Anna (Book 2, The Redemption Series)

by S. J. West

  I turn the knob to open the door and step into the room.

  Even though the room is filled with furniture, a loneliness permeates the air like it hasn’t been lived in for a very long time. I stand in the doorway unsure I want to venture further in until I see something on the nightstand by the wrought iron bed that interests me.

  I walk over and pick up a holo-projector. It’s a simple gadget used to store captured images and video. I touch the screen of the handheld crystal device and an image from the last video played appears on the display. I feel the salty burn of tears as I look at the woman staring back at me. I had a feeling this was my mother’s room, and the smiling picture of her on the screen of the holo-projector has confirmed my suspicion.

  I take in a deep breath and touch the image so it will play.

  Holo-projectors transform any space you’re in to play back videos like you’re experiencing them in person. The only thing you have to be careful about is moving around while one is playing. The physical objects in the room don’t move. They're simply camouflaged by the projected video. I was always told to stand still while one was on unless I was confident I wouldn’t run into anything.

  The scene I find myself in is of a sunny day with a clear blue sky overhead. I’m standing in a forest but the trees are bare of leaves. The ground is covered by a light dusting of snow, and the sound of a woman’s laughter rings through the still air. I turn around to find my mother running towards me. She’s even more beautiful than the portrait I used to have of her in my chambers back in Cirrus. Her dark, wavy brown hair flows behind her like a silky mane as she runs. She reaches up to her dark blue knitted scarf tucked underneath the collar of her coat to pull it just below her chin.

  “There’s nowhere you can run where I wouldn’t be able to find you,” I hear a familiar male voice say behind her.

  I lift my gaze and see Lucifer quickly catching up to my mother. She laughs even harder when she looks over her shoulder at him. I watch as he grabs the back of her coat to stop her. My mother loses her footing and begins to tumble to the ground, but Lucifer phases in beneath her and cushions her fall. My mother giggles and looks down at him while he smiles up at her with such pure joy it completely transforms his face into someone I almost don’t recognize.

  “Thank you,” she tells him, giving him a quick kiss on the lips. “It probably wouldn’t have been a good thing for me to fall in my condition.”

  Lucifer looks confused.

  “Your condition?” He asks. “Are you ill? If you are, you shouldn’t be out in this weather. It’ll only make things worse.”

  My mother shakes her head at him and smiles. “No, I’m not sick.”

  “Then what’s wrong?” He asks, lifting a hand to tuck the left side of her hair behind her ear. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  “Just love me,” she replies.

  “That I will always be able to do. But, tell me what’s wrong so I can do more.”

  “You’ve done quite enough, husband,” my mother says as her smile turns shy. “In fact, you’re the reason I’m in the condition I find myself in.”

  Lucifer still looks confused, but when my mother’s smile practically lights up her face, I can see realization dawn as his expression changes to one of disbelief.

  “You’re pregnant?” He asks, as if needing her verbal confirmation of the fact.

  My mother nods. “Yes. We’re going to have a baby girl.”

  Lucifer rolls his eyes. “And of course our first child will have to be a girl. Your family is famous for them.”

  My mother pinches Lucifer playfully on the arm, but it seems to actually cause him a bit of pain because he flinches.

  “And if we didn’t, I might have never been born,” my mother reminds him.

  Lucifer smiles and lifts his hands to cup one side of my mother’s face.

  “The day you were brought into this world was the happiest day of my life. I just didn’t know it at the time. But when our daughter is born, we can share in that happiness together and be able to relive that memory for the rest of our lives.”

  My mother lowers her head and kisses Lucifer. He kisses her back fervently, and I look away because I feel as though I’m violating a moment that was meant to only be shared between the two of them.

  “I should get you back home and out of this cold,” I hear Lucifer say.

  I return my gaze to my parents and see them rise from the snow covered ground.

