Eternity is Only A Lifetime Away

Passion and Destiny

Forgetting all about Georgie lying motionless on the floor, Aleka raced towards her brother. Sullivan and his men vanished, but not before he smirked almost knowingly at Tristan who could only glare back. His arm had been split, the bone protruding from the open wound, but now was not the time to be worrying about an injury he could repair before sunrise. His dark eyes fell upon the girl who had broken his arm so severely and his un-beating heart sank as he sensed the pain, the hurt and the heartbreak that was consuming her, just like the venom of a vampire consumed a life.

“Darien, you're going to be okay, we can Lilia to fix you up.” Aleka didn't attempt to fight back the tears that filled her eyes. They flowed freely down her cheeks, each tear falling and crashing on Darien's weakening body.

He writhed on the floor, reaching up for the hand of his baby sister. The life was fading from him quickly and Lilia and Kaleb burst into the room, expecting a fight, not a death. Aleka's slender fingers closed around his cold, calloused hands and she willed him to live.

The three allies moved forward, each of them experiencing a level of heartbreak that came nowhere close to the emotions that Aleka had rushing through her at this moment in time. The last of her family was bleeding heavily on her body, marring her pale skin with speckles of crimson as Darien struggled to remain alive. He didn't have long left and the blood pooling around him was spreading, staining the stones with dark symbols of death.

Darien turned his head to look at Aleka, his eyes heavy as his final breaths heaved more blood from his lips, the cold metallic liquid trickling down his chin to his neck. He managed a weak smile, squeezing her hand with the last of his strength. His body lurched from the floor and he fell limp; his hand slipped from Aleka's and his head lolled to the side, causing the blood from his mouth to drip onto her thighs.

Tristan stepped forward, his cold hands resting on Aleka's shoulders as he eased the distraught warrior away from the still-warm corpse of her brother. She wanted to fight back, but her heart was too broken to provide her with the strength. Instead, she clung to Tristan's shirt like her life depended on it, sobbing heavily into his shoulder. The vampire held her as best as he could, trying not to move his snapped arm too much. His eyes were fixed on his companions, the dark pools conveying a message to both of them.

Kaleb lifted the corpse of his friend easily into his arms. There was no way they were going to leave Darien's body here for the dark, twisted minions of Sullivan to feast upon it. Lilia, hitching her dress, moved to Georgie, whispering incantations in forgotten tongues until the young girl floated into the air, an invisible chain keeping her close to the witch's side as she mumbled another incoherent incantation that made them all fade away from the cold and malicious throne room.

No one saw Aleka leave, but before they had gathered their bearings and found themselves in the middle of the grand hall with the rebellion troops, Tristan sensed her leaving and the grunts and groans of the creature she knocked into only provided more proof.

He wanted to follow her immediately, but Lilia held him back, insisted on providing some of her own magic to speed up the healing process of his grotesque arm. As soon as she was done though, the vampire pulled his arm away, wincing at the pain he'd almost forgotten and stormed out of the room, determined to find the young warrior before she did something stupid. He knew her only too well and he knew that if she was left to her own devices, she'd walk right back to Sullivan, her anger clouding her judgement and her sanity until there was another body of a warrior on the stone floor. She was the only one left now; their last chance for eliminating Sullivan once and for all. They couldn't afford to lose her to wild emotions.