by C.M. Owens
“I think you need to leave us, now.” Thomas demanded.
The nurse squared her shoulders and stood her ground until the doctor stood and dismissed her. She protested that the babies had to be taken to the nursery for the standard testing, weighing and measuring, but was instructed to send in another nurse to take care of that. The nurse was obviously furious as she stalked out of the room.
As he turned back to his mate and daughters, his eyes met those of his mother’s and he could tell she was just as worried as he was by the nurse’s reaction. Not saying a word about it, Marie pulled out a camera and demanded to document this miraculous moment. Thomas moved behind Angelica and the two smiled for pictures. Marie took so many Thomas had to finally demand for her to stop and go give Jacob the wonderful news.
Unable to wait another minute, Thomas reached out to hold Cora in his arms. He wasn’t comfortable enough around babies to try holding both of them at the same time, so he spent a few minutes holding each of them and marveling at how perfect they were. Tears welled up in his eyes at the overwhelming emotion filling his heart. He knew he would do whatever it took to keep these three safe, because they meant everything to him, they were his life.
A few minutes later, another nurse entered the room and Thomas stood protectively between her and his family. He interrogated her to see what her reaction to the twins of the prophecy was and wouldn’t let her near them until he was satisfied she would not harm his daughters. He watched her like a hawk as she gently took the two girls from Angelica and sung to them in a low voice as she carried them from the room.
Unable to trust her, even after the questioning, he gave Angelica a quick kiss before following the nurse from the room to the nursery. Angelica laid back against the pillow with her eyes closed, exhaustion taking over.
Chapter Twenty-Three
A few days after Cora and Viola were born, Thomas and Angelica moved themselves and their daughters back into their own home. They wanted to get settled into a normal routine and recover as much of the privacy they’d lost when they’d moved into his parents’ home temporarily, as they could.
It took a while to get settled, but eventually, they all got comfortable. Both mother and father were exhausted from the late and middle of the night feedings and diaper changes, but neither would change any of it for the world. They cherished every moment they had with their beautiful girls knowing, because both of their power bases being the same, they shouldn’t be parents at all.
Worry filled every moment of their lives because of the prophecy and what that meant for Cora and Viola’s future. Thomas doubled up the security around their home, expecting an attack at any time, because he could not get that nurse’s reaction out of his head. It haunted his dreams at night, when the girls would let them sleep or it was Angelica’s turn to take care of them.
It was a few months before the first attack happened. They had relaxed a bit, thinking maybe they had been overreacting. For the first time since the girls were born, they were experiencing true joy in their lives together as mates and it was destroyed in the span of one night.
Somehow, the intruders managed to sneak past the guards patrolling the perimeter of the house, as well as every safety precaution Thomas had installed. The only explanation they could come up with was that someone who had helped to either plan it or install it had spilled information about how it was set up and worked, to those wanting to harm their girls.
There were two teams involved in the attack, one picked the lock on the front door at the same time as the second picked the lock on the back door to the house. They entered quickly and dismantled the alarm system before it could go off. Proceeding silently, they found their way to the twins’ room. What they hadn’t expected was for Angelica to be awake and tending to the girls.
At their entry into the room, she looked up from where she was holding Viola in her arms, rocking her as she happily sucked on the bottle Angelica was holding for her. When Angelica saw it wasn’t Thomas or one of the maids that entered the room, she let go of the bottle and threw out an ice attack, stopping the first two intruders in their tracks. They dropped to the floor as Viola started screaming. Viola’s screams scared Cora and together they cried their terror as only babies can.
“Please, we don’t want to hurt you, but we have to stop them. They are too powerful.” A man told Angelica before she threw her second attack, obviously hoping to gain her understanding as to why they were going after two innocent babies. Her maternal instincts kicked in and she threw another attack as she stood from the rocking chair cradling Viola in her arms and moving so she blocked Cora with her body. She yelled for Thomas to come and help as she threw attack after attack, but there were just too many of them for her to fend off on her own.
Thomas came running into the room through their bedroom door adjoining the nursery. Quickly he assessed the situation and took over the attacks while Angelica laid Viola down in the same crib as Cora, so they could protect them better. She also pressed a hidden button to alert the guards that intruders had infiltrated the nursery.
Within thirty seconds of her pressing the button and turning back around to assist Thomas in protecting their daughters, an army of guards came storming in. There was a huge battle with power flying in all directions. Thomas, Angelica and several guards stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the girls, using their bodies to protect them at all costs. In a matter of minutes, they had the situation contained and the surviving intruders apprehended.
Thomas let his first in command handle the intruders as he helped Angelica to calm their terrified, screaming baby girls. As he watched his mate pick Cora up from the crib, and picked Viola up himself, he saw she was shaking with the fear coursing through her body.
They had one of the maids pack up stuff for the girls and another pack up stuff for them and vacated the property within an hour, back to his parents’ house. There would be no way they’d keep their girls somewhere that had already proven to be unsafe for them.
