Flashback (5 years ago)
Jade's eyes felt like someone had clued them together, her head was pounding as she sat up, and she could smell the burnt smell of flesh surrounding her, with people screaming around her, tears slid down her cheeks, she was thankful for the first time in her life for being blind, because she knew that she wouldn't be able to stomach the view around her. Death loomed in the air.
Trying to stand up on her shaky legs, she stumbles but she doesn't fall to the ground like she expected herself to instead she feels someone's touch on her body, their cold hands supporting her body, causing her body to tense up.
"Who are-e you?" She asks, her voice stuttering with fear. Her question is met with silence, and the next instant she's picked up bridal style, she could tell that it was a man as she felt one side of her body pressed onto their hard chest. She feels the person carefully navigate through the aftermath of the fire.
After a few moments, the person stops walking, setting her down, her feet touch the sand, and she realizes that she might be somewhere outside the packhouse. Jade feels the cold air as the night progresses.
"Run" the man says, "and don't ever look back" he finishes.
"But-" Jade starts to question when the man suddenly holds her shoulders in a tight grip, "I said RUN" he stresses the word 'run' before Jade feels him leaving.
————
Staring at his violet-coloured eyes Jade knew the answer. Shaking her head in disbelief, she made a run for it, she didn't know where she was going, and she found herself running past the cages and the huge eerie hallway, as she reached the stairs that led to the store room, her feet halt as she spots a familiar figure standing near the stairs, with a smirk on her face, Bianca starts approaching Jade with slow steps, the sound of her footsteps echoing.
Looking around, Jade looked for a way to get away, only to realize that it was a dead end except for the stairways, just as she looked behind her towards the stairs for a second, she felt a sudden force push her.
"You should've died that night" she hears Bianca whisper before she falls.
Jade's eyes widen as she feels herself being pushed from the top of the stairs, a scream leaves her lips as she feels herself falling. One second she was falling and the next second she felt her back hit a flat surface, lying in the space connecting the stairs.
The metallic scent of blood hung heavy in the air. She feels someone appear beside her in a flash, placing her head on their legs. Jade sees a pair of violet colored eyes for a second and realises that it's Darius, her vision goes in and out of focus, but she is sure that she saw tears in his eyes.
"Jade," he says, his hands coated in her blood. When he sees her closing her eyes and the rhythmic beating of her heart slowing down, he panics.
"Don't close your eyes, Don't close your eyes" he repeats himself as her eyes keep closing, tapping on her cheeks gently to make her stay away, her wounds weren't healing due to her supernatural side being blocked with magic, which Darius was regretting doing so now.
Biting into his wrist with his fangs, he places his bleeding wrist to her mouth, so that his blood would help heal her internal bleeding. Picking her up swiftly, he carries her towards someone who he knows will help him.
———
"Hecante" a deep voice calls out the witch's name, catching her attention as she pauses her potion mixing. Hecante's black eyes take in the familiar woman in his arms who was bleeding really badly and her heartbeat was faint but still there, the same one he had brought to her months ago to block her supernatural side. She had a premonition that things wouldn't end pretty but who was she to say out such things openly, people especially these supernatural beings only learn things the hard way.
Hecante helps clear a table so that Darius can place Jade on top of it, Hecante inspects the wound on Jade's head, her head seems to have hit the edge of the stairs pretty badly.
"Give her more of your blood," she says to Darius, as she moves towards her work station to make a herbal paste infused with magic so that it would speed up her recovery.
"What are you going to do when she wakes up?" Hecante asks as she finishes making the paste just as Darius gives Jade more of his blood.
She takes the paste in her hands and moves towards where Jade's body is lying. Slowly she starts applying the herbal paste to her wounds.
"I don't know" Darius answers causing Hecante to shake her head in disappointment.
"The right thing to do is return her to her rightful place, and you know where exactly that is," Hecante says.
"What about me then? Do I just live a lonely life and wait for my death? She's my mate too." Darius argues, that Hecante was the only one who truly understood him, for she was the one who saved him all those years ago when he was about to be killed by those mutts.
Both of them have argued about the same thing countless times but the argument led to nowhere, Hecante sighs.
