The Protectors

by April Hollingworth

  “Omigod,” splutters T.T. Her eyes stretch wide at the corners as everything Vlad says seems to sink into her head, as it is in mine too. “Omigod,” she repeats. Turning toward Vlad, she grasps hold of his arm and slightly shakes it before demanding in a whispery voice, “You’re right, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am!” Vlad growls while glaring at my friend’s hand that is currently grabbing his arm. Realizing she isn’t paying any attention, he takes hold of her hand as if to pry it from him. Except the moment his bare hand touches hers, something happens. Both suck in a breath, and their eyes connect with each other’s. I stare in surprise at the scene enfolding before my eyes. Honestly, it’s like watching a romantic film come to life before my very eyes. Totally unexpected and rather beautiful all at the same time.

  “Nu m-am gândit…I never thought…” Trailing off what he was about to say, Vlad traces the contours of T.T.’s face with the back of his fingers and rubs his thumb over her lips with the hand not clamping hers to his arm.

  “You never thought what?” T.T. inquires as she stares with a look of awe and confusion on her face at the prince before her.

  “Că voi găsi pe cineva să iubească din nou.”

  “Huh?” my eloquent friend blurts out, making me want to snicker.

  “That I would find someone to love again,” Vlad repeats, this time in English.

  “Oh.” The words leave T.T.’s mouth sounding more like a sigh with sounds than words themselves. A light blush rises to her cheeks, and she takes a tiny step closer to Vlad.

  Their moment of newfound discovery is interrupted by Jezebel. Her quiet words blast through the room as if she’d shouted them instead of whispered them. “Why now?”

  Everyone turns to look at her with expressions of surprise and puzzlement.

  “Why now, what?” inquires Cedrix from beside her. His words are soothing, controlled, yet puzzlement and a bit of steel too laces his tone.

  Glancing up at him, she bestows on him a smile of such joy and pleasure it makes him blink, and the tension in his jaw which I hadn’t noticed before eases.

  “Finding love, new life, all this…” She trails off as if searching for the right word before continuing, “…for lack of a better word, joy. It’s almost as if our whole lives, we’ve all been in a limbo of sorts, fighting for survival, and now suddenly the pause button has been taken off, and everything pure and wonderful is happening. Why now though, you know?”

  “Because things can be held off for only so long before the world forces life to move on. This has been a hell of a long pause, centuries long, and with everything that has happened—Candi being born and reaching adulthood, the war with The Protectors, soul mates finding one another—it’s time,” Janna informs us all in such a matter-of-fact tone no one can deny her words.

  “Like the wheel of life, you can only be in one position for so long before you’re forced to move to the next one,” Felicity murmurs, her agreement causing us all to look at her. “What? Oh, come off it, that tarot card is so accurate it’s frightening at times,” she exclaims before carrying on, “and none of you can disagree with that either.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Vivian drawls, raising her hands as if to ward off any further comments. Yet it’s the flicker of hope and the softening of her features that cause no more comments to be made. Instead, we all gravitate toward each other, with smiles and grins trembling on our lips and hope for better times in our steps.

  Chapter 56

  Eight Months Later

  “Victor, stop hovering, I’m fine. Honestly,” I declare rubbing my extended belly in gentle circles to ease our baby’s excited movements. The words have just left my mouth when another spasm makes me groan, this time almost doubling me over with the pain. “Holy shit,” I exclaim, as water gushes from between my legs.

  “Sweetheart, you’re not okay. Our baby is coming!” exclaims Victor. Next thing I know, I’m scooped up by my husband and flitted to the hospital.

  “I’m not ready, though,” I wail as I burst into tears, burying my face into the side of his neck as my arms tighten around his shoulders.

  “Shhhh, it’s okay. Everything will be okay,” he soothes me, while kicking open the door to the hospital and rushing me over to the nearest doctor he can find. “My wife’s water broke, and she’s been having some pain,” he growls at the exhausted-looking man.

  “She’ll need to go the maternity ward…”

  “But I’m not due for another month. I’m not ready yet,” is the only thing I manage to say, as if my declaring that simple fact can convince my baby to stay inside me.

  When another wave of pain slices through me, I have the sudden realization that the fact I’m not ready means diddly-squat. Apparently, our child is more than ready to come into the world.

  ****

  For eight months, I’ve been following my cousin from a distance. Paradise Falls has turned into a Protectors-free zone. Somehow, Candi and her friends know when any member is around and have hunted them down. After a couple of months of this, word got through from the top circle to stay away from the town until further notice.

  Receiving a phone call from a contact of mine that my cousin was rushed into the hospital, I take a chance and slip into the town. Somehow, she’s pregnant. Logic whispers in my head she must have slept with someone other than the vampire, yet I know deep down inside where my fear resides, that isn’t the case. This child is what all the fear has been about for centuries. This child will bring the end to me and all my kind. All who are part of The Protectors.

