“When we go into another’s memories, our bodies freeze; very much like what is happening now.” He gestures towards my mate a few feet away. “Our bodies freeze because our hearts stop as our souls have to travel into the other’s body, kind of like possession, in order to actually see what we need. Since our souls have to leave our bodies, we have the ability to freeze our bodies and organs to keep everything from shutting down.”
I nod slowly, taking in all the information.
“We will talk about this more when my granddaughter wakes up. For now, we just wait.”
With that said, he crosses his legs and straightens out the magazine to cover his face.
CHAPTER 20
|austin|
It has already been almost an hour since a deep intake of air was heard from Celeste for the first time. It had startled Cal and I while Zeke was as calm as can be. I shot up from my chair instantly and caught her as her body began to fall sideways out of the chair. While Jack’s body just fell back, unconscious, Celeste’s took a different turn and started convulsing.
“Get the doctor!” I yelled at Cal who was then stopped before he could move even an inch.
“You get that doctor and you will have condemned your mate, my granddaughter, to a life of hiding from the royals. You’d never see her again,” Zeke threatened. “Do you want that to happen, Roman?”
“No, sir,” I bit out harshly.
“Then be a good mutt and do as I say,” he says calmly before bending down in front of a shaking Celeste. “Judging by the convulsions, this is maybe her third time doing this. Her body still hasn’t adjusted to the things that happen after getting into someone’s memories. Her brainwaves probably got jumbled up because she hasn’t learned the proper way to leave and re-enter her body,” he speaks quietly while taking her pulse and adjusting her head. “All we need to do is lay her down on her side and keep her head facing the wall. During a typical seizure vomit, white foamy saliva comes up, so we can’t have her head tilted back. She could choke if we do that.” He gently pulls her from my arms and slaps my hands away when I try to grab her back. As he lays her on the floor, he faces her head towards the entrance wall while telling Cal not to let any doctors in.
“If it lasts longer than five minutes, then, and only then, can you go out and call a doctor in. Only the most trustworthy one who won’t rat us out. You’ll need to tell him his luna is having a seizure and needs something to stop it.”
“Why after five minutes? Why not now?” I look down worriedly at Celeste’s shaking form, her fists and jaw clenched tight as blood trickles from the corner of her mouth and the pads of her hands.
“Because, after five minutes, the brain will begin to shut down from lack of oxygen. If she comes out of the seizure before then, she’ll be fine.”
“What about the blood? Is something wrong with her?”
He looks at her face and hands, and chuckles lightly.
“Calm down, my dear boy. Her nails just broke the skin on her hands from clenching her fists too tight. And as for the bleeding from her mouth, she’s probably just biting her tongue. She’ll be fine.”
“How long has it been now?” I ask.
“Only two minutes. I doubt it’ll last much longer,” he reassures me while clearing Celeste’s hair out of the way of her mouth. “She’ll vomit before she comes out of it.”
|celeste|
Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if you never existed? If you had just been a miscarriage or never even been placed in your mother’s stomach in the first place?
I do.
I think about all the people I failed and screwed up over the years; all the children I traumatized from killing a beloved family member. I even think about the people I murdered. How would their lives have turned out if I never got to them? Would they be sitting with their children or grandchildren right now? Reading them a bedtime story or whatever the hell families are supposed to do for you?
I let my thoughts turn a little selfish and think about what would’ve happened if my mom and dad hadn’t messed me up as bad as they did. Would I be happy with my mate right now? Crowned as luna and trying for a pup? Maybe even my dad would’ve walked me down the aisle the day of my wedding.
That’s all I can think about as I sit in this darkness in silence. I think about how much of a failure I am―a disappointment.
It’s funny how life turns out. I killed people. I watched as their lives slipped away, and now, I can’t even tell if mine is slipping or gone. Is this my own personal hell? Doomed to spend eternity in the dark alone with nothing but my thoughts to drive me insane? Though, I must admit, I’ve always been a little crazy.
The punishment is quite fair. Instead of being stuck with my guilty thoughts for just a couple hours at night when I’m alone and can’t sleep, I’ll spend eternity in darkness, never sleeping, just thinking, stuck with these thoughts forever.
Or maybe, I won’t even get the punishment I deserve. Me being a demon warrior and all, I’ll only probably spend a little time here until my dear old grandpop comes to the rescue and I’ll be forced to kill some more. It’s in the genes after all.
After what seemed like hours of thinking, the darkness starts to clear, along with the voices that are echoing in my head.
“What’s happening?”
The voice is faint and distorted, but I still recognize it as Austin’s. Soon, the warmth I usually feel whenever he’s around begins to spread through me, pushing away the cold and bitter demons that lay waiting for me in the dark recesses of my mind.
Then, a new voice that I only ever heard recently comes up. It’s Zeke’s. “She’s waking up.”
My eyes flutter open, only to be welcomed by bright lights and a foggy vision. I hiss quietly, fighting pass the pain, as I sit up. The taste of vomit and blood becomes prominent in my mouth as I try to swallow the lump in my throat.
