Destructive Embrace

by Robyn M. Pierce

  Tywin chuckled. “That’s it. You had to have meant to name Reid as your partner!”

  My blood boiled at his declaration, and I took the chance of thrusting my elbow backward into Annibel’s ribs. I felt the corner of my elbow catch the space in between two ribs and the crack that came from applying a bit of extra pressure. Tywin cussed loudly and I stamped my foot down on his; another crunching sound met my ears and I was able to jump out of Annibel’s reach just enough to where I was safe beside Zeke and Dmitri.

  “And here I thought you would need our help,” Dmitri complimented drily. Zeke nodded his head in agreement, giving me a puzzled look.

  “He ticked me off,” I murmured.

  Zeke took that as his chance to catch Tywin off guard, suddenly rushing forward and grabbing Annibel by her slender throat.

  “Maybe I should have killed you the first time we were down here together,” he growled, staring deep into Annibel’s eyes. It was almost as though he was searching for her presence; speaking directly to her.

  Does that mean he’s let more than me and Roxann live…?

  Zeke

  Just as my hand encircled Annibel’s throat, Wyatt burst into the room.

  “Wait!” he pleaded, extending his hand toward me. I snarled at him, not taking my eyes off of Annibel as I held her above my head.

  “What do you want?” I demanded, barely sparing Wyatt the briefest of glances out of my peripherals. My words were thick due to my fangs elongating to fill my mouth. “Why should I wait?” I asked.

  Wyatt’s eyes were desperate. “Because I love her. I refuse to let her die here, like this,” he said.

  “My fiancée is dead, because Annibel wasn’t strong enough to fight Tywin off,” I growled. “Why should I care about the life of such a worm?”

  Wyatt sighed. “As mad as you are about this whole thing, would you really want another innocent life to be claimed?” he asked.

  I paused. I didn’t want to lose anyone else, but Annibel was hardly on my list of people to keep alive. But at the same time, the more lives that were taken, the more Tywin won…

  “What are you suggesting, then? We know of no other way to get rid of the possession, aside from killing the host,” I said quietly.

  Wyatt’s silence filled me with dread, but I had no choice but to wait for him to speak. I wondered what he would say. Silence drowned us, and I fought the various urges to glance back and make sure that Elyssa was alright.

  “As much as you guys think I am not around,” Wyatt began slowly, “I do pay attention. When I am in my tower, I am always reading up on new things. And over the years, I have gathered a lot of information.”

  My body froze. He knew? He had known what was going on, and he had done nothing to stop it? I suddenly hated my brother, and nearly snapped Annibel’s neck right then. Not that that would have killed her, of course.

  But it would take her out long enough for me to cut out her heart…

  “If you knew,” I started, fighting the trembling that was slowly taking over my whole body, “then why the hell would you withhold such information?”

  By this point I was glaring head-on at Wyatt. I trusted that my two brothers and Elyssa would let me know if it looked like Tywin-as-Annibel was planning to escape or injure me.

  “Brother, I have known for years. Reid told me of his Blood Contract in passing one day. I knew it was unlike him, and so I began to look for other signs that he wasn’t himself,” Wyatt said quickly. I could see that he was trying to get it all out before I could jump down his throat, but he didn’t quite succeed.

  “You knew?! You knew and you didn’t get the help of one of us? You didn’t do anything to help us keep him alive!”

  “Zeke, stop,” Elyssa interjected. Her voice shook, and I knew that she was just as torn up as I was over Wyatt withholding information. “He obviously has more, or he would have just let you kill Tywin.”

  She made a valid point, but it was difficult to remain calm after such a confession. “Go on,” I seethed.

  Wyatt nodded gratefully at Elyssa, and spoke once more. “I know how to save Annibel…”

  I chuckled darkly. “If you think your pleas will save her life, you are sorely mistaken,” I hissed.

  “And Reid’s life.”

  The sharp gasp that came from Elyssa’s mouth was all I could hear. It played over and over in my head. I was grateful, as it prevented me from having any thoughts of my own.