  ****

  “Only take the oxygen during contractions,” the midwife informs me, as she tries to remove the happy gas from me.

  “I’m having it all the time!” I growl back at her, refusing to relinquish my hold on the mask.

  “You’re okay, sweetheart. Just breathe.” Victor tries to sooth me, as he squeezes the hand he’s holding gently.

  “Don’t you talk to me; it’s your fault I’m—owwww, shit that hurt!” I exclaim, tightening my hand around his. I feel my fingers stiffen from their curled-up position, where they wrap around his hand.

  “I love you, you complete arse,” I blubber a moment later before inhaling the gas once more.

  “I love you too.” His amused voice rumbles through me, reaching me from my perch on the pink fluffy cloud I’m currently floating on.

  “Okay, you’ll have to take that from her now. We’re ready for her to push,” declares a voice from between my legs. A moment later, the crafty nurse beside me snatches the mask from me and hides it behind her.

  “Okay, Candi, I need you to push. Remember your breathing, it’ll help,” the nurse informs me.

  Throwing her a baleful glance, I sit up a little more, panting as I was previously instructed. I start bearing down at the same time.

  Victor wraps an arm around my back to help support me and does the Lamaze breathing with me.

  Gratitude and love sweep through me, followed by exhaustion. I’m not sure how long I’ve been in labor. Reaching a hand out, I trace the contours of my gorgeous vampire husband and whisper my love for him. Stunning silvery-green eyes meet mine, as a wail from our newborn child erupts into the room.

  “Congratulations, you have a daughter,” informs the midwife a second later as she brings our swaddled baby girl to me. Feeling dizzy, I manage to graze my fingers against her tiny ones before darkness envelops me.

  ****

  Hours I’ve been pacing the corridors of this blasted hospital, when finally, I hear the wail of a newborn baby, followed a second later by a roar of anguish and an alarm going off. My heart freezes in shock as I realize that everything my cousin has gone through has been brought down by her child.

  Surely, I must be mistaken. No way can someone so vibrant and filled with so much power be killed, not in battle, but in childbirth. A moment later, the earth vibrates, the walls tremble, and a blast of pure white light erupts around the doorframe leading to the
delivery room right before it’s blasted off its hinges.

  A wind howls through the corridors bringing destruction and fear in its wake. “What the hell?” is the only thing I manage to exclaim before I’m blasted against a wall column. As the light touches me, I feel it sink into my skin and hear screams of terror from all those connected to me through the blood-link I share with those on the third level of The Protectors. A scream of pain erupts from me…

  ****

  Oh my God, I’m drinking my nurse as if she’s a juice box. Retracting my fangs, I let her drop to the floor, only a second later to realize I have fangs!

  “What the fuck just happened?” I ask the stunned-looking vampire beside me.

  “You died.” His hoarse voice barely manages to say the words aloud, and I’m surprised to see blood tracks on his cheeks from where he’d cried. Then Victor’s words penetrate my brain.

  “Say what?” Shaking my head as if to dislodge something covering my ears, I repeat my question.

  “Sweetheart, you died. I thought I’d lost you forever.” A shudder ripples through him as he chokes on the words, and that’s the moment I realize, I really had died.

  “So how am I here, and why was I drinking my nurse as if she was a can of soda?” I demand, feeling slightly terrified. Okay, totally petrified to be completely honest.

  “I don’t know…” He turns to look in the corner to where the terrified-looking midwife is currently making shushing noises to the gurgling baby in her arms. “Your fingers brushed our daughter’s, and then you just…”

  “Died,” I finish for him.

  Turning back to me, he gathers me in his arms and murmurs, “But only for a moment. Everything went crazy. I thought at first we were having an earthquake until you burned brightly with a blinding white light. And I realized you were somehow causing it.

  “Your power blasted from you, surrounded you, and then you were sinking fangs into the nurse there.”

  Leaning over the bed, I look down at the unconscious woman. Reaching out to her, I filter healing light into her as I whisper an apology for…well, eating her. A second later, she sits up and looks bemusedly around as if trying to figure out why she’s on the floor.

  “Oh, oh my God!” she exclaims in a tone of voice filled with wonderment.

  Feeling puzzled, I glance toward the midwife and then Victor. Seeing both their bemused expressions, I know I won’t find any answers there.

  “Are you okay?” I tentively ask her.

  “I feel it—oh my God, I can feel my magick.” Turning to look at me, she stares at me with a mixture of wonderment and awe. “You gave me my magic, or let it loose somehow. Thank you.”

  “Denise, you were born a dud. You don’t have any…” The midwife’s words trail off as Denise conjures a glass of water and drinks it.

  “Ahhh.” Smacking her lips, she gives the shocked midwife a baleful glare. “I’m no dud anymore, so don’t ever call me one again.” Picking herself up off the floor, she glances toward me, thanks me, and then leaves.

