Forbidden Embrace (12 page)

We’re all still linked telepathically, and Elijah is struggling; his opponent is strong, he must be the leader. He needs our help; Isaac prepares all of us, and he shakes things up a little. Isaac causes a small earth quake, just enough to take the Cerberus off their guard. The ground begins to tremble, we take our stances and prepare. The grounds movement increases, the Cerberus appear confused…and we attack. They are completely unprepared, caught off guard as we hoped. Instantly we take out another five, leaving four Cerberus remaining. Alexander interjects their thoughts; Elijah is battling the second in command. We now see that, they had all been protecting whom we believed to be the leader. But we now have the numbers to win.

The Cerberus members continue to protect their leader, looking for a way for him to escape. We need to ensure his demise, to ensure the safety of Wenham residents; more importantly for me, that Nathanial and his family remain safe. The
shifters
close in the perimeter as we fight, and The Magnificent Ones close the perimeter even more, fighting within the crystal circle the
witches
created to trap the Cerberus. As soon as we take a few more Cerberus out, the wolves can destroy them, and Ebony along with her sisters can repeat the spell to entrap the remaining fighters and the leader in the circle with us. This will leave them no escape, and lead them to their impending demise. The
shifters
dive in to the center so they can help destroy the Cerberus.

Two more down, and the
shifters
are taking care of them; the spell is cast and now we are trapped with the leader and one last fighter. Constance and Florence are injured, Florence has a broken leg and Constance has a tree branch embedded in her abdomen. I tend to them as the boys and Matilda continue to fight. Florence’s fracture appears to be a compound fracture of the femur bone, and Constance appears to be doing alright. She tells me to tend to Florence first; she is positive no internal organs have been damaged. I can’t believe how lucky she is, a little higher and we would have lost yet another family member we love. My healing of their injuries is complete in seconds. Because they are
vampires
and can self-heal, my extra healing just helps to speed the process.

Once their healing is complete all four of us girls take on the one remaining fighter, and with all of us he is quite easy to defeat. The boys are involved in battle with the leader; he is a good fighter, but with Cato’s help he no longer possesses his extra powers. Cato is able to render his powers useless, but his strength, we can’t take away. Alexander is being tossed into the crystal shield like a rag doll. Elijah jumps the leader from behind, tearing at his flesh; piece by rotting piece it falls to the ground. Cato punches completely through the leader’s chest and he collapses helplessly to the ground. Cato tosses the undead heart off to the side and shakes his hand free from the blood it is now covered in.

As the boys rip him apart, the sister
witches
remove the spell shield. We begin tossing pieces of the last two Cerberus remains to the
shifters
, and they proceed to toss the pieces in to the fire. Once all the pieces are burned to ash we put the large blazing fire out. We collect the ashes and place them in silver boxes Alexander and Nathanial made, and seal them. Gathering all the boxes, we bury them deep into the ground in various spots throughout the forest, taking no chances of a hiker finding the remains.

Now that the job at hand is complete we begin to celebrate; the
shifters
, the
witches
and the
vampires
, what an awkward combination of allies. I can’t help but wonder if our little group of supernaturals has come up with something here. Maybe those like us can choose to work together, an idea I may have to revisit at another time. We cheer and hug, then Elijah decides to say something. “I would like to thank each and every one of you for your assistance in handling the Cerberus. It could not have been successfully accomplished without your help. We will be forever indebted to you all.”

Everyone continues with the celebration. Ebony and I decide to sneak off to the other side of the clearing. “I think we should call Nate and Matt. I assume they are going insane,” I suggest.

“
You are probably right…not to mention that, as much as I have enjoyed Dakota’s company, I miss Matt so much my heart aches,” Ebony admits.

I push the speed dial on my phone to call Nathanial, and he answers on the first ring. “Sophia, is that you?” he asks in a panic.

“
Yes, it is me. Are you doing okay?”

“
You are asking if I am okay? How is everyone? Did anyone get hurt? Did you defeat the Cerberus? Where...”

“
Stop! You can calm down, I will explain everything. The Cerberus are now destroyed and we are all fine. Why don’t you and Matt meet us at my house? I guess you should bring Danika too,” I try to reassure him and make a little joke.

Nathanial will ask if he can spend the night, it’s teacher’s convention tomorrow, so no school. Matt will stay as well; we can tell them everything that way. I’m excited to see him, but want to converse a little more with our little army.

Because of the kills we could all receive a few new powers; normally we can sense our powers, but because most of us had never killed another of our kind we don’t know what it feels like to acquire new powers. Elijah, Isaac and Cato try to explain it to us. Cato and Elijah will be able to explain which power or powers we have attained. Because we did not get a chance to witness their powers, due to binding them, we don’t know what to expect, and they both have the ability to detect others power. Due to the
shifters
involvement in destroying the Cerberus, I doubt many of us will get new abilities. We injured the Cerberus and the
shifters
destroyed them. From my understanding we have to complete the destruction of another
vampire
to acquire their abilities or powers.

Cato and Elijah start explaining how when an immortal destroys another immortal their powers are gained by the one left standing. These aren’t always good powers and to ensure proper usage of the new power they must be learned and controlled properly. With all of us there together it becomes a jumble of powers; Cato and Elijah are only able to make out the powers, not who they belong to. We will have to figure that part out later, but for now we talk about the new powers they sense.

“
I want all of you to understand that some of the powers we are sensing are very powerful; they can be very dangerous because if others sense them they would destroy you for them,” Elijah warns.

