“You’re being childish,” he snapped. “I didn’t mean what I said,” he amended as he swore before he pulled on a shirt and moved to the bed. He sat beside me, reaching for my hand, which I allowed, but gave no effort to hold his. “I didn’t mean what I said, you know that.”
“You did, you meant every word of it,” I returned as I scooted away from him and slipped beneath the covers.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said.
“Whatever,” I muttered as I closed my eyes.
“Do you need anything?”
“Freedom?”
“Anything else?”
“Fred,” I replied.
“Anything I can actually fucking get for you, Erie?”
“No, just leave me alone. I don’t need anything from you. I don’t want anything from you, Callaghan.”
“Can you just forget what happened and go back to how it was last night?” he snapped and leaned against the wall, staring at me with a hungry gaze.
“You mean when I gave myself to you so foolishly?” I laughed coldly. “Never,” I uttered through my clenched teeth. “Never as your prisoner or whore,” I whispered on a choked breath, turning to show him the deadness of my stare.
“Fine. Have it your way, Erie,” he growled as he left the room.
Once he was out of the room, I sat up, listening to the voices in the other rooms. A few quick orders and the door slammed behind him. I moved into the bathroom, blasting the music as I dug around beneath the counters, scouring for whatever I could find. I entered the bedroom, watching as the door began to open. Grabbing the sheet, I pulled it over myself as Lance peeked into the room, his eyebrows lifting as he took in the sheet I wore.
“Everything okay?” he shouted.
I nodded, watching him as he frowned, not looking convinced. I dropped the sheet and turned around, smiling as the door closed in his haste to follow his orders. With the outer door closed, I stood just inside the bathroom, holding the scissors against my chest. Once I was certain he’d gone back to his post, I set to work.
I cut up his entire wardrobe, from his expensive suits to his band tees. I left one item alone inside his closet, and that was a child’s uniform. More than likely, it had belonged to his son. I backed out, setting my sights on his dressers as I smashed the fertility statues into dust, the bass of the music covering the crashing noises. I tore the sheets off the bed, sheering through them as I stabbed the mattress, ripping it open until feathers exploded from it and the pillows. The pictures on the walls, the couch that I cut open and pulled the stuffing from, I pushed in front of the door, along with the dresser drawers.
Entering the bathroom, I smashed the mirror until I had several sharp pieces that I placed on the side of the tub. I lit the candles and picked up the radio alarm clock, plugging it into the socket next to the bathtub. I positioned several jugs beside it and then placed the lavender soap next to the jugs. I leaned over, turning on the water to the tub as hot as it would go.
I slipped into the water, picking up a piece of glass before I leaned over, cutting the inside of my thigh until the water turned pink as it ran down my leg, into the tub. I drained just enough water to do what was needed and sat in the water as my blood spiraled through it, turning it red. I cut the other thigh, and then my arms, wincing as the familiar sting of pain offered a sense of relief. Pain wasn’t a stranger, not to me. It was something familiar, like an old friend coming to visit.
Once the tub was filled with blood, I reached for the ammonia, emptying the entire jug of cleaning solution into the tub, followed by the entire bottle of bleach. I heard the door, the pounding as the vapor rose like steam, sending the poisonous gases into the air. I wrapped my arms around my knees, pulling them to my body and I peered over them as Lance entered the bathroom, staring at me in horror and then wincing as he took in the blood that dripped from my wrists.
I coughed as the gas reached my lungs, burning them until I coughed up blood, splatting it against the wall. He backed out with his hand over his nose, slamming his fist over the alarm as he ran to get help. I stood up, swaying on my feet as footsteps sounded from outside the bathroom, and then Uther, Rhett, and Lance were all there, all wearing mask as they watched me. I turned, lifting the electric alarm clock and I smiled coldly at them.
“Erie, don’t you fucking do it,” Rhett pleaded. “Jesus Christ,” he uttered as he took in the damage I’d done to my body.