“What happened?” I lisp lightly. Noting the swelling building on the sides and the blood still coming from it, I stand up and head for the mirror in the bathroom. “And what the hell happened to my tongue?”
Walking back into the room, I’m greeted by my mate, my two best friends, one being unconscious in a hospital bed with a pile of puke, and amidst it all, my grandfather―the one and only Zeke Masters.
“Somebody better start explaining before I hit someone.”
Two loud gulps are heard throughout the room before I turn towards my bright-eyed grandfather who’s wearing his million-dollar smile. This is going to be a long night.
CHAPTER 21
|celeste|
“I’m going to ask one more time; why did I just have a seizure?” I yell for the second time. The only thing they’ve told me so far is that I had a small seizure. No one has said another word for the last ten minutes. Cal’s just been standing in a corner, fiddling with his thumbs while my dear grandpa and mate won’t stop staring at me.
“Celeste, why don’t you calm down and take a seat?” Austin suggests while he pulls up a chair.
“I’ll calm down when someone, preferably the man who calls himself my grandfather, tells me what the hell is going on.” I turn my glare to Zeke.
“Answer me this first: have you ever blacked out before?” he counters.
“Of course I’ve blacked out before. I black out after fights; when Cat takes full control and when I seize. Now, will you tell me why I just had a seizure for the first time in years?” I yell out, throwing my arms up in the air in frustration.
“So, this has happened before?”
I growl when Zeke asks another question instead of just answering mine.
“Yes, it has happened before. I was diagnosed with epilepsy when I was six years old, but when I was ten, a witch found me during an episode and took me to her hut to cure me. She put up some sort of spell to block them. I haven’t had one since.”
“Wait. Grandma Zaria? That’s how you guys met?” Cal asks.
“Yeah, I lived with her for a few
months and that’s when I met you.”
I smile fondly at the memory of a chubby little Cal screaming when he first saw a werewolf. It took me years to get him to stop calling me his new puppy.
“Good to know, puppy.” He smirks while I scowl. It seems I’m not the only one who is remembering that day.
“Now, will someone explain why it happened again?” I am basically pleading with them.
“The spell must’ve broken when your soul entered your body wrong, forcing a seizure.” Zeke finally offers.
“Whoa, hold up there, old dude. What do you mean “when my soul entered my body”? It left?”
Zeke shrugs indifferently like nothing serious just happened while my eyes are bugging out of my head, ready to explode.
“What the hell did you do to me?” I screech.
“Nothing; you just simply used your gifts wrong,” he says calmly.
“What gifts are you talking about? The mind trick thingy?”
He nods, although he clearly doesn’t find my choice of words amusing. “You looked into Jack’s memories to find what you needed. What did you see?” He leans forward as if he’s about to receive the newest bit of juicy gossip.
“I-I saw the twins,” I say slowly, trying to remember the dream-like state I was in. “We were in their car, and they were worried about me and Cal. They thought something might’ve gone wrong with our escape plan.”
I look over to Cal and then to Austin. He doesn’t seem very happy about having to remember that I tried to run away from him.
“After some persuading from Jake, Jack called Cal,” I continued. “It was so weird. I could hear everything Jack could, see everything he could.” I peek over at Jack’s limp body as he sleeps peacefully.
“That’s because you were him. When we enter a person’s memory, we see everything from their angle.” Zeke stands next to me and rests his hand against my shoulder in a comforting way.
“What else happened, Celeste?” Austin chimes in.
“Uh, Cal…he tried to…” I wrack my brain, searching my memory for the dream. Finally, after a few seconds, it comes back to me, and I open my eyes to speak. “He tried to play it off like everything was fine when Jack asked for an update on the situation. Jack believed Cal until his fellow witches started talking in the background about how they were going to rescue me.”
“She’s right. He freaked out and said he was coming back to help. He hung up after that,” Cal points out, corroborating my story.
“Then?” Zeke asks.
“Then, he told Jake what happened, and they called up the rest of the family. It was their plan to meet up and discuss what would happen. They were about halfway back to the forest where Austin took me when they noticed a car following behind them. A black SUV. They tried to ditch them by turning onto a dirt road, but it didn’t work. So, they tried but failed to shoot out the SUV’s tires. That’s when those people who took them rammed into their bumper and caused them to flip.”
My throat goes dry as I think about how everyone in my family had to go through that and probably even worse things currently. “Jack was thrown out of the windshield because he didn’t have his seatbelt on.” My voice cracks, and I take a deep breath to try and collect myself. “He was awake long enough for me to see armed men climb out of the car and drag his unconscious brother, tied him up, and tossed him into the trunk like he was nothing.” I growl out in anger as the image of Jake’s body getting tossed around plays in my head.
“Celeste, calm down. We’ll find out who did this,” Austin whispers as he grips my hand in his. “Is there anything else you remember?” he asks quietly.
I quickly nod. “Yes, there is one more thing. A man, their leader or their leader’s second in command; I think that’s who he was. He had a phone, and he talked to a man who he referred to as “Alpha”. He reported back to him that they had captured J. Albin. I guess they didn’t know there were two J. Albins that needed to be captured. From their conversation, it seems as if they tracked everyone through Jack’s phone when he placed a call to Warren and Crowley.”
