After a while, Chase came over to them. “I’ll meet you back at the house. I need to go.”
Chase was obviously distraught and weighed down with the guilt of losing his beloved, Kathryn. Ally and James both nodded. With a final glance toward Kathryn, he took off in a blur to the forest.
“He will be ok, Ally,” James said reassuringly, then turned her away from the body of her fallen friend towards the forest. “Let’s go get Damian.”
She nodded distractedly. “When will Henry be here?”
James looked up into the distance. “I think I hear the car now.”
A few moments later, a black Mercedes came speeding around the corner.
It pulled to a stop in front of them. Henry and Adele jumped out of the car. She ran to her granddaughter and threw her arms around her. “Ally, you’re safe!” She cried with joy.
Ally hugged her back tightly. “We lost her, Gran...”
James walked over to Henry and gripped his arm in a manly fashion.
“Where is Chase?” Henry asked.
“We lost Kathryn and he needed some time.”
Henry hung his head. “I’m sorry.”
James shared his sentiment and then added, “We found Damian.”
Henry snapped his head up, the shock registering on his face. “Have you told Adele?”
“Not yet. Come help me get him to the car.” James and Henry walked towards the forest to get Damian.
Adele and Ally were so deep in grief and consoling each other, they didn’t notice that James and Henry had left them.
“I couldn’t save Kat,” she said with a heavy heart and tears rolling down her cheek.
Adele looked at her. She wanted to take away the guilt and heartbreak that her beloved granddaughter was feeling, but she knew that only time would heal the pain. Adele was crushed that the evil creatures had taken Kat from them. Her mind was blank from hurting, but she managed to find some wise words that she hoped would help Ally. “Sometimes we can’t save people no matter what we do. It breaks my heart that she is gone, but I know you would have done everything you could.”
Ally nodded sadly. “She was dead before we got here, but she has been bitten.”
“Oh no!” Adele gasped as Ally began sobbing again. Fresh tears began falling from Adele’s eyes as well. They knew that if Kathryn became one of the undead, she would need to be destroyed.
“We won’t know if she has been turned until she rises and tracks us down,” Ally said, distraught and unable to comprehend that her best friend might want her dead.
“It will be alright. Let’s just hope that Natalia didn’t turn her.” Adele knew Natalia well enough to make an educated guess that she had turned Kathryn, but they wouldn’t know for a while. Either way, the Kathryn they knew and loved was dead.
“Is Chase alright?” Adele asked knowing first-hand what the loss of a soul mate could do to one’s heart and soul. She wouldn’t wish the soul destroying, heart shattering pain that she had felt for all these years on anyone.
“As alright as one can expect,” Ally paused. “There is something I need to tell you…”
“What?”
Ally turned her head to find James before answering. She spotted him and Henry coming out of the forest with Damian. They were both supporting him.
“Look over there, Gran,” Ally said, with a mixture of joy at being able to reunite her grandmother with the soul mate she had thought dead all these years, but the grief still had a strong hold on Ally. She knew it would for a long time to come, but it only strengthened her resolve to annihilate every last vampire that walked the earth.
Adele looked over and gasped with shock. “Damian,” she whispered then looked back to Ally.
“He’s been held prisoner all this time, and we never knew. I had a dream last night that led me to believe he was alive and with Kathryn, but I didn’t want to say anything to you until I knew for sure.”
“Oh Ally!” she exclaimed as she hugged her and then ran to her long-lost love.
Damian saw her and stood on his own. She threw her arms around him. Tears began rolling down both their faces. “I thought you were dead, Damian! I can’t believe you’re alive, after all this time.”
“I’m so sorry, Adele, for putting you through everything. I tried to escape, but I was too weak.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” she said pulling back to look at her soul mate and lose herself in those eyes she never thought she would see again.
Damian kissed her as Henry, James and Ally watched, smiling in the background.
The day had ended with two souls reuniting as one, whilst another was torn apart and the remaining couple had been brought closer together.
James wrapped his arms around Ally. “I thought I was going to lose you today.”
“I thought you were too.” She paused and then told him, “I had a dream last night that I died today while saving Kathryn and Damian.”
“You what!?” he exclaimed.
“That’s why I didn’t tell you. I knew you would never let me come,” she said.
“You’re right. I wouldn’t have,” he said sternly.
“I survived.” She looked over to the body of her best friend one last time. “But perhaps that was because Kathryn didn’t.” Ally shivered involuntarily and turned back to watch Adele and Damian.
Damian and Adele came over slowly. “I’m taking him back to the house. He will need lots of care and recuperation and there is a lot we need to catch up on,” Adele said with the brightest smile Ally had ever seen.
Damian looked to Ally. “You were very brave Granddaughter. I’m proud of you.”
She smiled up at him. “Thank you.”
Everyone turned away and walked back to the car that would transport Adele, Damian and Henry back to the house. Damian and Adele got in the backseat, and before long the car was speeding back towards Carlisle Manor.
Ally and James watched until the car disappeared from sight then went to find the horses and make their way back to Carlisle Manor also.
James was the first to speak once they were left alone. “Today has made me realize there is much to do before you take on Vincent and fulfil this prophecy Ally. And I intend for you to be fully prepared. I think we need to start with the conversion as soon as possible.”
“Perhaps.” Ally wasn’t sure if she was ready for that yet.
“What about Chase?” she asked changing the subject.
“He’ll come back when he is ready,” James answered.
“I can’t just leave her, James,” Ally said in despair. She looked around and saw a lone crimson flower standing tall against the desolate background. Without a word, she walked over and picked the flower. It was bright and vibrant as Kathryn had once been. Turning back to her fallen friend, Ally walked back to where she lay. Kneeling down, she placed Kathryn’s hands together over her chest and placed the flower between her snow-white hands. James came up behind her silently and placed a white blanket over Kathryn up to her hands. Ally smiled gratefully at James for understanding that she needed to do something for her best friend. As Ally stood to leave, she looked back down one last time as a river of tears flowed down her cheeks and she said, “Good-bye Kathryn.”
Consumed by her grief but grateful that she was alive and that James was by her side, she turned to her soul mate and looked deep into his emerald eyes.
“Losing Kat has made me realize something, too. Life is too short to be worrying about what may or may not happen. We belong together, and I’m not going to run from this anymore.”
James pulled her into a deep embrace, and she felt so loved. He pulled back and looked into her eyes. “I love you, Alessandra.” He lowered his mouth down upon hers and kissed her with all the love and passion that he felt for her.
She returned his kiss with equal fervor.
After a moment, they broke away. Ally leaned into him then began to look towards the forest, suddenly very eager to be away from this place.
“Will the
forest grow back now?”
James looked around at the rotting vegetation and smiled, “Within a month, things will start to flourish again and within a year, there will be no trace of what you see now.”
She nodded hoping that she would be like the forest and overcome the ugliness that she was feeling at the moment.
Turning back to James, she said, “Let’s go.”
James embraced Ally and bent down to bestow a sweet loving kiss on her lips. Ally felt her heart flutter from the kiss and sighed internally with contentment. Looking deeply into each other’s eyes for a moment before James took her hand, they walked back to where the horses had been tethered and started to ride home.
In front of the old abandoned house on the hill, watching them leave stood an auburn haired beauty with eyes of steel and a black heart, clutching a crimson flower in her snow-white hand.
Kathryn had become the undead.
End of Book One
Turn the page for an extract from Book Two in The Immortal Prophecy Saga.
Chapter One
Immortal Prophecy Page 33