I coughed violently, sending more blood into the water as my lungs liquefied. More feet sounded, and Uther disappeared, returning with Callaghan in a mask similar to the others. I stared at him as he watched me, sparing a quick glance around the room before those turbulent eyes settled back on me.
“No!” he growled, but he didn’t dare move.
I stared him down as the others held him back while he struggled to get to me. I frowned at what was about to happen, but if I wanted to find myself, this was how I would do it. That darkness within me waited to be awoken, and you had to lose yourself if you wanted to find who you truly were. I would eradicate who I had become to unleash who I was supposed to be.
I dropped the alarm clock into the tub with a smile and then fell back as it sent electricity rushing through me. My head cracked against the tub, crunching as my back arched from the shock that tore through me, and then everything stopped as I stared at Callaghan’s pleading eyes, the others holding him back while he tried to get to me.
Chapter 29
Callaghan
Machines beeped and then stopped for hours. Her body was fucked, sliced apart by glass, electrocuted, and her lungs had liquefied from the poisonous combination of the chemicals she had knowingly mixed together. We all sat around the wall, watching as she died over and over again while her body tried to heal itself, but the damage was extensive.
I’d done this to her, pushing her past her limit. In order to keep her safe from those who hunted her, or from her trying to escape, I’d created a prison for her. I’d smothered her until she’d chosen death over staying with me. Commotion in the hallway drew my attention, and I rose, moving to stop my father before he entered the room and could see the reality of what Erie had done to her body.
“She’s healing,” I stated coldly.
“Is she? Because the healers say it may take weeks for her to heal enough to continue fucking you. Did you tell her of the past, is that what changed?”
“No, the monster inside of me decided to play with her this morning,” I snapped, and his frowned deepened as understanding dawned.
“But you did tell her about the past you shared?” he asked, and when I nodded, he snorted. “I’m going to guess that you left out the other parts,” he snapped back. “The part where after you had brought her back, she didn’t survive,” he uttered. “She died, Mason. On that cliff, outside that cursed church, she died. It wasn’t you who brought that child back; it was him. He brought her back, and she didn’t grow. For fuck’s sake, Mason, she was in a glass tomb for centuries until he breathed into it, and then she gained life again. We don’t know what she is, other than his. You cannot love her, son. She’s unnatural.”
He was wrong; I knew exactly who she was, and what she would become. I knew because we’d brought her back. Everyone other than my men thought she was something else. Erie wasn’t just special; she was everything. “She is his queen, and if you challenge that, he will fight me for control. I will not win that fight, father. She was his from the moment she was conceived. She is my mate, our mate. You don’t have to fucking like it, but you will respect it. If you cannot, we will take her and leave. Those are your options.”
“And if she kills us all?” he asked carefully.
“She’s heavily drugged, if you recall,” I growled and turned, listening as the machines flatlined yet again. She’d known what she was doing, that was a given. “She will receive more drugs while she is under. If
it was her intent to die and rid her system of the drugs preventing her magic, she would not be successful.” Erie couldn’t reach full power, because if she did, no amount of drugs would protect this compound and we knew it. Worse than that, if she came back as what she truly was, we were all fucked. Right now, she thought she was just a druid mixed with our blood, but she wasn’t. Erie was ancient, older than this world itself, and when she remembered that, God protect us because she would unleash hell on anyone and everything that had ever trespassed against her.
“And you will continue with her?” My father asked, his hands balling into tight fists at his sides.
“I will make a child with her, yes.”
“I’m asking about after she’s given birth, Callaghan. Carolina has agreed to raise your son as her own.”
“You think I plan to kick her out after she gives me a child?” I stared at him, watching as he lowered his eyes to the ground.
“Carolina deserves this for the son you sacrificed for the greater good. She lost him too,” he muttered as I snorted.