"Just be warned child, your actions are going to have consequences, and some consequences can get too much that it might completely change the course of your life."
Darius just stares at a spot in the wall opposite to where he stood.
"Her wounds would take months to heal if her whole body depended on your blood and my medicine," Hecante says as she finishes applying for the medicine to Jade's wounds.
"Remove the ring, let her have her powers back" Darius says, causing Hecante to look up at him.
"Are you sure? because if I remove the ring that's keeping her supernatural side locked, nothing is stopping her from leaving this place. She's a hybrid, the magic surrounding these walls wouldn't be able to stop her."
"I know," he says, knowing that once Jade wakes up, he would've to fully let her go.
He watched as Hecante took hold of Jade's right hand, chanting a spell, while holding her fingers above her hand, slowly the invisible black ring became more and more opaque until it shone like a black marble just like the dark magic it was holding. Hecante looks at Darius one last time as if for confirmation, meanwhile Darius's eyes are just fixed on the ring.
Hecante chants another spell causing the ring to completely disintegrate into dust.
———
1 week later
Darius glides the wet towel across Jade's face, he has been towel bathing exposed parts of her body, and Hecante has been helping with changing her clothes and bathing other parts of her body. It's been a week and she hasn't made any attempt to wake up.
———
2 weeks later
Darius stared at Jade's face, he had to watch her for some time, see her body rise and fall with each breath to make sure that she was actually still alive. He had memorized every inch of her face in his mind, the way her naturally pink lips remained relaxed in a slight pout, her eyelashes against her cheeks, and her strawberry blonde hair had been growing as well.
Wires were connected to her body so that she would be fed liquids constantly and even to monitor her heartbeats.
He takes her hand in his, his thumb stroking her hand, leaning forward he rests his head on the bedside, with their hands still connected. A moment later, for a fleeting second, Darius felt the faintest of twitch on the hand he was holding. Alert, he sits upright, carefully watching Jade, looking for any further movements.
Just then her eyes move, before they open slightly, her eyes sensitive to the light after keeping them closed for so long.
"Jade" Darius calls out her name, Jade tries sitting upright on the bed, and Darius helps her sit straight, Jade turns to face him with a look of confusion, she holds the side of her head which she had hit.
"Who are you?" She asks with her eyebrows scrunched in confusion, Darius pauses hearing her question.
"And where am I?" She asks another question, while looking around her surroundings, this time she gets up from the bed, trying to leave.
"My family? They're being burned alive!! I have to go save them" Tears roll down her cheek, and Darius stops her movements, hugging her. Their full sudden body contact makes Jade pause in her actions as she feels the tingles spread through her body.
'He is my mate?!' Jade thinks to herself.
Darius was quick to understand that Jade had forgotten about all the memories of the past four years, since she never mentioned Adryan, Adonis and the blood moon pack even once.
"It's okay, It's okay, everything is fine. It's over" Darius assured her, pulling back from the hug, she looked around herself finding herself in a bedroom designed in an antique way and then she looked into his violet-coloured eyes.
"You're a vampire?!" She asks in confusion, Darius nods his head confirming it.
Sitting her back down on the bed, Darius tells her that she was involved in an accident that caused her to lose her four years' worth of memory, effectively avoiding talking about anything that happened within the four years. Instead, he told her that she met him four years ago during the attack on her pack, which technically wasn't a lie, and how she regained her eyesight after meeting him, her mate.
Darius didn't know how far and how long this lie of his would keep going, but he was ready to drag it as much as he could if it meant that he could be with her longer.
She asks him after thinking to herself for a few minutes, "So the attack on my pack was four years ago and that I regained my vision within the past four years of which I've no memory of?" She asks him with her eyebrows scrunched in confusion.
"Yes," he says. Jade stares into his eyes to see whether he is lying, when she doesn't find anything she presses her head into her palms. It felt like her brain was going into overdrive after hearing about all the information at once.
Talking both of her small hands in his big ones slowly, causing Jade to look up at him. "You're going to be okay." He says, and Jade didn't know why but she felt like believing his words, maybe it was because he was her mate or maybe it was the tingles that felt whenever his body touched hers.
'Everything will be okay' Jade thought to herself.