  “I’d like to go to my house, if that’s okay. If it still stands, I want to pick up a few things for the babies.”

  “Eve, I think we really need to go back to Elysium before it’s too late.” Gabriel said.

  Mother nodded. “Lilith will be here as soon as she hears. I want to meet her properly, help her, but not when my other daughter is vulnerable and carrying my two grandchildren in there.” She said, placing her hand on my tummy.

  “Please, mother,” I asked. “I’d love for you to see my home here in Elvington."

  She raised her eyebrows and sighed. “Okay, then, as long as we’re quick.”

  “Lucian are you ready?” I asked, as he steadied me.

  “No, it’s not safe, but I know you’ll go anyway.” He sighed. “Promise me you’ll hold my hand, no matter what.” He said. “If I have you, then I can speed away if need be.”

  “Okay,” I said, holding up our interlinked hands. “I promise.”

  CHAPTER 90: Taylor

  As we walked slowly through the town centre, all remnants of Lilith’s failed experiments were gone. The odd dead cat and rotten, decapitated corpse still hung around, stinking the air with its maggot infested stench. But besides that and the smoke destroying my lungs, there wasn’t much else to see or smell. The buildings were trashed, with the odd one still half aligned, perhaps missing a wall or a door or two. Just like the dead survivors missing an arm or even a leg or two. Seeing the bodies of fallen soldiers was a sad fact I was getting used to. Who ever thought I’d get used to so much bloodshed? I looked at the wasted lives around me, snuffed out so young. What had my world come to? I’d created humanity to keep Lilith company, and she had made damn sure she kept their company, mixing up their limbs and reforming them to suit her twisted mindset. Poor Emma and Jake. I’d never forgive what she had done to them, how she had changed them, split them in half before re-joining their souls, merging their destiny forever more. She loved it, saw EJ as her pet, her brother from another mother, or sister, depending on which side you looked at. It wasn’t right, none of it was.

  Heading through the town centre, we reached the end of my street. Ours was the house at the top of the hill, a hill I certainly didn’t fancy walking up in my condition. My lungs were screaming for me to stop, my stomach weighed a few tonnes, and to be blunt with myself... I well and truly felt like shit. I stopped at the base. “Give me a minute,” I said, leaning against Lucian.

  “She can’t go on, Lucian,” Gabriel said. “We need to take her home.”

  “Elysium wasn’t my home, Gabriel, not for this version of me. I need to see my home, Taylor's home, for one last time.”

  “Fine.” He said, clearly not happy about it.

  Lucian smiled, picked me up with ease, and sped me up the street in his arms. I laughed the whole way; he knew me so well. He knew I needed to see it again, needed to say goodbye to that life in order to move into my new one.

  “Thank you,” I said as he crossed the threshold of my home. I was surprised it still stood. The door no longer existed and, by the looks of it, the place had been looted, but the bricks and mortar were still there.

  Mother ran in, out of breath. “Remember that we can’t do that.” She said frowning. Lucian laughed and held up his hands in apology. “Is this where you lived, Eve?”

  “Yes, it was my home after my mother died.”

  “I’m sorry you went through that.” Mother said.

  I smiled. “Come on, I’ll show you my room,” I said, waving her to follow.

  Charmeine stood by the door. “I’ll stand guard, Michael, you take the back, Gabriel, you check the house out.” They both nodded and obeyed.

  “Taylor, I’ll bag up some of your thing’s, so we can take them back with us, give you two time alone.” He smiled. I nodded and mouthed thank you.

  Mother followed me upstairs. The landing was the same, the pictures still hung on the wall, a little crooked, but still there. Caleb’s grin when he hit that baseball, my dad in his uniform, my mother at her art show on the day of her grand opening, and then me, looking all sweet and innocent the day before my sixteenth birthday. The day before everything changed. I missed that version of me; the simplistic, happy-go-lucky girl with the bright eyes and bouncy, brown locks. Now I felt fat, tired, and ugly. I know I wasn’t, Lucian had said I was at my most beautiful, but I couldn’t help feeling that way. I was tired, tired of the shit that kept coming our way and tired of pregnancy. My back ached, my feet hurt, and my ankles felt twice the size, and my breasts... don’t even get me started on how sore those huge things were. I thought pregnancy gave you that glow? No, not me... it had missed me by a mile.

  “It’s here, mother,” I said, opening the door with the pink sequinned ‘Taylor’ sign hanging in the centre. My room was a mess. The new mirror Dad had bought me was smashed on the floor. Dead roses wilted over the top of the vase. My bed was thrown aside like trash in a waste basket. Someone had come through and really finished this place off. I remembered what it was like when I came for the locket, which I was hoping was back at the Darkwater mansion, but since then it’d been kicked about, pulverised, and crushed into nothingness. My room was a battle gone wrong. Where was it? I searched through the clutter, heading my way over to the window overlooking the grand oak tree outside. It was my favourite spot when I had first moved there, sitting in the chair, the one now in pieces, and looking out over the oak tree, watching the birds as they took flight on a dewy summer morning. But now, now it was autumn and the oak tree was burnt to a crisp. A fire blazed out of the ruins across the skyline.

