Pain. All I feel is immense pain surging through my stomach and chest. A figure or two seems to be moving around the room frantically, every now and then I hear a voice. My hand trails up to my stomach that is very rounded, tightening, and releasing with each contraction. It hurts. So badly it hurts that with each, my breath is knocked from me.
"Anna..." I cried, thrashing my head back and forth, "Nicolas...I need...Nicolas!" This feels wrong. Everything about this feels like it's going horribly wrong. The room is spinning around me, my head aches so much that it pains me just to open my eyes all the way and when I do, what I'm seeing is doubled. I can just barely feel my legs but feel every bit of my body's need to give birth. "Anna?" I cried out until the older woman that had become like a second mother to me appeared, placing a comforting hand on my belly.
My entire stay here, she has given me as much advice as her lack of English allowed and even bridged the gap between my husband and I. After his first attempt to bed me, he would only go as far as to peck my lips lightly. Several times I waited for him in our sleeping chamber ready to give myself to him but he would refuse.
"Thy gives thee thy love mi amor. Not pain."
He would say to me before dragging me up the bed where he would pull back the sheets and sleep with his arms around me. I was going to lose him. I deserved to lose him for not being the woman needed to please him. I was ready to give up when Anna came to my rescue. Like a mother preparing to give her child encouragement needed to take on the world, she held my hand with closed eyes, chanting words that I could not make out. When she was done she pushed me toward the door extending a finger across the field in which Nico had been building a bigger barn for his stallion and it's mate.
Reluctant but feeling a strange sense of ease, I went to him not knowing what to say when he stood from his workbench, shirtless with small beads of sweat coating his chest. I don't know what came over me but I flung myself at him as we were lovers that had been kept apart for too long, planting the sweetest kiss upon him. It was because of that woman and that kiss that I was able to experience the full extent of my husband's love and why the result of it is now ready to enter this world.
"El bebé...coming." Anna was looking over me with sorrow in her eyes while taking my hand with her free one. I noticed how she had done everything but answer my question about my husband so I could only assume that my feelings were true. He left me. Being sick for so long has finally become too much for him and he left. I had a feeling this day would come since the be paid for medicines that did nothing for me. I need him. I want him here with me but more than that I just want to give him the child he was so elated to discover he would be having.
My stomach tightened again but this time pressure moving through my lower body followed. Anna looked down at my belly as another one of those strange sensations began and I screamed from the pain.
"You push now." She release my hand taking her place at the bottom of the bed. I'm scared now. The scaredest I have ever been in my entire life but even so, the misery is greater. Not knowing what else to do, I followed my bodies instructions, bearing down each time my stomach spasmed.
Dropping back on the pillow after two very hard pushes I found myself crying even harder and now with labored breathing. "It hurts! Anna...Nicolas...help..."
"Again mi reina. Push!"
I tried. Gave it my absolute all to bring my baby into this world but it felt fruitless. My energy is fading and I feel as if I need to sleep. Still, I pushed for all of ten seconds, screaming at the top of my lungs when I finally stopped. I can't do this. My heart is beating slow and long. It feels as in any second it will give up; give into the sweet peace of painless sleep. My eyes were beginning to close, Anna's frantic voice slowly decreasing in volume.
"Mi reina? Mi reina?!"
"Simone!" My eyes sprung open at the deep rich tone echoing through the room.
"Nico?" I sighed, smiling as he knelt by my side taking my hand and bringing it to his lips. "You're...here..." I can barely see his face but I can see his eyes staring back at me with the same sorrow that filled those of his servant and best friend.
"Si, mi amor." He smiled at me so warmly that I really wanted to return it but couldn't. A pain unlike any of the others rocketed through me forcing me to scream and squeeze his hand. Without being told, I pushed with all of me. Now that Nico is with me I feel like I can do this. I pushed again, tears streaming down the sides of my face. My last push takes so much out of me that I can no longer fight the urge to sleep. As a sharp pain slices into my hand I turn slowly to see a thin blade within Nico's hands before he turned it on himself and held his open wound over the one he created on my hand. The world seemed to slow down in the moment, growing darker and darker until the last thing my eyes fell upon was of those of my love.
"Simone?"
"Simone!"
"Rayne!"
I hear my name being called but can't move, can't open my eyes, and can't speak. All around me there are voices varying from deep to deeper. The one speaking the loudest carrying an accent that instantly puts Nicolas in the forefront of my mind. "If you can hear me open your eyes for me Querida, please!"
"What the hell happened, De Leon?! You said you did this before and she wouldn't have to die!" My father's voice grew closer by the end, signalling a new found closeness to me as a warm hand rolls over my cheek. "You have to fix this! Give her more of your blood! Do something!"
