Page 57 of Blood Lust
Everyone was out of the room in a blur, leaving Edgar to form some magic ball over my uterus. The warmth shot through every part of my body, healing it and bringing it back to the way it was before I got pregnant.
“Oh my God!” I said, grasping my breasts that had reduced in size. “You took the only way to feed my baby away from me!” I growled.
“I know you’re angry, but I’m only doing this to protect the baby. I’m not one-hundred percent sure if the witch even knows you were pregnant with Zane’s child. You’ll give your daughter a fighting chance if your body is healed as if you never had a child. The witch knows about the merge with the wolves, and their lives are at greater risk than anyone’s at this point. They must leave with the baby, they’ll find formula to feed her. We must move quickly.”
“Get the hell out of here, Edgar,” Braden snarled. He went across the large room and through the French doors that led to another area with a massive closet. He returned in a rush of wind with my workout clothes and tossed them over to me. “Alright, doll face, time to get to ready to fuck that witch up. The faster we kill her, the faster we get your daughter back.”
“We need your head in the goddamn game, Ellie,” Zac said, entering the room wearing all black and looking like a sexy as hell assassin. “Edgar may have taken all evidence of you having a shifter’s kid away from you, but if your mental state is still focused on that baby, you’re fucked, and the shifters are fucked. Got me?”
I inhaled, dressed quickly, and used my vamp speed to keep up with the guys and follow them down to the living room where the wolves were getting ready to leave. Zane walked over to me, our daughter rousing awake and letting out soft cries in his arms.
“I’ll take care of our daughter. You take care of yourself and the guys. We may be separated for now, but I think you and I both know that our daughter is more important than all of us sticking together at this point.”
“This is such a sweet moment, I hate to interrupt it.” The ancient bitch’s voice echoed in the room. All of the shifters and vamps went into attack positions as Zane came around to hand me our daughter and instantly shift into the large black wolf, snarling and sniffing the air for the witch.
“Show yourself, you sick bitch. We’re fucking ready for you this time,” Zac shouted in the room.
“What’s the fun in that? You’re all such a cozy unit now, aren’t you? Isn’t that just so special,” she said sarcastically. “It’s almost as adorable as that revolting creature that my Life Blood just birthed.”
“Son of a fucking bitch,” Nakia said right before he and Bren shifted to wolves and paced the room, helping Zane figure out where this witch was hiding.
I couldn’t sense it, and when I looked over and saw Edgar had been knocked out, I knew I had to kick my ass into gear. I had thought it would be me and the warlock fighting her together, but now it was time for me to dig into these powers by myself to kill the person who had cursed me.
“I didn’t curse you!” the witch walked in. Her voice matched the beautiful woman that I remembered, but I saw a completely different creature in a sultry red dress. It was bald and wrinkled with hollow eyes. This wasn’t a witch, she was a damn demon. I saw right through her façade of being the stunning ancient witch that thisthingwanted us to see, and I had no idea how we were going to fight a spawn of Satan.
“So,” her hollowed eyes looked at my arms, “what are we going to do with this piece of garbage you birthed? You see, normally I wouldn’t care, but it almost feels like this child is born out of spite.” It looked at me, “But it was an accident, wasn’t it?”
I glanced around the room, fucking vampires were frozen and wolves the same. Goddamnit, I needed to focus. I wasn’t doing this again. The room suddenly filled with dark smoke and then the manifestation of more demonic things appeared, snarling and salivating from their thin lips.
“Wasn’t it?” the demon-witch growled at me. “You decided to play games with me. Merge with orphaned shifters, fuck them, and produce a child. Shame on you, whore!”
When her eyes went to my daughter in my arms, I closed mine. I felt the energy and the sensation of power to send my baby to safety. But who? Shit, I didn’t know anyone who could take my baby at any given moment and keep her.
Think, Elle. Manifest something—do something!
I inhaled deeply, and I was shocked to see the shimmering irises of my former vampire friend, Val. She held her arms out and nodded to me.
“Give her to me. I’ll keep her.”
The room and demons that surrounded me had disappeared, and my only guess was I that I’d just teleported my ass into the afterlife where Val had been since she was killed.
“I won’t kill her. If she goes to you, she’ll be dead.”
“You aren’t killing her.” Val reached and stepped toward me, “You’re hiding her. Give her to me. I have to warn you though.” Val stared around at the void we were in. “There is only one shot at this. If you trust me to take her and the gods see fit she survives, I will return to the living. If that happens, it can disrupt a lot of things. Bringing the dead back always comes at a price.”
“Then why are you offering this?” I barked. “You want to live again?”
Her face was saddened. “Elle, the odds are that your baby is going to die. The witch is already taking her breath, and her rapid heartbeat is diminishing. She’s killing your child as you speak to me in this realm.”
I felt tears well up in my eyes, suddenly feeling an overwhelming thickness in my chest that was clouding my thoughts. I could hardly stand.
“Don’t cry and suck it up,” Val demanded. “We’ll meet again. I will bring her to you when it is safe for the child.” I felt icy cold hands under my chin, lifting my eyes to Val as the weight of holding my daughter in my arms was lifted. “You go kick that witch’s ass. Fate did not give you this precious child just to end its life. There is an unknown purpose for her life.”
“I can’t do this.”
“You must, Elle! If that witch kills the baby, she can send it to hell along with the rest of you. You know this, and you feel it deep in your bones. Decide now, she’s pulling you back from here. You have no more time.”
I glanced at my baby’s wolf eyes. She was fighting, but I could feel her life slipping away. The next thing I knew, Val was gone and I was right back in the room with the witch as if I’d never left, and as soon as I looked down to lock eyes with my sweet baby girl, she was snatched in a puff of smoke and delivered directly to the demon witch’s arms.