  “Can I help?” my mother asked.

  I nodded. “I’m looking for my blanket.” I said.

  “Is this it?” she asked, bending down, moving the bed, and picking it up.

  “Yes, how did you know?”

  “A good guess. I made one just like it when you were a mere child.”

  “Really?” Wow, Adam had even given my mortal mother the traits of my immortal one. “Thank you.” I smiled, walking over and hugging her.

  She held me tight. “Come on, let’s head back downstairs.” But when she let me go, she gasped. “Eve, you’re bleeding!”

  Looking down, my dress was crimson with fresh blood. Was
it mine? What was happening? My body swayed, vision blurred as I threw up the chocolate and candy I’d eaten earlier. “Lucian,” I whispered, trying to scream out as I fell. Something was wrong.

  Lucian must have heard me whisper for him. He burst into the room, landing before me in time to catch me fall. The next thing I remembered was bloody hands, a panicked pale-faced Lucian, my mother in tears trying to heal me with her light, and Charmeine ordering Gabriel to go get help.

  I blacked out.

  At least I think I did. How are you ever sure if you blacked out or not? A snippet of time lost. It wasn't like I checked my father’s watch and thought, okay, its 5:20pm, now, when I awake it’ll be... no, that kind of thing doesn’t happen.

  Before I opened my eyes, I heard voices, familiar ones. My mother, Lucian... Charmeine bossing Michael around, but no Gabriel. He must have gone for help after all. The room still stank of smoke, vomit, too. I could taste blood, its metallic nature caressed my tongue. But why did I feel wet? Was it blood? All of it couldn’t have been blood, I’d have been dead with that much blood loss...but I was sat in a pool of something.

  “We need to move her!” Lucian yelled.

  “No, give her a minute, let her wake up first,” my mother said.

  “She isn’t waking up!”

  “Listen to her heart, Lucian, it’s speeding up.”

  “How can you hear that?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t born yesterday, I’ve learnt a thing or two on my travels.” She said calmly.

  My eyelids fluttered as the light of the dimming sun swept through my bedroom window to greet me. “I...I’m okay.”

  I opened my eyes to see the concern on all their faces. I tried to sit up, tried placed my hands on the floor to raise my upper torso into the air. But when my hands touched the carpet, they were sat on a sodden, squelching mess; a wet, watery substance was all around me. Shit. I remembered that from my mother; my water had broken. And with that realisation came an overwhelming tightening that crushed my stomach, rising slowly from the base of my cervix all the way up to my bosom, and with each ripple of contorted pain, I screamed. Fists were clenched into balls as I gripped the carpet, holding onto my life. The searing pain serrated my body, feeling as if I was being gutted like a fish inside. What the hell was happening?

  “Shit.” Lucian yelled. “Shit. What do we do?”

  “She’s gone into labour, Lucian. There’s nothing we can do but protect her.”

  “I, but I don’t know what to do. I’m not prepared for this.”

  “Lucian, it’ll be fine. Sit with her and hold her hand while I deliver the babies.”

  “No!” I screamed. “Not yet!" I panted. “It’s too early!”

  “Your baby’s will come when they’re ready to come, Evie.”

  The pain rippled through me again. My back arched, feet clambered back and forth as I padded the carpet like a cat ready for sleep. The pain was excruciating. How the hell was I going to get one baby out of that hole, let alone two? This can’t be happening, not right now. I’m not ready!

  Mother was feeling under my dress. Did she know to deliver a human baby? Wasn’t I the first human she’d met? What if she didn’t know? What if they got stuck and burst out, like that movie I saw with the alien and the stomach? Shit. Taylor. Now was not the time to think of that crap. But what if, damn it, the gremlin things were real, could stomach aliens be real too? Were my babies real humans? What if they were mini serpents of darkness, how would I raise them? Adam wouldn’t allow them in Elysium. Shit. What do I do? I’d never leave them, they were my babies, no matter what.

  “FUCK!” I yelled, pounding my fists against the floor. Lucian knelt beside me and gripped my hand as my nails clung on tight. Another sharp pain radiated from my bottom up to my breasts, like the babies had a knife and they were slowly carving their way out. The pain was moving as my children worked their way down, pushing their big heads out of a tiny hole. This was going to hurt. I’d read it was like a burning ring of fire. Shit. I was scared. How could I do this? Would they even love me? How do I feed them? What if my milk doesn’t work? Will they starve? How the hell do I look after them?

  “Taylor, concentrate!” Lucian boomed, squeezing my hand.

  I glared at him, his brows rose, and he edged backwards. He’d seen my rage before, and it wasn’t the time to be pissing me off. What did he think I was doing? Of course I was concentrating. I was doing nothing but bloody concentrating.

  Charmeine ran into the room. “QUICK, HIDE!” she demanded, and then nothing. Her angelic shape stood in the doorway, silent, frozen with an expression of fright.

  “Charmeine?” Michael asked, puzzled as he walked over to her.

