Deva's eyes fluttered open from their heavy trance. She felt a little dizzy yet quite energized; something she hadn't felt in a long time. The first thing her eyes caught was the worried faces of her friends and family. It was a repetitive situation for her. Their concern hung over her like a blanket wrung around her neck.
All she truly wanted was for the worry to decease. She hated the drama and everything in between.
"How are you feeling my dear?" The Queen came around her bed clad in black.
"Peachy."
The Queen explained, "Darius' blood healed you so we didn't have to turn you into a vampire yet. It took a few minutes to heal but eventually it did the job."
Darius' blood saved her. Wasn't that ironic? The world had such a way in entwining every aspect from impossible to possible. How they were linked together was beyond explanation. It couldn't be more than chance. Every opportunity of Deva and Darius having their happily ever after had disintegrated with the notion of him fathering Red's child.
Deva scoured the room for his face. He was standing towards the back behind Izzy's sitting form. Even in the darkly lit room she could still clearly see the love and instinctive protection he held for her. Darius' eyes were locked in place, watching over her. There was no telling how long he had been there guarding her.
Deva hated the sad ripples etched on his face. Those worried lines were for her.
"Thank you Darius."
"I would do anything for you...my Queen." Even my life he silently thought.
She dropped her head back into her pillow. "Where is she?"
Izzy answered. "Amy is being held for questioning. Apparently she was paid by someone to kill you. We're still trying to figure out who."
"She will be dealt with soon." The King spoke with assurance.
Deva wasn't worried; she was pissed. Amy had a death wish on her head the moment she raised a finger to harm Deva. Deva wanted an explanation.
"Can I be alone? Please."
Everyone cleared out, respecting her wishes, but Darius. He remained stuck in place, acting as if losing sight of her now meant losing her forever.
She got out of bed and he raced towards her. He kissed her without permission or clarity. She understood the necessity he had to hold her, to touch her. Love had cost him his sanity. She was his weakness.
"I almost lost you." He trembled.
She embraced his hands to abolish his fear. "You saved me."
"Deva I-" He couldn't imagine life without her.
"I know." She kissed the hands of the man who saved her. "I really need to be alone right now."
Once he was gone curiosity had driven her to lift her shirt. She wanted to examine the stab wound. Nothing was left but a small almost invisible scar. Then she glanced at her arms where the lycan had scratched her and noticed it was also gone. There was no indication that she had even been touched.
It was amazing to think that their blood could heal so quickly and almost anything. How long had humans struggled to heal the sick when all they really needed was vampire blood? It was too bad no one knew they existed. Most doctors would kill to get their hands on such a miracle weapon.
She wouldn't have known there were wounds on her body at one point if she hadn't seen the knife in that exact spot.
Why did Amy come for her now? She had plenty of opportunities to kill Deva, but she chose the night of the coming out ball. Deva needed answers.
Walking down the brisk hallway Deva felt a tight cringe in the pit of her stomach. Like always, she forced it down because she didn't want to think or feel anything that didn't pertain to her current mission.
Her cell room was made of dark grey painted stone walls. Amy had dingy clothes hanging off her body. She lazily raised her gaze when Deva reached her cage.
"Well, well, well if it isn't the little princess. Not dead like I hoped, but the attempt did make me feel better."
"You're the dead one."
Amy patronized Deva with her vindictive smile. "But it was worth it."
"Was it?" Deva snapped. "Did you really think that Darius would love you after you killed me?"
Amy deliriously nodded. "He saved me you know. He gave me his blood. He was supposed to love me." Her insane and desperate cry was for attention.
"Why was he supposed to love you?"
Deva babbled in Amy's delusional world. Her own curiousness was awakened since she too shared Darius' blood.
"He took me in, let me stay. I am his."
Deva pitied the stupid girl. She was psychotic and desperately in love with a vampire prince who saved her life in an act of charity and humanity.
Then again could Deva really blame her? After all she did fall victim to Darius' charm and fell in love with him too?
Deva shook her head and muffled a laugh. "Yeah he took you in as a maid."
Amy's cold gray eyes narrowed. "He took care of me. He loves me."
