Other anxious voices infiltrated my peripheral thoughts as I struggled to regain control of my body.
Someone wrapped a towel around my torso and I moaned – the soft cotton seemed to be ingrained with thousands of tiny needles, causing unmitigated pain to my overheated skin. I found myself lifted from the ground and struggled against the pain around my back and beneath my knees from the touch. A heady scent of sandalwood, mixed with pine and musk enveloped my senses in a comforting blanket. A familiar, deep voice murmured huskily in my ear as I moaned gutturally. I relaxed a smidgeon, certain the person holding me was Conal Tremaine. I still didn't know who he was, but enveloped in spasms of agony, I equated him with safety.
Chapter 9: Lost
The descent into psychosis was absolute, with voices yelling at me constantly – hundreds of them, thousands; speaking at once, overwhelming my tortured mind.
I endured a constant sensation of ants crawling beneath my skin, burning, biting, and stinging endlessly.
I was hot, burning up with a fever out of control, my body reduced to a shaking wreck. Agonizing cramps twisted my gut and I screamed uncontrollably, as pain swamped every nerve.
Shadowy figures moved around in my peripheral consciousness, laying cold compresses against my skin, heat pads against constricting muscles. I couldn't speak, couldn't verbalize the agony which trapped me within its grasp.
The people I'd thought were my enemies, were the ones doing their utmost to help me. Their faces wavered in and out of view as I battled an illness which would surely destroy me. The voices spoke in my head constantly, impossible to ignore, their continual mutterings and shouts driving me to the very edges of sanity.
And still the fever burned, not allowing a moment's respite, day, or night. The pain in my temples was agonizing, as if someone had stuck my head in a vice and was tightening it incrementally, minute by minute.
Voices drifted back and forth through the hellish world I'd descended into, but I couldn't distinguish what was real and what was perpetuated by the madness gripping me.
The initial changes were incremental; microscopic amounts of awareness began to filter into my consciousness, confirming what was real, and what was imagined. The agony receded slowly, the sensation of ants slowly departing from my skin, the pain reducing to a tolerable level. The people I could hear in the room around me were recognizable – I knew them. I heard the voices of those I loved, people I knew, the friends and family who cared for me. Each day, I could distinguish who was visiting me with more clarity and I knew them.
The gaps in my memory started to shrink, knowledge pieced together as the drugs steadily filtered from my body. Although I couldn't force myself to wake up, I knew who I was and where I was. The memories of what had happened became clearer and I remembered Lucas, my new life with Conal, and the love I held for both men.
The excruciating spasms decreased in strength and length until I began to feel more like myself. The racing of my heart slowed, the burning and itching receded until at last, I was comfortable in my own skin.
And after days of darkness, I woke up.
Awareness came slowly, scarcely noticeable at first. Although I'd tried repeatedly to force my eyes open, each time I'd found it an impossible task. When I did manage the feat, I could make out the shapes of indistinguishable objects, blurred and distorted no matter how much I attempted to focus. I persevered, until my surroundings became clear.
Cool smooth skin enclosed my fingers in a gentle grasp and I saw Gwynn beside me, William at her side. Both vampire utterly motionless, taking downtime as they maintained a vigil at my bedside.
“Gwynn.” My voice was barely a whisper and I swallowed hard, trying to bring some much-needed moisture to my dry throat.
Gwynn stood immediately, leaning over and brushing her fingers tenderly across my forehead.
“I'll find Jerome,” William announced, disappearing through the doorway of what seemed to be a tent.
Gwynn smiled, her delicate beauty intensifying as she gazed down at my face. “I'm so glad you're awake. We thought— we really thought we were going to lose you.” She shook her head, a tiny frown marring her forehead. “For the longest time, I thought we had.”
Blinking rapidly, I tried to stop tears from falling. “Gwynn, they took my baby.” The sentence finished on a bleak sob and I struggled against panic.