  I notice the speculative look the woman in the corner throws me and then my daughter. Victor must have noticed it too, for he quickly leaves my side and takes our daughter from her.

  Climbing gingerly from the bed, I reach Victor’s side a moment later and look properly for the first time into my daughter’s face. Silvery-violet eyes meet mine, and a rosebud mouth opens to let out a tired yawn. I feel tears well up as I stare in awe at the most beautiful baby I have ever seen.

  Looking up into the proud father holding her, I feel my heart burst open and overflow with the amount of love I feel for my child and husband. Together, we leave the room and enter the destroyed hallway.

  In shock, we stare about the place. I notice the body of a man crumpled against a pillar. Going by the destruction of the place, I wouldn’t have thought too much about it, except for the spider-web lines covering every inch of visible skin.

  Somehow, I instinctively know that he was a member of The Protectors, and I’m guessing that when I died and came back, the Prophecy came true.

  “I do believe we should get your clothes and leave,” Victor mutters to me, while staring at the body. A moment later, he’s checked us out. We both know the only reason we were allowed to leave is because the hospital staff are still trying to sort out the damage created by my magick.

  We’ve just gotten back home, thanks to Victor flitting us here, when I hear my phone ringing. Answering it, I listen to what’s been said which causes me to almost drop it a moment later. Turning to Victor, I repeat what Selena had just told me. “Nancy’s eyes have changed color. They’re now blue again with a brown ring circling them. She’s both a zombie and a necromancer.”

  Epilogue

  October 31, 2014

  Dear Journal,

  So much has happened in the last twenty-four hours. Victor and I are the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl. We’ve called her Cynthia-Marie, after both our mothers. She’s so tiny and delicate, yet the power inside her is immense. She is the Triple Magick one from the Prophecy, and I am the second one.

  I never understood what it had meant when it said, “When the Double Magick one fails to rise again, then there will be two Triple Magick ones.” It was only when I died after giving birth to Cynthia-Marie and came back to life, fangs in the neck of my nurse—not my finest hour—that I finally got it. For my third type of magick to come to me, I had to die.

  Anyway, I’m now a badass witch, wolf, and vampire. Hell, yeah, I’m totally awesome, and so is my precious bundle of joy.

  The magick is returning to those who lost it due to being turned into a vampire or zombie, or awakening in those classified as duds. I never realized that Victor was a werewolf before he was turned into a vampire. One day Victor, Cynthia-Marie, and I will be able to run together as a pack, how awesome is that.

  Talking of which, I had a phone call from Transylvania. Guess who’s the big wolf once more; yeah, that’s right. Vlad’s the alpha wolf once more, as well as being a badass vampire, and newly engaged to T.T.

  And they’re not the only ones.

  Kheda then popped the question, and Jasmine accepted. They’ve both moved into Jasmine’s old family home. The renovations were completed last week.

  Selena and Dante are also moving in together, and I know he’s going to ask her to marry him soon. I helped pick out the ring, and it’s beautiful.

  Jezebel has become a bounty hunter and is working with her husband Cedrix. They got married a couple of weeks ago. Between cases believe it or not.

  Nancy, Vivian, and Felicity are off traveling together. I think they mentioned something about bodies in the Amazon and a missing prince. Not too sure, to be honest, if I heard that right, though. They did promise to be back for Christmas. I can’t wait for everyone to meet Cynthia-Marie.

  I just caught the news before coming upstairs to write in you. There’ve been a lot of unexplained deaths. People just dropping dead. They go suddenly but not quietly, all found screaming and bearing a spider-web mark.

  I’m guessing, they were all on the same blood-link level as the dead man in the hospital. I can’t get him out of my head. I feel as if I’ve seen him somewhere before, but I just can’t put my finger on where.

  Anyway, this will be the last time I write in you for a while. I’ll be busy changing nappies and being a mum. The war against The Protectors isn’t over, but for now, Victor and I are taking a time out from it, unless it comes to us. Our priority is our beautiful daughter, making sure she’s safe and has us here with her.

  Until the next time I write in you.

  Candi Harlow

  P.S. Happy thirty-first birthday to me.

  A word from the author…

  Born in Dublin, I moved to England, then finally back home to Ireland. I now live in West Cork but want to move to America.

  In October 2010, I self-published a book of poetry called Different Kinds of Emotions.

  But I always wanted to write do
wn the stories in my head, until finally I did. My first novel is a paranormal fantasy called Double Magick in the Falls, Book One in the Candi Reynolds Series.

  When I was a child, I fell in love with books, amazing stories filled with mystery and intrigue, danger and fantasy. This love has progressed into a passion with me. I also like photography and cemeteries—the older the better.

  aprilhollingworth.wix.com/april-hollingworth

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