"It's called pity, kindness, mercy but I can see how you got that confused in your deluded fantasy world."
It triggered a nerve for Amy and she rose up in seconds. She hissed baring her teeth but there were no fangs. She wasn't a vampire but for some reason this spoke to Deva. Amy wanted to be one. She wanted Darius to turn her.
"Why did he save you? What happened to you?"
Amy took deep vigorous breaths. "I was ten. Darius found me in the woods lying in a pool of blood. I couldn't remember how I got there or what happened to me. I can't remember any part of my life before Darius saved me. He fed me his blood on a long shot. He said I was nearly dead but his blood miraculously healed me. I'm alive because of him. I can't remember a life without him."
Darius was her savior, her guardian, her shelter, and eventually he became her everything. How could Deva be angry now? Amy was raised in the castle. Worshipped her savior from afar but always had him close. He was her everything from a young age. She looked to be in mid-thirties that meant that she had loved Darius for more than twenty years.
"He's had years to see you, to truly see you as more than just the little girl he had saved. I'm sorry he couldn't love you the same way." Deva's sympathy came from the heart.
Amy, shocked by Deva's apologetic mood, staggered back against the wall. Deva's outstretched shared feelings were an eye opener for her. It forced Amy to digest the real facts about her undiminished love for a man who would never share the same affection.
"He loves me." Amy chanted continuously because even the slighted lack of faith would destroy her.
The sound of heavy footsteps echoed in the distance.
"Deva what are you doing here?" Darius' voice was gentle yet laced with fearful concern.
"I needed some answers."
His jaw was set in stone from anxious curiosity. He would do anything to read her thoughts. He could feel the displeasure and rage pulsing through her veins.
Deva continued, "Amy told me about what you did for her. I sure hope you two work this all out." Deva quickly stalked off not giving him a chance to respond. She couldn't believe he never told her; something that big should have come up. Why didn't he tell her?
Out in the hall and a good distance away from Amy's cell, Deva slowed her pace.
"Deva please stop. I can explain."
"Explain? You had plenty of time to do that before. Why didn't you do it then?"
"Deva, please. Let's just talk about it."
His soft innocent pleading voice stopped her completely, and then he was in front of her. Deva crossed her arms over her chest hoping it would help keep her from lashing out on him.
"Deva I didn't tell you to hurt you or get you mad. I promise it just never came up. It wasn't important."
"It never came up?"
Deva easily recalled the time she asked him about his relationship with Amy, and he said it was nothing. It was one morning they were together in his room. Amy had brought him food. Thinking back now Deva remembered it like it was yesterday.
"Darius I asked you about her, one morning when she dropped off your breakfast. You can't tell me you don't remember."
He nodded shamefully. "Yes, but Deva you thought me and Amy had a romantic past. There was never anything romantic between us. She means nothing to me compared to you."
Deva waited for an explanation, for his side of the story. She wanted to forgive him but his secret had almost cost her, her life.
"I found her in the woods one night. She was practically beaten to death. She was so young Deva. Yet this little girl had enough strength to fight and hold on to whatever life she had left. I saved her with my blood. She recovered in a manner of hours but she had no home to go back to. Her family was killed. I kept imagining her life as an orphan, starving for food. I couldn't toss her back into the world to die again. I brought her back with me."
Deva's anger shifted to a lighter tone. Darius meant well. Having him open up about the gentler side of his heart meant a lot to her. The depth of his kindness was unknown since he liked to mask it from others.
"She's dangerously obsessed with you."
"If I would have known the extent of her affection I wouldn't have let her near you. My feelings for her are purely that of a father's love. I could never love her the way she wants me to."
Of course he wouldn't. She never would have thought otherwise. Darius still loved her.
"I wish you would have told me."
The regret would haunt him for a while. "I know. I am so sorry. It was my fault she did that to you."
"No," she tried stealing away some of his guilt. "You can't blame yourself."
"Deva she stabbed you because of me. All I ever do is hurt you."
Her heart was slowly breaking at his remorseful apology. "Stop it. Not everything that happens to me is your fault. Stop blaming yourself." She couldn't take his morbid face any longer. "I have to go."