  “How is that even possible?” Elyssa asked.

  “I don’t know for certain,” Wyatt said, eyes still trained on mine. “But if my theories are correct, then Reid is not dead, and we can avoid killing Annibel.” I was still torn up about the idea of letting Annibel live, but I knew Wyatt was right: it wasn’t Annibel’s fault. Tywin killed Roxann, using her body.

  “How would we go about testing your theories?” I dared to ask. It was then that my brother looked away from me.

  “I will take Tywin.”

  “What, no!” Dmitri argued, rushing to Wyatt’s side. “What makes you think we would allow this?”

  “You do not have a choice!” Wyatt barked, staring down his nose at Dmitri, who shrank down under the glare. “It is my life to do with it as I please, and for Annibel I will give up my life.”

  It was then that I knew I couldn’t possibly have loved Roxann. Not truly. For, if it were to come down to it, I would try to save her, but I would never give up my own life for hers.

  For a mere human.

  Whereas Wyatt was giving up his immortal life for a woman who had just been trying to leave him…

  “If you loved her, why did you not show her?” I asked quietly. Wyatt glanced up to meet my eyes sadly.

  “I chose Reid over her. I chose to devote my time to researching everything I could, until I came up with a solution to the problem.

  “Having chosen that path before, I will not do so again when her life is on the line. I will not help you until I take Tywin from her and you run her off to safety,” he finished.

  Now that I knew his demands, I had no choice but to consider them.

  He was a fully-grown man and vampire. He had lived his life to the extent that he wanted to. If he wanted to give it all up to give the woman he loved a chance at life, then who were we to stand in his way?

  “Annibel wouldn’t want that,” Elyssa said before I could speak. “She loved you, too. She was just hurt because you never spent any time together.” Her tender words seemed to strike at a soft spot within Wyatt, and he sighed.

  “I must give her a second chance in order to make up for ignoring her before,” he said softly to Elyssa. “I know what I am doing,” he assured us all. “So please. Let me take the parasite from her so that I may help you get Reid back and rid the world of Tywin for good.”

  “What do you need to do?” I asked.

  “With my telepathy, I can force him from her mind and into my own. It will leave her unconscious, but she will remember the horrible things she was forced to do when she awakes. As my mind is stronger than Tywin’s, I will have no trouble at all with maintaining control over my body. I will be able to tell you if my theories are correct, as well as how we might be able to reverse the damage that Tywin has done.”

  He paused. “I trust that you have kept his body? Since there has yet to be a funeral for our baby brother, I am going to assume that he still lies somewhere in a puddle of his own blood.”

  I placed my free hand against my face and sighed. “You didn’t move his body?” I asked Elyssa, turning around with Annibel in my hand to glare at her.

  “What! I didn’t know where to put him,” she said nervously.

  Dmitri didn’t look surprised at the news, and I scowled. “Did you know?” He nodded with a shrug. “Why didn’t you tell her where to put his body?” I demanded.

  “It wasn’t like he was going to decay at a fast rate or anything. This castle is cold enough to keep a vampire body for a month or two,” Dmitri replied sheepishly. “
And I was too distraught over hearing the news to do anything about it. I thought you would come around and move him. Since, you know, you helped to kill him.”

  I flinched and sighed again. “It would appear that the body is still in Reid’s room,” I told Wyatt, pinching the bridge of my nose.

  What a bunch of barbarians I was related to.

  “That happens to serve our purpose here today rather well, actually,” Wyatt said.

  He went quiet suddenly and moved toward me, his hands outstretched toward Annibel. I tentatively allowed him to come within arm’s reach of her, until he had his hands placed on her temples, pressing carefully with his fingertips. He then closed his eyes.

  After a few moments of silence, as well as a lot of eyelid fluttering and a few jerks of Annibel’s head, Wyatt opened his eyes.

  “It is as I thought,” he said slowly. “Reid is not dead.”

  Elyssa’s gasp startled me, and I nearly dropped Annibel, only barely managing to catch her as Wyatt glared at me.