Gwynn's eyes filled with compassion. “I'm so sorry, Charlotte.”
Jerome slipped in through the tent flap, and hurriedly limped across to the gurney I was lying on, gripping my hand to his chest. It was an uncharacteristically tender gesture on the gruff doctor's behalf. “I really thought I'd lost you this time.” The waver in his voice made it clear how close I'd come to death, and how devastated he'd been by that likelihood.
“What happened?” I asked huskily. “How did I get so sick? Was it the drugs Bran gave me?”
Jerome sat down in the chair William had vacated, still holding my hand between his own. “You remember everything?” he questioned.
Seeing my nod of agreement, he shut his eyes briefly, inhaling a deep breath before he spoke. “The drugs were a combination of potent hallucinogens, strong narcotics and a large dose of Fae magic. They had turned you into a drug addict, and when you collapsed, you were suffering the beginning of withdrawals. I took a sample of your blood and we analyzed it, trying to find a way of counteracting the effects of the drugs, and looking for some way to relieve some of the withdrawal symptoms.” His gray eyes were bleak. “It proved impossible to find an antidote. While I could counteract some of the hallucinogenic effects and treat you for pain, there wasn't a damn thing anyone could do to combat the withdrawal of the Fae magic from your body.”
Gwynn spoke up, her words cautious. “Were they giving you those drugs when you were still… expecting?”
“They gave me something.” I clenched my hands into fists, recalling those dark days when I had initially been taken captive. “I don't know what it was. Enough to stop me from using my abilities, enough to keep me compliant.” My heart fluttered uncomfortably, anxiety building in my chest. “After the baby came, they started giving me the other stuff.”
“Charlotte— the baby? What happened to the baby?” Jerome demanded.
I brushed away a tear which slipped down my cheek. “They took him away. They stole my son.”
Gwynn settled onto the gurney beside me and drew me into her arms, letting me sob against her shoulder. Jerome got to his feet, making a show of checking the chart at the foot of the gurney, allowing me the opportunity to regain control of my emotions.
Inhaling raggedly, I told them what I could recall, my voice defeated and tired. “When I was first kidnapped, they kept injecting me with something, some medication which stopped the spirits from reaching me. I couldn't use any of my abilities. No matter how hard I tried, Lucas, the others – I couldn't contact any of them. I had no weapons, and I couldn't even manage to create an orb.” I sniffled, rubbing the back of my hand across my nose and Gwynn handed me a box of Kleenex.
“They held me in Aethelwine's castle in Sarbon, for months, heavily guarded. I worried that they were trying to kill the baby with the drugs they kept giving me, but after a couple of months, I realized that wasn't their intention, because I continued to get bigger, and the baby was kicking and growing all the time.” Squeezing my eyes shut, I inhaled deeply through my nose, swallowing back the bile which had rushed up to my throat. “Archangelo had done a deal with the Drâghici. They got to keep my baby… and Archangelo got to keep me.”
Anger flashed in Jerome's eyes. “You knew this? While you were waiting for your baby to be born?”
“Archangelo took great pleasure in taunting me about it. I screamed at him, told him I would never be his. While I knew my own mind, I would never submit to his plans.” I stared off into the distance, recalling the triumphant leer in his expression. “Archangelo never argued with me, but now I understand why. The drug they gave me was designed to keep
me subdued, unable to do anything to help myself escape – but it would do minimal harm to the baby. As soon as the baby arrived, they started using a different drug, one that would make me forget who I was, everything about my life.”
“You must have been terrified,” Gwynn said quietly.
The events of those long months tumbled around in my mind with startling clarity. “It took them weeks to get the dosage right. For a long time, memories of my past kept resurfacing – I would hear the spirits' voices, suffered nightmares. But the drugs were confusing me, working in some places and not others. They used that knowledge against me, so that when they did get the dosage balanced out, they could use those nightmares and voices I'd heard to convince me I'd suffered a catastrophic breakdown.”