Deva found herself in front of the punching bag the next day violently abusing the heavy sack. Her anger and aggression coming out with each hard blow she forced. Harder and faster she hit till all her sufferings went away. The method seemed to work for a little while until she heard someone enter the room.
"Deva you shouldn't be working out this hard." Lucian's low tone didn't alter her swinging form.
She wasn't surprised that it was Lucian who was interrupting her peace with demands.
"And you should stop telling me what to do."
"I'm only looking out for you."
Deva reluctantly stopped punching the bag and turned her head to the side. "Well I didn't ask you to look after me; so maybe you should stop."
He didn't show how hurt he was by her resistance for his help. "No you didn't, but I can't stop. I care too much about you."
She turned back towards the bag. "I'll only end up hurting you."
She started punching the bag again, ignoring his presence. Lucian took the hint and left the room so she could be alone with her thoughts. He couldn't force her to do anything she didn't want to do.
The fact was that she was slowly changing before his eyes. Her sweet sarcastic personality replaced with a cold hard shell that was getting emptier with each new pressure or force that was placed upon her. He knew she didn't want to stay, and, the more those bad things were happening to her, the more she lost the qualities that made her who she was before arriving to their world.
Deva finished her work out with a nice jog and couldn't believe it was already dark outside. She had spent most of her day in the gym just trying to get the frustration out of her system.
The first thing she knew she wanted to do was take a shower to wash off the sweat. The halls were dark and empty, and it made her wonder where everyone had gone.
Were they sleeping already?
The hall was much too quiet, making her nervous and uneasy. Her gentle steps were quieter than usual thanks to her discomfort, but if she hadn't, she wouldn't have heard the deep uneven breathing coming from behind her.
Something deep down inside told her it wasn't a vampire. It couldn't be because vampires were discrete creatures. That was when her fears intensified. She didn't want to look behind and have her nightmare come true.
Everything in her body was telling her not to look back.
Standing at the end of hall was her deep dark nightmare. The hairy beast heaved, rocking from side to side just staring at her. Ice cold chills pinched throughout her body as she watched him stalking towards her.
Her senses rapidly shot into action, and she began to race down the hall. Her body was yelling out to her in pain from the previous work out she had just finished. The sore aches were crippling her, and she knew she wasn't going to last much longer. She saw the end of the hall and focused on reaching it, but was quickly pulled from the dream when her body was jerked back.
The lycan had his teeth sunk into her shirt before yanking her and throwing her into a room. Her body slammed into the far side of the wall before hitting the floor hard. She moaned in agony as the lycan predatorily stalked around her. He watched her struggle getting up, and his patience died. The lycan lunged his massive body towards her and slammed her hard against the ground again.
She screamed and praying someone would hear her. The hideous beast growled and snapped his sharp teeth towards her face. With little success she shoved him back, enough to find something to defend herself with.
The small end of a fire poker grazed her hand, and she naturally grabbed it. Without hesitation, Deva jabbed the metal poker into the beast's stomach. He hissed through his canines; his loud screeching scream was loud enough to be heard by the entire castle. That was when Deva felt its heavy body being thrown off of her.
Darius tackled the beast away from her and pinned it to the floor.
The beast was a bit bigger in mass, but Darius was very strong and quick with his movements. The lycan tried chomping at his neck, missing but with each new snap of his teeth, the lycan got closer and closer. Darius took the poker in its stomach and pushed, twisted it deeper to cause the lycan more pain.
Deva was still a little woozy from the attack, but she got up in time to see the lycan pull back from Darius' body to yell out in freighting pain. With new found anger, the lycan quickly recovered and hastily brought down his canine teeth and bit down on Darius' neck.
Deva watched as blood poured down Darius' shoulder. The beast was knocked off of him when Lucian joined the fight. With a needle containing some kind of serum to help the lycan control his beast side Lucian plunged it into the lycan's neck.
The lycan began to jerk, side to side as he bones cracked out of place. Deva had seen it all before in a dream she supposed.
She ran to Darius. He was on the floor barely moving. Deva pulled his head onto her lap.