After several weeks, they got themselves settled into a new home. Angelica wasn’t sleeping, because she couldn’t shake the terror when she did sleep, that someone would come in and try to harm their girls again. Thomas was busy trying to find those responsible for leaking the information about their security at the previous house and making sure the house they were currently in was even more secure for their girls.
The stress level they were running on was dangerous and Angelica’s powers weren’t always under her control because of exhaustion and emotional turmoil. Thomas worried about her even more than he usually did.
The second attack came a few weeks after they were in their new home. It was quick and precise but met the same results as the first one. Thomas, Angelica and their guards defeated their attackers and they ended up moving again. No matter what he did, he could not console Angelica’s fears their babies would be killed in one of the attacks. He couldn’t honestly tell her he wasn’t thinking the same thing.
Each time they moved, there was another attack, each one faster and more violent, which was wearing them down further and further. The lack of sleep for Thomas and Angelica was making them jump at shadows. Marie and Jacob tried tirelessly to convince them to move back into their home with the girls.
After the sixth move and attack, they finally relented and moved back into Thomas’ parents’ home. With Jacob being the leader of their race, it had the best security of anywhere in the world, including the humans’ White House.
This time it took a couple of months before anything happened. Angelica had barely started sleeping again and Thomas had begun to relax a bit.
The attack, when it came was even more shocking than the first attack, because it was lead from the inside of Jacob’s home. Members of his staff were working in league with those who wanted to see harm come to Cora and Viola and granted entry to the teams of intruders out to see it done.
Marie was in the nursery watching over the girls when the door burst open and she
was surrounded. Hearing the noise, Angelica and Thomas flew out of their bed and rushed into the nursery in time to help Marie defend the girls. Jacob came running down the hall to assist and so did the guards who were loyal to him.
It was war in the house that night. Marie ended up injured and so did Angelica, as well as Thomas, protecting the girls. Although they ended up defeating the intruders, there was a much higher casualty count from this battle than the previous ones.
Searching through the bodies of the fallen, Marie was frantically searching for her mate, screaming his name and sobbing when he didn’t respond to her. She couldn’t feel his presence like mates could do with each other, no matter the distance between them, which terrified her. As Angelica and one of the maids tended to the terrified girls, Thomas helped his mother search for his father.
It was on the first floor of the house they found his badly damaged body. He’d been killed protecting his family during the course of the attack. Marie screamed out her pain and threw her body over his, but it was too late, he’d been dead for too long for her to help him in any way.
Thomas felt a tear slip from his left eye as he knelt next to the man who had been his idol all of his life. Jacob was lying there with his lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling. Thomas reached out a hand and closed his father’s eyes, as tears really started flowing down his cheeks. He knew then, no matter how much they moved, as long as the twins were living with him and Angelica, they’d never be safe. They had to find a way to send them underground to be raised safely away from them. That realization, added to the pain of the loss of his father, almost broke him as he watched his mother cry and grieve over his father.
Angelica descended the stairs with tears already sliding down her cheeks from the amount of losses. When she reached Thomas’ side and saw Jacob’s body, she broke. Falling to her knees, she wrapped her arms around her mate sobbing loudly.
“We have to find someplace safe to hide them. We can’t keep them with us anymore my love.” Thomas said in a low pain-filled voice. It tore him up inside to say those words to his mate, but he knew they were true and he knew she knew it as well.
“There’s nowhere safe for them.” Angelica sobbed.
“I’ll take them. We’ll bind their powers for now and I’ll take them.” Marie said, looking up at her son and daughter-in-law with red swollen eyes.
Both Thomas and Angelica could see the madness beginning to form in her and didn’t have to discuss it to know neither of them would agree to allow her to raise their daughters, by herself, now that Jacob was gone. She might end up killing them herself in a fit of rage or insanity.
“Mother, you need time to mourn. We can’t and won’t ask this of you.” Thomas said in a voice that wouldn’t allow her to argue with him.
“What about Anna and Patrick? Maybe they could take the girls for us?” Angelica asked in a sudden hopeful voice. She’d trust her sister with her life.
“Call them now. Make sure they know, by doing this, they are leaving behind everything they know and love until the girls are old enough and ready to know their true heritage.” Thomas told her in a grim voice. Angelica nodded as she moved into Jacob’s study and picked up the phone to make the call. Thomas made his way up the stairs to say good bye to his beautiful daughters. His heart was shredded into a million pieces over the choice they’d been forced to make on this night. It felt like it would never be whole again.
He cuddled each girl next to his heart, one by one, telling each of them how much he loved and adored her. He promised they would be back together as a family someday and he would make sure that happened, if it was the last thing he did. He was doing his best to hold it together when Angelica walked into the room and wrapped her arms around their girls and Thomas.