  “One second,” my mom says, walking over to one of the trees and bending down to retrieve the holo-projector I hold in my hands. She turns around and holds it up to show Lucifer. “I wanted to save the moment to show to our daughter one day. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Lucifer holds out a hand to my mother which she readily accepts.

  “Of course I don’t mind. I want her to know how happy you made me today.”

  My mother throws her arms around Lucifer’s neck and kisses him soundly on the lips.

  The image fades, and I find myself standing in my mother’s room again.

  I lay the holo-projector back down on the nightstand and leave the room. I’m curious to know what else is on there, but for some reason, I feel like it would be a violation of my mother’s memories. I know she wanted me to see that one video and that’s enough for me right now. It was strange to see Lucifer so happy. It’s a side of his personality I never would have thought existed if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes. Millie told me once that when Lucifer was with my mother he was a completely different person. What I just witnessed seemed to support her opinion. If he could be that man once, perhaps he could be the man I just saw again one day. Surely even the devil wanted to feel joy in his life instead of anger and hate.

  I walk out of the room and firmly close the door behind me.

  “I see you found Amalie’s room,” I hear Jered say.

  I look up the hallway and see him walking from the direction of Malcolm’s bedroom. I assume he probably went there first to find me which can only mean one thing.

  “Is it almost time to meet Levi?” I ask.

  Jered nods. “Yes, almost. I was just coming to wake you. Would you like to get something to eat before we go?”

  I shake my head. “No, I’m not hungry. Even if I were, I don’t think I could eat. My stomach is all tied up in knots as it is.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jered says, but I can detect a note of that emotion in his own voice. “We’ll get them back.”

  “Alive, I hope.”

  “Everything will work out,” Jered says with a reassuring smile.

  “Even if we get Lucas, Malcolm, and Millie back, there’s no guarantee he’ll ever release my papa.”

  “Levi won’t kill Andre,” Jered says with more confidence. “He knows your father’s safety is the only thing keeping him alive. Levi might act brave, but deep down underneath that snarky, all knowing attitude of his he's essentially a coward.”

  “I know that. And he’s the one prince I have no intention of giving a chance to live, Jered. He’s done too much for me to allow him to stay alive.”

  “I won’t stop you when the time comes,” Jered tells me. “Unfortunately, that time isn’t today.”

  “He’s not going to like what we’re planning to do,” I tell Jered, worried that we might be making a mistake.

  “Well, we’re not exactly giving him a choice. We know we’ll keep our end of the bargain, but Levi doesn’t live by any sort of moral code. He’ll do what he wants. This way we can keep him on a short leash and force him to do what he promised.”

  “I just hope it doesn’t backfire,” I say, worried now about what Jered wants to do.

  “If he hurts any of them, he gets nothing,” Jered says. “I don’t think he’ll be that stupid.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Jered looks at the door to my mother’s room. “Did you find anything interesting in there?”

  “A holo-projector,” I admit.

&nb
sp; “Amalie liked to watch videos while she was bedridden during the pregnancy.”

  “I saw the one where she told Lucifer she was pregnant. They looked so happy together.”

  “I think it broke her heart when he stopped visiting her.”

  “Stopped visiting her?” I ask in surprise. “Why?”

  “He was mad, an emotion Lucifer has always had a hard time keeping under control. He wanted your mother to get rid of you so she wouldn’t die.”

  “He wanted her to abort me?”

  Jered nods. “He told her they didn’t need to have a child to be happy. He tried to convince her that all they needed was each other. But, Amalie was stubborn. I think she was the most stubborn out of all the descendants, at least that’s what Malcolm always said. She insisted that you had a special purpose and had to be born no matter what the cost.”

  “How did she know I would be the descendant all of you were waiting on to be born?”

  “I’m not sure what Amalie knew. She never said anything else about what she thought you were meant to do. All I know is that you were the most precious thing to her and no one else mattered as much to her as you did. I wish you had been given the chance to know her.”

  “Do you think she would be proud of me? Do you think she would approve of the way I turned out?”

