70. Peaceful Oblivion.

“What did you do, you bitch?” I ask feeling an inferno building inside me, but I tamp it down.

“I…. I…”

“Mahi, you’ve got to calm down, she can’t tell us what she knows if she’s dead.”

I turn to Axel trying hard to control myself since he was right.

I could feel the fire burning inside me demanding to be let out, fuelled by my fear and rage.

It was taking all of me to hold it in.

“Where did they take him?” I ask again.

“I don’t know I swear, I just let them in.” Niamh replies fear seeping into her now.

“You let them in knowing very well the school’s magic left them out for a reason?” demands Nona Ellie sounding every bit the queen she was.

“I just wanted her to learn a lesson, I didn’t know they would take the kid and hurt the pixies.”

A dead calm settled over me then as I studied her, “You are lying Stephanie, you knew they would harm him and the pixies too.”

She goes to deny it eyes flashing but I go on, “Your greed to make me suffer for something I have no control over led you to ignore the facts staring right at you.”

I moved forward a step making everyone else take a step back, “You better hope and pray no hair on his body is touched, I don’t want to find out what I’m capable of either if he is harmed.”

I tighten my hands further to emphasise my threat, watching in fascination as she starts turning blue.

Then the school siren sounds again jolting me causing me to release her, she scrambles away from me and for a minute I consider following her.

“Something was dropped at the gate,” a student yells after the siren goes quiet.

Everyone rushes towards the school entrance but I already know what they’ll find. I don’t want to follow but I must. Heart in my throat I turn away from Stephanie heading to where a huge crowd had already gathered.

They part letting me through and I ignore all their stares and murmurs. As I get closer I feel the bond, weak and fluttering but there, I move to where my family circled a chest placed just outside the academy’s wards.

I could feel the fire I had fought hard to squash rise in me again as I study the chest. I knew without a doubt that Blue was in there, but there is no way he would have fit in whole especially if his wings were out, and something told me they were.

Trembling I watch as they carefully carry the chest inside the school grounds.

“Stop!” I order when Keon moves to open it, he’s about to protest but one look at my face has him obliging.

I take a deep breath kneeling next to the chest, I find the lock and flick it open. There’s one on every side, I do it for the other sides too.

I pry it open, praying for strength I didn’t feel, it doesn’t work, figures. I fall to my knees with a choked-off sob as I spy a blue glimmering scale half covered in blood.

I open it all the way and the scent of blood assaults us. My trembling increases as I study the broken body inside it, and I hear a few curses around me.

I reach for Blue and then realise my hands are surprisingly steady. Where was the shaking coming from?

“Oh, my fates, she’s doing this” someone murmurs from behind me.

“She’s causing an earthquake,” someone else murmurs only to be shushed.

I pick him up trying to ignore the blood and the bones sticking out and cradle him. Why would they do this to my precious boy? Which kind of monster would do this to a child?

“Blue! Baby wake up, open your eyes for me.” I plead.

“What happened to tucking our wings in baby?” I whisper in a broken voice.

A tear drops on his face which they had left intact, I hadn’t even realized I was crying.

I feel for a pulse sighing in relief when I findl it, but then it stutters and dies and the dam breaks.

I feel the heat before I realise that the ground really was shaking.

“Mahina, let dad check him.”

I turn to the person talking not really seeing them through the red haze in my head.

Where did everyone else go?

Dad flutters his hands around Knox then turns to the other speaker with a grimace, “We have to cut them off, they are crushed and there’s a foreign substance in them that’s causing blood poisoning.

“No, you’ll cripple him.”

“Pipsqueak, he is still a child they might grow back.”

The speaker moves closer cautiously and I hear the whisper of a sword being unsheathed.

“I said no! no one is cutting my baby!”

A wave of heat sweeps over me and throws everyone else away from us. My powers had chosen a fine time to make themselves known.

I don’t know how long I kneel there, cradling Blue’s broken body before he comes.

I feel him at the edge of the fire bubble around us; Rhian, not Rhys, but Rhian.

I cradle Blue tighter as he comes closer as a reflex action.