  “He was placed in suspended animation. Only, instead of using extreme cold, Tywin used a lot of magic to keep his body alive. He was only going to use Annibel long enough to heal Reid’s wounds so he could jump back into that body. That and, to make you guys suffer, of course.”

  “Oh, of course,” Dmitri said, rolling his eyes. I told him to be quiet, and waited for Wyatt to continue.

  “Is there a way that we can reverse this on our own?” I asked when he did not resume speaking.

  Wyatt ignored me, turning to look down at Annibel with loving eyes. “Do not let her feel guilty about what I have done,” he pleaded, leaning down to place a gentle kiss on her temple. When he straightened his back once more to meet my eyes, he was silently telling me goodbye.

  Elyssa

  “You,” Wyatt pointed at me. I jumped but stepped closer until Zeke grabbed my arm.

  “Don’t forget: Tywin is in there,” he muttered. I nodded at him and faced Wyatt, who rolled his eyes at Zeke’s words.

  “You are Reid’s Mate, are you not?” he asked me. I nodded, gripping Zeke’s hand tightly. “He is not dead. Since my mind is stronger than that of our lowlife father, I retain control of my body in this situation, so I can access his thoughts with ease.”

  Even though he had just finished explaining the process behind suspended animation, I was stuck on ‘he is not dead’. A ball of hope burst into my chest, taking my breath away. “What can I do to bring him back?” I asked eagerly. I barely noticed as Zeke let go of my hand.

  “His wound is great, but Tywin managed to use some kind of spell to perform suspended animation on him. I can reverse this, but Reid will certainly die; he will only survive if he is able to have his wounds healed. I will not lift this spell off of him unless you have a way to accomplish this,” Wyatt said.

  My mind couldn’t come up with a solution, but a small pressure on my back made me turn. Zeke stared at me, his expression soft. He took my hand and gently pulled me toward his office.

  “Elyssa, here,” he murmured, releasing my hand. He bent behind his desk and produced a large jar full of a reddish liquid. “This is a healing solution that I’ve created. I’m not sure how much it will take to heal wounds like Reid has, but it didn’t take too much to heal your wounds, if you remember.”

  My mind raced back to my first visit to Zeke’s dungeon, where he’d tested his newest concoction on me. I remembered my outrage at being his guinea pig…

  A popping sound met my ears and I looked at Zeke, who was uncorking two empty vials. He carefully filled them both with the potion and re-corked them. “Just in case you need more than one. Also, you should take a bottle or two of the blood in the freezer out there. He’ll be needing nourishment,” he told me.

  I tried to look into his eyes to thank him, but he refused to meet my gaze. “Thank you,” I whispered before leaving the office. I did as he recommended and took two bottles of chilled blood, and then ran from the dungeons without looking back.

  “Five minutes!” Wyatt called after me. So I had five minutes to get the potions into Reid’s body…

  By the time I got to his room, I was breathing heavily and my hands were shaking furiously. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt bad that I’d never moved his body from his room, but I focused instead on uncorking the vials and pouring them, one by one, into Reid’s mouth.

  Nothing was happening, but I figured I had to give it a little more time to work.

  When I’d just about given up, tears stinging my eyes from the failure, Reid began to stir. First it was just a twitch of his fingers. Then, his whole body lifted off the bed as he sucked in a large lungful of air. His hands grasped at his chest like it was in pain. I didn't know what to do, so I stood there, my hands outstretched helplessly.

  Reid's face contorted in agony and his eyes were clamped shut. I wasn't sure that he even knew I was there, so I kept silent during his recovery.

  I was also stunned. It worked. It had actually worked! Reid wasn't dead. I could almost do flips, I was so happy. But I refrained, remembering that there were a handful of reasons why I shouldn't be happy at the same time.

  Wyatt was going to die in Annibel's place. Another brother was going to be taken – this time permanently – from this family.

  Also, I was pregnant, but didn't know whose baby it was.

  Then there was the death of Roxann... Zeke's face was stuck in my mind.