“So, obviously they know who your family is and what they mean to you. There’s no way they just snatched them all by random selection, especially if they purposely traced their calls,” Austin says.
“And we already figured out it’s someone who holds a grudge against you. What if they were trying to catch you but failed and just caught your family instead? Decided to use them as leverage to lure you to them?” Cal asks.
I’m about to agree with his theory when Zeke calls for our attention.
“Wait a second. Who, exactly, are these people and why are you calling them your family? Are they wolves from your father’s side?”
“No, they are wolves I found while fending for myself in the wild. You know, after my family abandoned me? These wolves are my true family; the ones who care for me and protect me. They’re all I’ve ever had.”
CHAPTER 22
|zeke|
After the conversation at the hospital, we went to the pack house to get some sleep. Cal decided to stay behind to keep an eye on Jack. Now, Celeste and I are at the training area talking to the warriors. A look of determination rests on Celeste’s face as she speaks with one of the commanders about the latest updates regarding her “family”.
The thought of my granddaughter being forced to live on her own and blindly placing her trust in strangers at such a young age has my inner demon roaring in anger. However, I am very grateful for her to have found a group of people to call family since my own daughter just ditched her after treating her like trash for seven years.
And my daughter…I can’t even think about her without a sense of disappointment flooding me. All throughout her life, she’s always been a pain, but I figured she’d stop being her ruthless self once she found her soulmate and made a family, and that’s saying a lot considering we’re demons. We were created for mischief.
For a while, my hopes came true, but then she cut all contact with me and hid herself so I couldn’t keep an eye on her. This was over thirty years ago. Years later, I was on earth doing my job of taking souls and making deals as I searched for my daughter. That was when I caught wind of the infamous “Angel of Death”, aka my granddaughter, Celeste.
Once I started looking into the history of the angel of death, I tracked her back to my daughter, Lilith, her mom. Before I could properly skin her alive and then put her back together to do it again, she fled using some new tricks. I’ve been trying to track her down again, but there are no concrete leads so far.
“Zeke?” Celeste turns towards me when the warrior leaves.
“Yes, darling?” I ask, snapping from my thoughts.
“Do you think you could help me with something?” she asks, exhaustion showing through her angry facade.
“Of course Celeste; anything for my granddaughter,” I say enthusiastically.
“Good, follow me.”
We make our way across the main lawn with one of Austin’s bodyguards trying and failing to discreetly follow behind us. Although I’m not sure Celeste has noticed, I guess she trusts the people within this pack.
“All they could find was a bit of blood on the driver side window. They ran it through a system, but nothing came up,” she says as we enter into some sort of lab. “Since we couldn’t connect it to anyone, we knew it had to be from a criminal who works for the people who kidnapped my family. They’re most likely working in exchange for getting their record erased, which also tells us the one they’re working for is one of high authority and vast riches.”
“So, what would you like me to do?” I peek around the high-tech lab, everything impeccably clean and white.
“Well, you’re a demon of high power. I’m guessing, since you said our family are warriors of the devil, you could find something or track down who’s blood this is.”
She picks up the glass slide with the blood sample and hands it to me.
“You’re quite smart, Celeste. Ye
s, if he is dead or alive, I can find out who he is. I promise you that.”
I give her a reassuring smile before saying goodbye and heading out to find the criminal causing my granddaughter pain.
|celeste|
Zeke says goodbye, and in a blink of an eye, disappears. My phone rings, cutting into the silence. Cal’s name displays across the screen, so I answer.
“Hey,” he says, “Jack’s being released soon. I need you here to show him where he’s staying.”
“Okay, I’ll be on my way. Thank you for staying up all night to keep an eye on him. I’ll bring you some coffee.”
He says a quick thank you before hanging up. I chuckle lightly before making my way out of the expensive colorless lab. After stopping by the pack house kitchen for a cup of coffee, I make my way to the pack hospital.
The hallways are empty once I arrive. As this is an exclusive hospital, there aren’t a lot of emergencies. I decide to take the stairs, and once I reach the outside of Jack’s room, I can hear murmurs from within. Without knocking, I open the door.
“Celeste! My little baby wolfy!” Jack squeals as I enter his room.
“Don’t mind him. He’s just high on pain killers and doesn’t really know what he’s saying.” Cal laughs as he stands up to grab his coffee.
“Why did he need painkillers?”
“He had a really bad headache. I alerted the nurses. It’s probably from the concussion. He’s still cleared to leave as long as he doesn’t exert himself too much and someone keeps an eye on him until his next check-up. That’s in two weeks.”
He takes a big gulp of his coffee while I puff out my cheeks in thought.
“Oh my gosh! My wolfy has turned into a chipmunk.” Jack laughs loudly while my face falls flat in irritation.
I turn to Cal. “Can I still smack him on the side of the head when he’s being annoying?”
The Devil's Daughter: A Paranormal Romance Page 10