“
We will work with you to control them,” Cato offers. They begin listing the powers. “We have sensed age shifting, appearance alteration, aura absorption, clairvoyance, danger sensing, pyrokinesis, and health optimizing/degeneration since the Cerberus arrived. These are the strongest powers we sense; not all the Cerberus will have had powers and younger ones would not have developed them, so they could take time to discover,” Cato explains further.

“
Now there is also the fact of the
shifters
causing the final kill. I’m not sure if they will absorb the power, if it will just be like normal, like it is for us. We will determine later if any of us acquired new powers tonight or not. I also find myself wondering if the power just stays in the area for any entity that requires these powers, or if no one is getting the credit do they just reabsorb into the earth,” Elijah reinforces.

Well this is all very exhilarating and no one knows what to think. We are happy to destroy the Cerberus and protect the people of Wenham, but it isn’t pleasurable to kill another, no matter how evil they may be. We had sworn against violence and tried to live that way; if not it would likely lead to the temptation to kill innocents.

It’s been a long night and the boys are meeting us at the house. Alexander and Isaac suggest to Cato that they go scouting to make sure no other Cerberus are around the area. “I will go, please go home with your clan...or family as you call it. I will suffice alone,” Cato offers. This is perfect because we don’t want him to know of the mortals knowing our secret. He would insist that they be destroyed, or he could destroy us for breaking the first law.

Chapter 10

Security

With Cato away it’s safe again for the boys to come around. Cato said he would spend a few days scouting up and down the coast, and will call us nightly to report. If he finds nothing in a few days he plans to return home to Transylvania. This will be great; we have not spent quality time with Nathanial and Matt in a few days, and now because of a day off school we have a long weekend to see them before we return to school.

Nathanial and Matt are already waiting at the house when we arrive, and Ebony and I can’t get to their open arms fast enough. It’s wonderful to be wrapped in Nathanial’s arms again. We have been inseparable since we started dating even though it has only been a few days since we saw each other, and even that seems too long.

We all head inside. It’s nice to be home with a sense of relief following us. We all go into the family room, lighting the fireplace before we get comfortable. Nathanial and Matt are both anxious to hear all the details of the Cerberus fight. Even more, they want to see it through Alexander’s eyes, through his memories of the fight.

Alexander relaxes and begins to show them as the rest of us watch their reactions. They don’t quite react the way we had expected. Typical boys...it’s if they are watching the best action movie ever made, or the Super Bowl. They’re on the edge of their seats jumping and punching the air. Ebony and I can’t help but laugh…they are so cute.

Once Alexander is done showing them every aspect of the fight the boys jump to their feet cheering, high fiving, and chest bumping as if we just won the big game. “Whew! That was awesome–they never saw it coming! Man, I wish I could have been there,” Matt shouts.

“
You’re all okay though, right? I saw that Sophia had to heal some of you,” Nathanial says with concern.

“
We are fine and it is all over now,” Florence reassures.

Danika congratulates us, but I can see she is upset about something. I assume she’s only pouting about not being a part of the fight. Why does she have to be so childish all the time? Can’t she realize it’s not all about her, all the time?

I can feel Nathanial’s hand trembling under mine. “Nate, you worry too much; really this should prove that we can take care of ourselves,” I insist.

“
I can’t help it. I found you and have become extremely attached to your entire family; I feel the same as I would if you were all my own family. I never expected anything like this nor did I want it, but here it is and I never want to lose any of you,” he babbles.

Elijah walks over to Nathanial and sits on his other side. “Nate, we feel the same way about you. However, we can protect ourselves; we have for over a hundred years, more for some of us. Now you need to let us protect you and your family. That is why we had to do this, to keep the townspeople safe.”

“
I know. I just can’t help it. It’s in my nature to be a protector. I’ve always wanted to help and protect the ones I love. It’s just like my mom and wanting more children. Completely different scenarios in one sense, but in the other sense they’re the same. I feel completely useless and helpless when it comes to her, and the same when it comes to your family,” Nathanial sighs.

“
Nate, I know you feel responsible for your mother not being able to conceive, I just never knew how much it bothered you. I might be able to help your mother,” I suggest.

“
I couldn’t ask you to do that, it would blow your cover.”

“
Not at all. I can do something like that so easily. I would sneak in and do it while she slept, or I could hug her from behind and just touch her abdomen. There’s lots of ways I can heal her, and no one would know anything, she would just end up fertile,” I explain.

While Nathanial, Elijah, and I discuss this matter everyone else is abuzz with celebrations. Florence join our conversation, “Now is not the time; you do not want to do something like this without making certain that they still want another baby. Nate will graduate next year and leave home. The McCords may be ready for their empty nest; they have had many years to deal with infertility. I just think this should be looked into first. For another thing, we need to celebrate tonight; we’re all okay, and have eliminated the danger.”

As everyone is laughing and enjoying being back together, Nathanial and Matt fill us in on the school gossip. It has only been a week since we have been in school, but the rumors that are flying are so funny. The entire student body is assuming that Nathanial and I split up; he informed them that we just went on a short family vacation, no need to elaborate any further.

After a few hours of chatting away, we all decide we need to have some down time. Ms. Edwina and Eliza return to their manor. Ebony and Matt are spending the night here; we have several guest rooms that they can stay in. I think everyone just wants to be alone with their loved one; I know that’s what I want. Nathanial and I have not seen one another since we made love for the first time and I’m longing for him; I long to be held in his arms and hold him in mine. To feel him next to me will prove the fight is over.