  After a few moments of being lost in my thoughts, I realized that Reid had opened his eyes. He was staring at me, his expression unreadable. I could see something in his eyes, some unidentifiable emotion that was dying to escape.

  Finally, he sat up and slowly raised himself so that he was standing, towering over me as he always had.

  "Here," I choked out. His stare was strangling me, and I needed to get his eyes off of me. "Blood," I held the bottles out to him. He didn't react to them for a moment, still staring at me blankly. Suddenly, he snatched the bottles out of my hands and sat down on his bed, which was still stained by his blood. He downed the bottles quickly, never taking his eyes off me. So much for a distraction, I thought.

  "Reid," I began, bringing my hands up to play with the ends of my hair. I didn't know what else to do. Reid sat there expectantly, waiting for me to finish saying whatever I was going to say.

  I didn't exactly know what I was going to say, so I just remained silent, biting my bottom lip as I stared down at my Mate, who had just returned to life. He looked like hell. There was more blood covering him than there was clean skin; it was matted in his hair, all over his front, and even some in his ears – my guess was that it had pooled and the level had risen, but I wasn't sure how it would have done that without flowing over the edge of the bed.

  "You look –"

  "You aren't allowed to tell me how I look, Elyssa Smith," Reid said coldly. I'd expected his voice to be rough from disuse, but it was still as smooth as ever as he stared at me.

  What I'd seen in his eyes was now mostly identifiable as anger, hate, hurt, betrayal... And a few others that I couldn't place. His stare pinned me to my spot. Reid lifted himself off the bed and stepped right into my body space.

  "You killed me," he hissed darkly. The shadows of his bangs darkened his eyes and I swallowed the lump of fear that had balled itself up in my throat.

  "Rei–" I was cut off by his hand wrapping around my throat, and began to sputter as I tried to keep talking. I brought my hands up to his and tried to pry his hand off my throat, but was unsuccessful as he grabbed my hands harshly and gripped them until they hurt.

  "I should kill you right here, right now, in the same place that you killed me, for what you did," he whispered into my ear. His cold breath sent a shudder down my spine and I struggled to think. "Don't you think I deserve to kill the woman who plunged a silver blade into my heart?" he asked nonchalantly, moving his head back so that he could look into my eyes.

  I felt tears well up and spill down over my lashes, and I managed
to nod once in agreement. "Ah, such a smart girl for agreeing with me," he breathed.

  He lifted me off the floor, his fangs slowly descending so they were at their menacing full length. The hand around my throat tightened as my feet left the ground, and I fought to move my hands up so I could claw at his arm.

  "Stop. Struggling." he ordered, rearranging his hold on my hands so that his large hand encircled my wrists and squeezed to the point of pain; I worried that they would shatter.

  Reid lowered his mouth to mine for a quick kiss before baring his fangs at me and moving his face to hover over my shoulder. In the process, he placed me back on my feet and released my hands so that he could grip my back. There was no way I was getting away from him, I realized.

  Just as his fangs touched my skin, his door burst open. Reid sprang away from me, shoving me away from him as he moved. I hit the wall hard and hissed in pain. Dmitri stood in the doorway, an unconscious Annibel hoisted over his shoulder.

  "Am I... Interrupting something?" he asked, glancing back and forth between me and Reid.

  I shook my head frantically, trying to breathe; Reid had put a lot of pressure on my windpipe. Reid was smoothing down his stained clothes as he started speaking. "Not at all, brother. Good to see you again. Why is Wyatt's Mate with you?"

  I left before Dmitri could reply, excusing myself quietly as I tore from the room, back down the stairs, and into the dungeons in time to see Zeke fall to the floor.

  Dmitri

  "Take Annibel and go," Zeke told me. He didn't look at me, and I knew that I wouldn't want to see his face even if he did look at me.

  The emotion in the air was palpable and suffocating. I desperately wanted to stay there and watch the demise of our father, but I knew that Zeke felt bad enough about having to kill our brother. Add onto that the fact that his fiancée was dead now, a result of our deranged father.