  Charmeine slid to the floor, coughing up blood as she fell. Her angelic suit merged with the deep crimson as it fled from her body, caressing her shape, growing around her like one big, huge, bloody cocoon. “NO!” Michael screamed. Too little, too late. A huge demonic creature walked in, grabbed the Reaper's blade from Charmeine’s fallen body and stabbed the running Michael through the heart. His body trembled and shook as it connected with the blade. Light fled from his surface as he screamed a high-pitched tone. His celestial body wavered on the edge of a knife's blade. But it wasn’t just any knife, it was the Reaper's blade, the only known blade in existence to be able to kill an immortal being. And the dark-side demon had it in his possession. Michael's voice fled from the scene as silence suffocated him. The light from his dead body imploded, gathering in his core, then expelled, exploding his body into a million tiny pieces. Any remaining notion that Michael ever existed was wiped out with the blast. Not an ounce of bodily fluid remained. He simply disappeared, vanquished by the scene of carnage and devastation. Mother screamed as she pulled back and flung herself over the top of me. As she did, she managed to cocoon the three of us behind a shield of light, just as she had that day on the battle field.

  “BLANE!” Lucian yelled. He knew him. Who was he? What did he want? But it was too late for questions, the infernal chaos my body was enduring came back for more of its deadly fun. My voice leapt out of me, wallowing across the room, echoing from wall to wall, resonating its sound in the eardrum of every creature in a fifty-mile radius. I was screaming. It was agony and death that would be the easy route then. The minutes passed by as my pain threshold wavered. I couldn’t take much more of it and my mother certainly couldn’t hold out long on keeping up the barrier around us. The demon was trying to break through using the Reaper's blade to cut and slice down the light, pushing through with every ounce of might he had within him.

  “Lucian Darkwater!” Blane yelled, stopping and taking a step back from the wall of light around us. Clapping his hands, he retrieved the blade from the bloodied floor beside Charmeine’s gurgling body. The gurgling meant she was still alive, but Blane didn’t notice, or he didn’t care. Knowing he could end her existence in one final swoop shattered me. What would Adam do without Charmeine? It was clear the two were in love with one another. It was like me without my Lucian, it could not be, life could not be that definite. A loss with no meaning. We had to save her.

  “Save Charmeine,” I mouthed to Lucian when my pain subsided. He nodded. I wasn’t sure what he could do, but he nodded all the same.

  Lucian stood up. “Blane,” he yelled. “Why are you here?”

  “Lilith wants a word with you, Lucian. I can’t understand why, but she wants a word with you.”

  “So what do you want, Blane?

  “Fuck me. Obviously I want the lot of you dead, maggot sandwiches squelching under my dirty footprints as I squash you into the ground. But no... Lilith wants her toy back.”

  “Right. Take me, then, leave them here.”

  “No, no, that just won’t do. It won’t do at all.” He stated. “You see, our adorable Queen of Darkness is interested in more than your soon to be corpse of a body. She wants the girl, too... Mummy dearest can come for the ride. She’ll be delighted to see her radiant, bloody heart beat
ing when she rips it out for herself.”

  Pain radiated through me again. It was coming, they were coming. I could feel the pressure in my bottom, pushing down, baring down on me. I had the urge to sit up, to squat, even. Anything to get my babies out of me.

  “Lucian, I can’t hold the wall up much longer!” My mother shrieked as her body slumped and the wall began to fade away.

  Lucian leapt forward, broke through the remaining slither of a wall, and grabbed Blanes by the throat. Fangs out, he bit down on his neck. Blane howled as his demonic core set alight, frazzling Lucian's top off of him, scorching his body as he was flung aside like the withered corpse of a human being. Blane had the immortal blade. “LUCIAN!” I screamed as his ignited flesh ripped away from him, searing the carpet he lay on. He wasn’t far away, I could make it. I had to try. I needed to save him. Blane was picking himself up, scorching his own wound to seal the pulsating blood flow. I had to get there before he did. Mother was weak, drained of energy as she lay unconscious on the floor. I was already sat up, already bracing my body to squat on my knees. But the weight of me, it was too much. I couldn’t stand, I wasn’t able to lift my tired soul any longer. Crawling on all fours in a slow manner was the least of my problems, what concerned me is the beating sound of a door breaking outside. My front door. Someone else was there. Was it the cavalry? Had Adam arrived by Gabriel’s hand, ready to save the day?

  Crawling further, I was nearly there, but I knew, I could feel it coming, feel the pain begin to radiate through my body again. Starting off slowly, with a timid peaceful wave, then erupting into a full-on tsunami as it battered at the coast, taking down every ounce of energy left in me. All I can do was bury my head and scream. Rivers of anguish merged through me. The pain of the contraction mixed with the despair of never reaching my loved one filled my being. Seeing Blane walk over, feeling his hot breath on my neck as he gripped my hair and dragged me over to Lucian. It should have hurt, I should have cried, but it was nothing compared to the roaring going on inside of me. Blane flung a chunk of my scalp down next to me. Blood poured as he hit me across the side of the head, and just before I blacked out, the vision of my loved one with the Reaper's Blade hanging over him was all that I took to my grave that day.