“They will be here in about an hour. They understand what has to be done. I instructed the maids to pack everything of importance to the girls up, while we perform the binding ceremony.” She said in a voice that was almost cold. He knew the events of the past year had driven her to build this wall to protect herself. He vowed he would break it down again, long before it was time for the girls to come home.
Nodding, Angelica carried Cora and Thomas carried Viola down the stairs and out of the house to the amphitheater used for council ceremonies and meetings. They sat the girls down in the section where the sun and moon overlapped each other and both of them stood on the moon. Chanting the words in the moonlight, the girls’ powers were bound with tears of heartache and rage pouring down the cheeks of their parents.
Anna walked into the amphitheater just as they finished the ceremony. Picking up Viola, Angelica rushed over to meet her sister.
“Take good care of them. Don’t let anything happen to them. Make sure they know how much we love and adore them every single day of their lives, even though we can’t be with them. Promise me, Anna.” Angelica said as she cradled Viola to her chest and Thomas joined them with Cora.
“I promise you, your daughters will want for nothing. I will care for them as if they were my own.” Anna promised, as they all walked to her car together.
The last time Angelica and Thomas saw their beautiful blessings for daughters, was just before Patrick pulled the loaded car away from the house, taking their hearts along with them. They knew that their lives would never be whole again until the wonderful day that Cora and Viola were brought home, to once again be a family with them.
Grasping each other’s hands, they gazed into each other’s red, swollen, tear-filled eyes and vowed that they would make their family whole again, no matter what it took for that to happen. If they had seen the evil smile of glee that crossed Anna’s face as the car turned the corner away from their house, both Thomas and Angelica would have immediately realized they’d made the biggest mistake of their daughters’ lives.
Epilogue
Seventeen years later…
“It’s time.” Angelica insisted as she picked at her food.
“I’m not sure they’re ready. I want them home too, but not at the expense of their lives.” Thomas argued with Angelica.
“They’re our daughters!” She yelled, dropping her fork down onto the plate with a loud clatter, as her green eyes blazed. “They belong here with us and they’re more than old enough to handle regaining their powers and fulfilling the prophecy. If you keep being stubborn about this, they won’t be ready in time.”
“Calm down. We will bring them home very soon. I need to make sure everything is in place to keep them safe before we do though. I miss them too.” Thomas said, his voice full of sorrow and longing that made Angelica regret yelling at him as tears filled her eyes.
“It’s been too long, far, far, too long.” Angelica said in a soft voice full of pain.
“We did what we had to do to keep them safe.” He reminded her, although she could hear the doubt in his voice.
“I know we did. My heart has been broken since the day Anna and Patrick drove away with them. It’s past time to bring our baby girls home, where they belong, with us.” She said with a tear streaking down her cheek.
Thomas reached up and brushed the tear away with the pad of his thumb.
“We will when the time is right. I promise you that we will bring them home.” Thomas whispered to her, his voice filled with the same aching pain as his mate’s.
Angelica sighed and gave up arguing with him. He was so stubborn she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know why she felt so strongly about them needing to come home now, but something in her gut was gnawing at her, telling her they were in danger.
As she scooted her chair back from the table, she wondered if someone had discovered their location and was planning to go after them. She prayed she could break through Thomas’ stubborn wall before something else happened and it was too late. She’d told him about her feelings and how they kept getting stronger by the day. He’d blown it off as her being female and emotional, which irritated her to no end.
Walking out of the room, she he
aded for their room so she could make some calls and try to get an update on the safety of their daughters. Thomas didn’t know it, but she frequently called Anna and checked up on their girls. It ripped her heart out not having them there, with them, under the same roof.
*****
It took everything Thomas had inside of him to stay seated at the table and not go after Angelica when she’d left the room so upset. He knew she checked on the girls often and that she was probably on her way to do just that right now. He clenched his fists on the table because it broke his heart having to hold off bringing their girls home to them, where they belonged, more than even she knew.
Pushing his own chair back, he stood and went into his study, closing the door behind him. He went over to his desk and opened the top drawer, where the latest report from their mole inside their enemy’s operation had sent with “urgent” written several times over the front and back of the package. It had been delivered to him right before dinner, so he’d placed it in the drawer so he could enjoy the meal with his mate, before handling whatever business had to be attended to.
Sitting down, he opened the padded envelope and slid the stack of papers out. He leaned back in his chair as he read, with growing horror, the events that were planned for the following night, June 21st. He knew Anna hadn’t been the ideal choice for someone to watch over their girls, but he’d hoped that since they were her nieces she would take care of them as if they were her own. It seemed their faith and trust had been badly misplaced.
Picking up the phone, he made a quick call to put immediate plans into motion to get the girls away from Anna and Patrick and bring them home, to the protection of their parents. After a few terse commands on the phone, he replaced the receiver and closed his eyes, waiting for one of his best men to join him in his office.
Less than five minutes later there was a knock on the door to his study.