"Darius tell me what I can do."
His face was turning a whiter pale than he already was.
"There's nothing to be done Deva."
She shook her head. "No." She remembered him telling her that a lycan's bite was like poison and could kill a vampire. "Darius don't. You can fight it. Please."
Darius forced his glowing blue eyes to look at her even though everything inside of him was shutting down.
"Deva there is nothing you can do." His voice was fading into a whisper.
He raised his heavy hand up to caress her cheek one last time. She didn't realize she was crying till he wiped a tear away with his thumb.
"I'm so sorry Deva for all the pain I've caused you. I never meant to hurt you."
"No! Darius please don't give up. Please."
"Shhh its okay sweetheart. Just know that you were the best part of my life Deva. I've made many mistakes in my time, but meeting you, loving you was the best thing I had ever done."
Deva leaned down, cradling his beautiful face in her hands. She couldn't say good bye. She wasn't ready to let go.
"I love you Deva; my heart will always belong to you."
"No, don't Darius. You can't leave me." She pressed her forehead to his. "I need you. Please, please don't go."
The tears began to freely slide down her face and so did his hand. His eyes fluttered shut and his body turned into cold stone. Her heart sank, and everything felt like it was disappearing from her. She stroked her fingers against his cheek, and his ice cold skin hit her senses. She wanted to warm him up and knew the only way how was to give him what he wanted, what he needed.
She lowered her neck closer to his face while pulling his weak head up.
"Drink Darius you're too weak, too cold."
He shook his head refusing her offer of comfort. He didn't want to hurt her, and she sensed that.
"Darius you're cold. Please drink my blood."
Her neck reached his lips, and he couldn't help what happened next. His vampire nature took over, and his teeth easily pierced her soft fragile skin. She didn't wince or pull back even though the first puncture stung. Soon his suckling turned into a sweet caress.
The bite grew more intense as his arms gripped her body closer to his. Somehow, her blood was giving him his strength back. He couldn't explain it, but her magical honey tasting blood was giving him undeniable energy to replace the venom draining him.
Darius pulled back but not before placing a kiss on the spot he just fed from. His retraction left her with an empty sensation from the possibility of losing him.
His lively besotted eyes met hers. He couldn't fathom what she had done exactly. He knew the lycan bit was supposed to render him dead. Somehow her blood restored him back to life.
"Deva..."
"You're alright." She cried hugging him tighter.
His arms wound about her. "Yes Deva I'm alright."
Darius felt Lucian's hard stare and dazed expression. He was just as baffled as Darius was to witness what had just happened. There was no cure for a lycan's bite, yet Darius was still breathing with no difficulty. Lucian was thankful his brother was still alive but the question was lingering in the air. How?
No one survived a lycan bite.
Lucian took a deep breath and brushed his questions to the back of his mind. Now was not the time and he doubted Deva knew how she did it.
"Deva," he crouched down beside her. "Are you alright?"
Her brown eyes drifted to Darius. Knowing he wasn't dead was all the satisfaction she needed to survive the rest of the chaos.
"Yes." She rested her head on his shoulder and indulged in the warmth of his arms.
Darius was going to live, she whispered the sweet victory.
He held her tight against his chest before lifting her up. There was no pain or weakness. Darius felt a new revival to his strange second chance.
Lucian turned his attention towards the lycan when a loud horrendous scream came from behind them. Darius and Deva turned to the sound as well and found what was supposed to be the lycan now in human form.
His mane of hair was covering most of his face but the unexplainable resemblance was there. The sharp chisel of his jaw and the combination of defined roughness about his cheekbones were no coincidence. The uncanny similarity to the identical triplet princes was surreal and entirely unquestionable.
His facial structure was the epitome of theirs.
Darius and Lucian couldn't believe their eyes. It had to be an illusion. It just wasn't possible. How could the beast look so much like them?
The lycan man struggled to detach the poker stick from the side of his stomach. Once he had achieved a firm grip he yanked it out. Blood flooded out of his flesh and he roared in agony.