  “Of that I have no doubt,” Jered says, an expression of pride on his face as he looks at me. “We’re all proud of you, Anna. You’ve exceeded any of our expectations.”

  Jered’s face looks slightly troubled. “It’s time.”

  He holds out his hand to me and I take it.

  “Stay strong,” he tells me.

  “I will.”

  Jered phases us.

  I’m not sure what I expected the Sahara desert to look like. Being a desert, I suppose I thought it would be covered in sand. Yet, it appears winter has found its way even to this arid climate. We stand on what looks like a snow covered hill, but since I know it's a desert, I think we are actually standing on a dune. The moon is high in the sky casting a ghostly glow around us. Desmond, Brutus, and Daniel phase in at the exact same instant we do.

  We all look around but don’t see Levi anywhere.

  “How predictable,” Desmond says with a derisive shake of his head.

  “Looks like he did exactly what you thought he would,” Daniel comments dryly to Jered.

  “I wonder why he thought we would be that stupid.” Brutus says.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I feel like I’m missing something important. Why do you think Levi isn’t here yet?”

  “One of the reasons we’re doing this trade the way we are,” Jered tells me, “is because we all assumed he would try to see where we phased to retrieve the princes. Like I said earlier, Levi lacks a moral code of any sort. I’m sure he hoped to snatch the princes out from under us just as we phased to retrieve them.”

  “So he was planning to try to double cross us,” I say, realization dawning.

  “Looks that way,” Desmond agrees. “It’s a good thing we’ve never trusted the slimy bastard.”

  “Do you think he’ll still show up?” I ask.

  “Oh, he’ll be here,” Brutus reassures me. “He doesn’t have any choice now.”

  Approximately a minute later, Levi phases in about five feet away from us. Christopher has an unconscious Malcolm in his arms and lays him on the snow covered ground at his feet. Malcolm doesn’t move or even make a sound. Levi has Lucas standing in front of him with his hands on my son’s shoulders close to his neck, a subtle reminder to me about how easily he can kill him. Millie stands by Levi with her wrists bound together by magnetic cuffs. Clark, the guard who always accompanied Christopher to take me to my lessons with Empress Catherine, is gripping Millie’s left arm so tightly it makes my friend grimace in pain.

  “Well, I brought my offerings,” Levi says to me. “Where are yours, my little dove?”

  Jered tosses Levi a small glass tablet. Levi catches it with one hand. He peers at the device with a confused expression on his face. He holds it up between his index and middle finger to examine it more closely. A cascading array of purple digital numbers play across the screen.

  “What’s this?” Levi asks, studying the card sized tablet.

  “After you give us the three of them,” Jered says, nodding his head to my loved ones, “we’ll give you the code to unlock the coordinates where you can find your brothers. Then you can go get them yourself.”

  Levi sneers. “And how do I know you aren’t feeding me some bogus locations?”

  “Unlike you we actually keep our word,” Jered says. “But if you need proof, I’ve programmed the first coordinate separately from the others. Input code 02201994 for the first coordinate.”

  Levi inputs the numerical code on the touch screen. One steady set of numbers appears on the screen, and he shows them to Christopher.

  “Go there and see what you find,” Levi orders.

  Christopher looks at the numbers and phases.

  Levi looks back over at me.

  “How did you like the present Christopher delivered to you?” He has the audacity to not only ask but also smile about it.

  “Go to Hell, Levi,” I say, not able to keep the contempt I feel for him out of my voice.

  “Been there… done that. Completely overrated if you ask me.”

  “I plan to send you back there permanently,” I tell him, finding at least a small bit of satisfaction knowing my threat will become fact one day.

  “Wouldn’t you miss me just a little bit?” Levi says as if wounded by my words.

  “I would miss you about as much as I would miss a boil on my butt, Levi. The sooner I cut you to pieces the better off we’ll all be.”

  I hear snickers beside me and know the boys found my remark amusing.