“Trust me Oisin, I won’t hurt him, let me help him.”

Weirdly enough some part of me trusts him and cools down.

But then he pulls a wicked-looking sword that is weirdly familiar and slices through my baby’s wings before I can react and a scream rents the air.

It takes me a while to realise it’s coming from me. I whirl to attack him when I feel the bond stutter back to life. Falling to my knees I cradle Blue again trying to shake him awake gently.

“Knox, open your eyes. Blue!”

He whimpers in pain and that sound shatters through my restraint.

Rhian kneels next to him and I leave the bubble with one goal in mind; to find her. I scan the onlookers who have expressions ranging from awe to pure unadulterated fear.

Honing on the girl trying to hide behind her posse I channel my rage and the next minute I’m holding her by the throat again this time high in the air, against the administration building.

The beast inside me bays for blood and I’m fast losing control, I raise my hand to yank her black heart from her body but I feel him behind me again.

Turning with a snarl I stare at him. He’s much braver than the rest and for some reason, this pleases me.

“I want to kill her too, but Blue needs us now little mate, we will deal with her later, I promise. Take back control for now Oisin, when it’s time to go for blood, you can let the beast out again.”

Enthralled by his voice I don’t even notice that I had let go, and that he was now holding both my hands.

He leads me back to where Blue lies and shame assaults me at my actions, how could I just leave him lying there?

“We have to move him to the infirmary.”

“No, I don’t trust that, the bubble stays.”

“Then let our family in so they can help us.”

I turn to where he’s indicating and now I recognize the group that is standing outside the bubble.

I relent letting them in, Mor and Killian move to my side as Axel and his dad kneel by where Knox is lying. Keon and the rest of my mates move to where I’m kneeling.

“You are a healer too?” I ask, staring up at my father “What can’t you do?”

“You didn’t have to cut his wings off Mahi I would have gladly done it for you,” Ax says with the rest nodding in agreement.

“I’m not the one who cut his wings he did,” I say indicating where Rhian was crouching next to us, only he was not there anymore.

“Who did? There’s no one there.” Rain asks.

“He was right here, he must have left,” I insist my voice gravelly.

“Mahi there was no one else here. We could see through your bubble.”

“What do you mean, he talked me down and convinced me to let you guys in.”

Mor stares at me with something akin to fear while Killian exchanges a look with Khalil.

“All we saw was you shooting towards her then holding her up by her neck for like twenty seconds but before we could react you let her go,” says Andrei looking at me intently.

Realizing they were all staring at me like I had lost my marbles I turn my attention back to Rhys who’d just appeared staring knowingly at me.

“He had to leave, he was barely holding back and would have killed anyone coming close to you guys, family or not.”

I nod, turning back to Blue. Why did he look paler than before?

I shake him frantic, “Blue, Knox…please open your eyes. Why is he not opening his eyes?” I ask the hysteria building again.

Dad looks up at me confused, “Something is preventing me from getting to him, there’s some sort of barrier around his heart, it’s slowing his breathing.”

I can feel the bond getting weaker with his words and I shove him aside cradling Blue gently.

Before I can do anything, I feel an unwelcome presence at the edge of the bubble, I watch transfixed as Niamh stands there hands clasping something blue tightly, she opens her mouth to speak but what comes out isn’t her voice, it sounds familiar yet foreign, “Let’s see who I can take next, dear daughter,” with that I watch as if in slow motion as her hand gets tighter and tighter around the thing in her hands, I’m vaguely aware of the guys shouting while lunging towards her, but it’s too late.

I feel the bond go silent just as Rhian appears behind her slitting her throat, but it’s too late, she had taken him already.

I kneel there cradling my dying child staring at Niamh who’s gasping for breath causing blood to spurt from her neck.

Blue’s heart thumps one last time and I lose it.

A wave of power pours out of me and my vision turns blurry, and then everything goes dark.

They took away my heart. Maybe they’d come back for me. I hug the merciful oblivion feeling my body shut down.

And then silence reigns, and it’s… nice? It is true then what they say, that there is a beautiful silence in death, one that brings with it, peace.

THE END.

...for no.

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