My darling wife had fucked anyone who would allow her into their bed, including the man who thought I was his son. I wanted to remind him what I was, that I had never been born, but created. “And she has had other sons with other men, and that list includes you, Father. I have never stood in her way from moving on. My son will not be hers, and he will have a mother.”
“Are you sure she will want him or be safe around the child? She seems more inclined to end her life than live it with you, son.”
“We are done,” I growled as I spun around, moving back into the chair that had been placed against the wall.
“Brain activity is back, but her lungs continue to fail,” the healer stated as he adjusted the meds that he was pushing.
“And the wounds, why are they not healing?” I asked.
“Because she used poison to prevent the flesh from healing correctly,” he swallowed as he explained what it had done, and how long it would take for the wounds to close. “It will be a long process for her body to fully heal, no matter how immortal she is. The poison damaged the tissue, burning it badly. It did the same to her lungs, which means she will begin to feel it. She will die several more times as her lungs continue and fail, trying to take in air. She will continue to suffocate and die,” he said softly as the men groaned and shook their heads. It was fucking torture to watch her come back, only to fade away violently.
Death wasn’t something new, or something we didn’t know intimately. It was part of what we’d become, and every death took us to the one thing we’d lost. We replayed that horror every single time, as a reminder of what we’d sacrificed for who we had become so long ago. It was a visceral thing we replayed, the horror of it, the loss of the one thing we had loved the most. It was why every time Erie killed me; I spent days away from her with the damage she dealt me.
That anger wasn’t on her, nor could I direct it at her since she had no idea where I went when I died. I’d known what I was doing, and the monster within had shown me a life that would be bigger than anything I’d ever imagined; a world where there was no death, no pain for our people. We were their people. The sacred people they had protected before war had come to their lands. Those who had escaped formed the Knight’s Order, then the Templar Knights, and last, but not least, the Freemasons. Together, we kept out the monsters that craved to destroy the human race.
“She cannot be placed into a coma so that she won’t feel it?” I asked.
“I’m afraid it would alter her mind even more than she already has, and it is fragile and yet healing from the electrocution she suffered.”
“So she has to suffer through it,” I growled.
“I’m afraid so, but I have added pain medication to the nulling medication. She is still receiving fertility medicine at your father’s behest.”
I stared at her, watching as her eyes opened and she turned, staring at me until a moan exploded from her lips. Her body bucked against the bed. The noises she made coiled in my stomach as nausea pulsed through me while she screamed silently. The sound of choking on fluid as her lungs gave out was maddening, filling the silent room as we all watched.
“Why would you do this?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
If she were to escape me, she wouldn’t be able to do it without her magic. I feared she’d try to kill us all for what I’d done, but that couldn’t happen. I couldn’t allow her to kill the children who weren’t immortal yet, nor the women who carried the next generation within them. I’d made a vow to keep these people safe from harm, and the one thing that could harm them was her.
I reached for her chained hand, slipping her tiny fingers through mine, lacing her perfection against the scars that adorned mine as I placed a soft kiss onto it. She awoke, only to die again. Lance reached over and turned off the monitors, canceling the alarm that told us when her death was coming.
“You can’t keep doing this. You know that, brother,” Rhett said softly. “Your father is right, and I hate admitting that out loud. Erie is toxic, toxic to herself and us. She doesn’t know any other way to live. Sometimes, that which is broken cannot be fixed. It’s time to do this the way she knows how.”
“And what would you have me do, set her free?” I snapped.
“That cannot happen,” Uther stated. “Arthur either kills himself or fights us until we kill him. Not to be the asshole who says it, but he’s made some very dark ties as well. He’s hunting her to breed her, and when he does catch her, he will have the witches with him. How else do you explain that weasel dick besting us and remaining out of reach for this long?”
“It may not be the witches,” I announced. “The druids wanted her pregnant, and then they wanted her to die. Only a few people know how to end her life, and they are on that very small list. I think it is time to start hunting druids.”
“That would mean war,” Lance said from where he leaned against the doorway.