“Charlotte, was the baby healthy when he was born?” Jerome asked.
I nodded curtly, taking a moment to compose myself, trying to avoid sobbing again. “He cried when he was born. Waved his little arms and legs around, and he was pink and healthy and so handsome.” I managed a tremulous smile, despite the heartache. “Sounded a bit like me in a temper.” The smile died swiftly. “I only saw him for a minute, before they took him away.”
“The scar on your abdomen? That's how he was delivered?” Jerome asked. “It's not the usual caesarean wound.”
“Archangelo got impatient, didn't want to wait any longer.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Jerome demanded.
“He took the baby.”
Jerome raked his fingers through his graying hair, disbelief in his expression. “Archangelo? He— he performed—” He seemed lost for words, his sentence lapsing into stunned silence.
“I'd lost track of time, but I was probably about three or four weeks off the date you'd estimated the baby would arrive. He walked in with a group of guards and a human nurse. Told her he would kill her unless she delivered the baby immediately. When she refused, he told her he would slaughter her whole family and leave her alive to watch them die. He handed her a syringe filled with some kind of drug and a knife.”
“Oh, saints above,” Gwynn muttered darkly.
“A nurse wouldn't make such a mess of it,” Jerome announced gruffly.
“She didn't do it. She was crying, begging him for her life and telling him she didn't have the qualifications to safely deliver a baby. Archangelo killed her, stabbed me with the syringe and my body started to go numb, but I was still conscious. I screamed… and fought… terrified that he was killing the baby, but the situation was hopeless. Archangelo had the guards hold me down. Told me to stay very still, because if he killed the baby, it would be all my fault. I was conscious long enough to see them take the baby from the room, and then… I don't remember much else until I woke up again, thinking I was someone else. When I was lucid again, I thought he was my— my husband— and the scar across my belly had happened when— when Conal tried to murder me.”
“Those drugs were definitely strong enough to do a number on you,” Jerome agreed. “Never seen anything quite like it. And you honestly believed Conal had tried to kill you?”
I nodded, pulling another Kleenex from the box and blowing my nose. “He and Bran filled my head with false versions of events, told me the renegades had put these marks on my arms to cause the madness when I was kidnapped.” I rubbed a finger across one of the pale silver marks left by the Hjördis. “He told me that he and the Fae had rescued me and taken me back to the Realm. To him.”
Tears filled my eyes again, spilling over as I lost my tenuous grip on my emotions. I stared down at the elaborate rings, still on my finger. The rings which Archangelo had sworn bonded me to him in marriage. I tugged them from my finger, throwing them across the tent in a burst of fury. “How do I go on from this? They've taken my baby, the man I hate has raped me, convinced me he was my husband! How do I cope with that knowledge?” I spat the words out angrily, my mind red and hazy with fury over what I'd endured.
Jerome acted uncharacteristically for the second time in as many minutes. He sat on the side of the gurney, wrapped me in his arms and whispered soothing words against my hair, as I wept against his shoulder.
Chapter 10: What Now?
Curled up on my side, I stared vacantly at the khaki green canvas, thinking about my son. Where was he? Was he safe? Was someone holding him in their arms?
I didn't know what to do, where to turn. Jerome and Gwynn remained with me for hours, listening as I told them the entire sordid tale of the past months. The only good news I'd learned was that I wasn't pregnant. The thought of Archangelo's seed growing in my womb was untenable.
Rowena took Jerome and Gwynn's place at my side, rubbing soothing fingers through my hair. I'd missed her. She asked no questions, sought no answers; only provided companionship and support while I lay listlessly on the gurney, eyes wide and vacant in the totality of my grief.
Her place was taken by Nissa, my Fae savior who had risked so much to help me escape. Nissa sat with her hand wrapped around mine while I continued to stare blankly at the canvas wall. I wondered what she was thinking, took a few minutes to work up the energy to ask.