  “A boil on your butt?” Levi repeats seeming to have only taken in that much of what I said. “And here I have endearments such as ‘my little dove’ and ‘wife’.” Levi looks down at Malcolm. “You know this big oaf used to call Lilly his ‘dearest’. Do you think he’ll come up with a cute little sweet nothing name that means as much for you?”

  I knew what he was doing. He was trying to bait me, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of letting it bother me. I had no doubt in my mind about Malcolm’s love for me. If I had to share his heart with Lilly, so be it. But he was mine in this lifetime and no one else’s.

  “He’ll be able to call me wife soon enough,” I say. “I’m planning to be a widow before long.”

  “I guess we’ll see about that,” Levi says, narrowing his eyes at me. “I still have Andre, lest you forget.”

  “No, I haven’t forgotten,” I reply. “That’s pretty much the only reason I’ve allowed you to live this long. If it wasn’t for him, you would have died the night Christopher brought me Vala.”

  I look down at Lucas to see what his reaction is to the reminder of Vala’s decapitation. He looks sad but not on the verge of tears. He’s keeping it together which makes me proud, but it also breaks my heart that he even has to make the attempt.

  As if he heard his name spoken, Christopher phases back with one of the princes still in stasis. I see a silver dagger pierced through one of his hands. His clothes look ragged with age from being hidden away for so long.

  “I didn’t remove the dagger,” Christopher tells Levi. “Something’s wrong with his seal. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I took it out.”

  Levi looks at the prince’s hand and shakes his head in disappointment.

  “Well, I guess he might come in handy one day. But, we can’t release him just yet.”

  Levi looks at Jered. “Smart to give me the defective one first.”

  “Now you see that we’re ready to make a deal,” Jered says. “Give us Malcolm, Lucas, and Millie, and I’ll give you the code that unlocks the rest of the coordinates.”

  “I can’t say I appreciate the way you’ve handled this,” Levi tells us. “I don’t li
ke being made a fool of.”

  “We didn’t make you a fool,” Brutus says. “You’ve been one for some time now, Levi.”

  “Ha.. ha.. ha,” Levi says sarcastically.

  He hands the glass tablet to Christopher and whispers something to him. Christopher phases the prince he brought and the tablet away. Through his phase trail, I can see he’s returned to the palace in Cirrus.

  Levi places both his hands on Lucas’ shoulders.

  “You know,” Levi says with a tilt of his head. “I believe I can probably find someone in Cirrus to crack the code for me. But, only I can teach you all a lesson in obedience. This trade should have been a simple one, yet you chose to undermine me. Did you think this was a game? Do you find it amusing to play with my patience?”

  With each question, I can see Levi’s agitation at us intensify, and his hands are uncomfortably close to Lucas’ neck.

  “We’re only playing the game you started,” I tell him.

  “You know as well as we do that you wouldn’t have kept to your end of the bargain if we had simply brought all the princes here,” Jered reasons. “You hoped to get your brothers when we phased to retrieve them from their hiding spots. We all know that, Levi. There’s no point in denying it.”

  “Fine. I won't deny it. I guess I should tell you that I was also planning to make sweet Anna choose which one of these humans I would kill so she could spare the other one's life. But since you’ve just made it that much more difficult for me to retrieve my brothers, I don’t think I'll privilege her with that luxury.”

  I watch as Levi places one hand underneath Lucas’ chin. Lucas’ eyes grow wide in fear while Levi smiles at me. I watch in horror as Levi’s grip tightens around my son's jaw.

  “You shouldn’t have tested me,” Levi says. “Now I’ll have to teach you all a lesson.”

  Chapter 10

  Before I can move an inch or the guys can phase over to Levi, someone unexpected makes an appearance.

  Lucifer phases in behind Levi and does to him what Levi had planned to do to Lucas. He quickly grabs Levi’s chin with one hand, grips the back of his head with the other and twists. A distinctive cracking sound can be heard as Levi’s eyes roll back in his head. His body goes completely limp, and he falls to the ground.