“It won’t be our first,” Uther shrugged.
“And it won’t be our last,” Rhett said.
“To save her, we would go to war, when she takes her own life from us,” I muttered. I watched her open her eyes and search the room, settling on me as a smile flittered over her lips before she started to suffocate again. “Did you see that?” I asked.
“She’s definitely got some brain damage if she just smiled at you.” Uther snorted and then laughed as he patted me on the back firmly.
“Do you think that I should tell her that she died and was reincarnated by that which lies within me?” I asked the room.
“I think it wouldn’t help her to know she died and was brought back, or at least knowing she is who she is, because if I were her, I’d be pissed at what you have done, and that girl is mad enough already,” Uther replied skeptically.
“She wasn’t dead,” Lance injected. “She never rotted to bones. She just slept. I mean, considering whom and what she is to me, it makes sense. They aren’t like us, so you shouldn’t expect her to be like us or even think like us. It doesn’t matter that she’s unaware of those things; she is still the creature she was originally born as, just weaker now.”
“She wasn’t fucking breathing. For fuck’s sake, she was in a glass tomb,” Rhett argued.
“But she never truly died; when you die, you rot,” Lance countered.
“Do you think she’d hate us for not telling her that, for that entire time we protected her? That we built a fucking castle around her, waiting for my queen to awaken?” I growled.
“I don’t think you should ever tell anyone that story, as she was an infant and you were a grown ass man. Some shit you just don’t ever say out loud. I mean, I knew she was your mate, and you knew, but the world wouldn’t have understood that the monster that you held told you how to bring her back from the dead. They’d have tied us up and burned us alive, and even if we came b
ack, that’s one way I never want to go out.” Lance chuckled.
“Go Erie-proof my apartment, smartass,” I said. I stood up, pushing her lifeless body over as I lay beside her, curling her against my side as they watched. “I’m done letting her suffer to save us.”
“About fucking time,” Uther snorted. “And for your information, when she remembers who she is, you take the blame this time.”
“Go,” I ordered, holding her as she woke once more, only to slowly suffocate again. It was taking longer and longer for her to suffocate, which meant soon she’d be awake through it. She’d feel every ounce of pain as she struggled to remain awake, only to die. She’d known what she was doing, but why she had done it escaped me. Unless she wanted to jumpstart something she’d hidden, even from me. I could read her thoughts, knew her mind before she did. Until lately, as if she had begun to sense I was in it, with her and had discovered a way to prevent it. There was nothing I didn’t know about her, right down to which foods she preferred and which things she hated. I knew what she feared, and yet I’d given her privacy because she was here, she was mine. She’d earned it, which was why I hadn’t known this was coming and hadn’t stopped it from playing out.
Now, trying to listen to her inner thoughts, there was only silence. As if she’d removed me from being able to know what she thought. I’d stayed the fuck out of her thoughts, even if it made me look like an asshole. I had tried to let her live without me fucking her up, or invading her mind, and now, now she’d gone and made damn sure I couldn’t read them. And they said she was just a girl; no, Erie Callaghan was a monster who just hadn’t put the pieces of her past together yet.
Chapter 30
Erie
Beeping brought me out of the deep sleep, forcing my eyes to open as I searched the room for the incessant noise. My arm pinched against the IV, stopping the deadly toxin that was being pushed through it into my system. I could smell Callaghan’s nearness, feel the heat from his body while it pressed against mine as he held me. His beast was so close to the surface that his magic was tangible in the room, and it offered comforted me. I could also sense the others like him, standing in the room, waiting for me to awaken from what I’d done to myself. My arm moved, hiding the evidence of what I’d done as I slowly turned to face him. Only it wasn’t the Nordic blue eyes that held mine when I did, it was the eerie glowing blue of the beast who watched me from within the human who housed him. His anger was thickening the air around me as he watched me carefully. He studied me as if he expected something to happen.
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