“I'm trying to equate the young woman I knew in Tamekeel, with the stories I'm hearing from these people,” Nissa commented mildly, rubbing the back of my hand with her fingertips. “I've always thought of myself as a warrior, strong, brave and proud. But the information I've been given by your friends here – I believe you to be a warrior far stronger and powerful than I will ever be.”
I shrugged dismissively. “You got me out of there, Nissa. Despite your doubts, you did what you had to do to help me escape, risking your whole life to save me.” I gazed into her eyes, marveling again at the brilliant orange of her irises. “I can never repay you.”
“No repayment is necessary. Your friendship and the right to fight by your side is payment enough.” Her placid expression hardened. “They will pay for their deceit, Angel.” She grimaced, shaking her head infinitesimally. “It will be a hard habit to break, to stop calling you Angel after knowing you only by that name.”
“You can call me Angel. I don't mind.”
Nissa smiled warmly. “It is, after all, what you are.”
I inhaled deeply, wondering how to equate what I knew of myself with how I currently felt. The grief at what I'd lost was overwhelming. My love for my son was all-encompassing, had been from the first second I'd seen him. Where did I go from here? What should I do next? How could I go about finding my baby? What would I do about my responsibility to these people, all these people who needed help and protection? How could I balance the desperate need to rescue my son, with my role as Nememiah's Child?
Pushing these thoughts to one side, I turned to face Nissa. “Tell me how you got us out. I have no idea how it eventuated.” Hearing Nissa's story seemed far preferable to dwelling on the problems which tore me apart each time I dwelled on them.
Nissa smiled warmly, her eyes twinkling. “When I left you the day you sketched that picture of Conal Tremaine – saying I had some errands to run – I approached some people; people I knew to be against what is happening in the Realm.” She shook her head. “I have been in the Queen's Guard for over fifty years and proud of my service, but it was a service for which I was indentured. My family— my parents were so proud of my position within the realm – while King Keenan was ruling. For the past five years, during Aethelwine's rule, our relationship has been strained.” Nissa's composure slipped and I saw sadness cross her features. “My parents were against Aethelwine taking the throne, never believed in her right to assume power. As a member of the Queen's Guard, I chose my oath to the Realm over my own family.”
My heart filled with sympathy for the pretty woman beside me. Knowing her loyalty was unquestionable, I could understand the dilemma she'd endured, choosing between her principles and her family.
“What happened?” I questioned.
“My parents disavowed me. My father told me that until I could see the reality of the situation with
Aethelwine taking the crown, that she'd taken the throne without the right to do so, I was no longer welcome in their home.” Nissa lowered her gaze. “For five years, I had no contact with my father, my mother, nor my three sisters and my brother.” She lifted her eyes to mine, her face composed. “Until I walked into my father's home, the day I left you and told him of my suspicions regarding your identity.”
Nissa had my complete attention as I began to appreciate how much she'd risked to save me. “He helped you?”
Nissa nodded. “Father was determined not to speak with me. It took my mother more than an hour to convince him to allow me entrance into the house. My father is a stubborn man, proud and headstrong. But when he learned of my suspicions, why I was there – he insisted we must do everything in our power to return you to the renegades.” Her smile was ironic. “I really must stop calling them that, given I've now joined them.”
“How did you get in touch with my friends?”
“Father has contact among those who oppose Aethelwine's rule. While he doesn't actively fight with the resistance, he keeps in touch with them, provides non-combative support. He spoke to some people, who in turn took steps to contact your group.” She rubbed the pad of her thumb across the back of my hand. “We couldn't send a Fae with the information, it would have been far too dangerous, the risk of the plan being revealed too high. A decision was made to send one of the Unicorn, with a message for Conal Tremaine, advising we knew where you were being held.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “A unicorn?” I repeated. Just when I thought I'd discovered all there was to know about the supernatural world I'd gotten enmeshed in, something always seemed to come along which had the ability to throw my confidence on its ear.
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