The door flew open and two vampire guards came rushing in. Lucian shook his head a bit to distract himself from the man who look exactly like him and ordered the guards to take the lycan away.
"To the cell and make sure he has chains around him this time. He is not to escape and if he does it will be your heads."
"Yes your highness." The guards said before stomping over to the man on the ground. He didn't put up a fight while they dragged him.
Only seconds later the King and Queen barged in after hearing the commotion.
"What happened here?"
"The lycan attacked Deva." Darius replied with Deva wrapped in his arms.
"How did he even get out?" The King was outraged.
Lucian pushed back a broken chair. "We don't know but he's human now."
"What? How?"
"I was with the scientist downstairs when I sensed Darius' struggle. I grabbed the serum and I rushed over here. It worked."
"The serum worked and the lycan? Where is he?"
"The guards are taking him back to the cell now."
The King held the utmost interest in the beast. Everyone knew his fascination for the lycans was a driving factor but no one was clear as to why.
The Queen hovered over Deva and examined her thoroughly. "Are you hurt dear?"
"No." Deva frowned and shuffled in Darius' arms so that he could set her on her feet.
He did, much to his disappointment.
"I was only a bit shaky. I'll been through worse."
Darius squeezed her hand, blaming himself.
The room was filled with so much hidden tense. What exactly happened? How did Darius survive a lycan bite? Yet the biggest mystery of them all was how could the lycan resemble them so well?
Darius chose to speak first. "He looks like us."
The King's brow rose. "Who?"
"The lycan, in human form he would pass as another twin of ours."
Darius noticed his mother gasp as if remembering a dark secret that was now coming to the light.
"It can't be." The Queen mumbled to herself.
"No it can't." The King quickly seized all other possibilities.
The Queen was taken back through her thoughts; hidden thoughts that no one else could see or hear. She went from shock to anxious in a matter of moments. It was apparent she knew more than she was leading on.
Lucian grew impatient and harshly blurted out, "Tell us what you are talking about."
The King ground his teeth in opposing anger. The subject was one he didn't prefer to discuss. His controlled temper was a small indication that he knew exactly why the lycan resembled his sons. Were there any reasonable explanations for the random coincidence?
The Queen escaped her mental bubble to explain what she knew.
"Long ago before you three were born I was taken captive by a pack of lycans."
"What!" Darius roared in outrage.
Deva was still extremely surprised the Queen had never told her sons before. It wasn't exactly something you wanted to keep secret from your family. Deva had heard the story before but would have never laced a baby to it. So the lycan Alpha had impregnated the Queen of the vampires.
What a clever thing to do since his only enemy was her husband. King Asher made it his life's mission to destroy the lycans.
"I was taken because of my title. They wanted to gain power and somehow thought that by taking me it would lead them to it." Her gaze flew passed the sight of her boys as she envisioned those days. "I was tortured and beaten for the first few months but the alpha of the pack stopped when he thought I was cooperating."
She dropped her head, not wanting them to see her face. "Eventually as the long days past I got pregnant by the alpha. No one has ever heard of a cross breed so I didn't even think it was possible. But I gave birth to a health boy. The alpha took my son and sent me back home. I never saw him again."
"You're lying!" Lucian shouted obviously feeling deceived.
"She is not." The King decided to interrupt. "We killed most of the lycans in our kingdom. I never thought that he would actually still be out there."
The Queen concealed her hurt and anger impeccably well. Deva had only seen a glitch of it but she could sense the woman's fury towards her husband's lack of empathy to her long lost son.
It was any woman's nature to love their child no matter what. The Queen obviously was not brutally against the lycans.
"You said he looked exactly like you?" She curiously asked.
"So very much," Darius responded.
Deva patted his arm. She could tell he wasn't too thrilled to find out his parents were keeping secrets from him. It only brought further questions. What else were they hiding from him?
"He's a bit tanner though." Deva said walking around them.
The Queen looked pleased at the thought.
"We have another brother then?" Lucian was enraged.
Deva slipped away, walking backwards towards the open door. The whole conversation had turned into a family matter. Although it was very interesting she knew it was better done in private. Deva wasn't exactly family yet. Not until she married one of the princes.