"I'm trying! I told you that I have never changed anyone with her lineage before and that we had to be prepared for anything. You have to calm down so I can figure this out."
"How in the hell do you expect me to calm down?! My daughter is dying! She has no fucking heartbeat!"
"But her skin is still warm and luminous. She has been like this for hours. If she were dead or dying she would be paling and growing colder by the second--"
A loud bang rocked me internally since I could not actually move. Not being able to see right now has all my other senses oddly heightened to the point that the scent of perfume hits me before the new addition to the room even approached me. Somehow I can also sense that the being that has now joined us is none too pleased with this situation and it is confirmed when she finally speaks.
"Everytime I turn around this little girl is in the center of some bullshit! What the hell happened now?!"
The room, drenched in complete silence left me with only an assumption of what they were doing. I can imagine my father and Nicolas giving the woman a death glare while Adam still remains the peacemaker. "Let me guess, Sleeping Beauty bit into a poison apple and now we need to find her frog Prince to kiss her and shit all better? Hmm? Is that it?"
"Now is not the time for this Odessa."
"Time for what because I for one am tired of being called to deal with yet another issue concerning this--" a gasp cut her words off before I could hear what name she'd come up with for me now. "She's been turned?" That was the first time I had ever heard anything other than aggravation in her voice. "Who--who did this? Who in the fuck would attempt to create such an abomination?" She paused probably looking around the room waiting but not really, for an answer. "As reigning members; the leaders of our worlds, we cannot allow this! She has to be killed immediately."
Yet another growl and a quick rush of air ran over me. "So help me God, Odessa, if you dare come near my daughter I will pluck every strand of white hair from your fucking head!"
"You dare threaten me?!"
"It's not a threat, it is a promise that I too will see through." Nicolas' voice seemed extra deep and more menacing than I have ever heard it.
"You did this didn't you? All of you are in on this! And for what? A pretty face and full titts? If all of you are too weak to do what needs to be done then I will!"
I never felt a finger being laid on me and never heard another word spoken. What I did heard was rumbling and bumping that I could not identify. Were they fighting? Who was it? My Dad? Him and Nicolas against the only woman on the Council? How was this going to end? I tried willing myself to move or at least open my eyes but neither were possible. A scent of something so sweet and alluring hit me harshly but rather than a negative effect, it made the need to awaken even more pressing.
The commotion grew louder and louder with a jumble of words that I couldn't make out but then...all of a sudden, there was silence.
For the longest of minutes I was bathed in total silence. I felt as if I were trapped in a bubble. One that cut me off from the world and everything in it. There was nothing around me to indicate the time as it stood still or passed me by aside from the changes in the air that suddenly I was feeling like I needed. My lungs ached for a breath that I had not been able to take...until now.
I inhaled with a huge gasp as I felt my heart take on a single beat. Slow but steady, the drumming against my ribs was in my ears loud and clear. The pumping of that muscle creates a cooling sensation within me that spread to each of my limbs.
As it rushes to my toes, I feel the need and wiggle them.
Travelling up my legs, I feel them move. Into my hands, the clench lightly.
When it finally hits my face, my eyes flutter slowly to adjust to the dim but visible light streaming through a thin slit created by the curtains covering the balcony. Everything around me seems so much clearer. Brand new even but most of all, enhanced. Each color used to make up the tiny fibers in those very curtains is visible to me but it's not that that really has my attention. I slid to the edge of the bed, planting my feet firmly before I tried to stand and approach the light calling me. Something inside of me feels as if this is forbidden but something much deeper is pushing me forward.
With a hand full of the thick linen, I breathed out slowly, yanking it open in one swift motion. The setting sun immediately sets my skin ablaze but almost instantly my blood ceases the burn. The lock on the door is flipped and without hesitation I stepped into the strong evening wind allowing the sun to caress me.
A deep breath is released by a sigh of pleasure. I feel so alive. More than I ever have in my entire life; so invincible that I threw my legs over the railing as I sat upon the cool metal. Each car that passes and each person that walks below, I swear I can hear their hearts beating. I breathed in again, much deeper this time catching more of the scent that I had caught previously. Only this time I'm so attracted to it that I feel like I have to have whatever it is.
In one giant fearless leap that seems to have been authorized by an unknown force within me, I jumped to the ground below, landing clean on my bare feet in a crouched position. I'm careless to the fact that I'm clothed only in a tight pair of yoga pants and sports bra that does nothing to protect me from the early winter night that's approaching. The scent is so much stronger down here, pulling me deeper and deeper into a dark depth of my mind that I had no idea existed. What I do know is that I'm hungry beyond belief and whatever that aroma is, it will be mine.