Part 2 Chapter 14 - Diana
I tried not to react as confusion washed over Arthur's face even though internally I was squealing with excitement. Our plan was actually working and this whole ordeal was close to being over, I could barely believe it. We had hoped that putting silver in the water would be enough to weaken Arthur's control but I never really believed that the result would be so profound.
When he walked out of the room I was sure that I could sense his panic, but I didn't have time to gloat over it. I closed my eyes and drew upon my powers to check on the progress of our forces.
They were about an hour from the border of Arthur's territory but those were only the forces that I could reach. As long as there had been nothing to change the plans in our absence, there would be a force of vampires arriving in just a few minutes' time. I was getting ready to open a mindlink to Mark when Elijah pulled me out of my seat and started dragging me towards the door.
"Wait a moment, what are you doing?" I asked.
"We are getting the hell out of here." He replied as he continued to drag me and Orian out of the room.
"What, no, we can't" I tried to pull my arm out of his grasp but he was holding onto me too tightly. I had to grab hold of the door frame just to stop him from continuing to drag me along in his wake.
"She's right," Orian replied, also struggling against Elijah, "We have to stay right here and wait for him to come back."
I ignored him. His mind was so warped from all the years spent listening to Arthur's bullshit that there was no way to reason with him. Besides, I had other things I needed to do right now.
"I need to find him. He needs to die and I need to be the one to do it." I growled.
I told myself that I was so adamant about being the one to end his life because I was worried about any latent abilities he might have but that wasn't really it. He had been ahead of me every step of the way, I wanted to make sure he was dead. That there was no way that he was going to come after me again. That it was truly over.
"You can't do that." Elijah and Orian said in unison. Well at least there was something that these two agreed on. I rolled my eyes.
"There is nothing you can do to change my mind. We can't let him live and I can't take the chance that he will sneak away from us again."
Elijah looked at me, he didn't know how to respond. He knew I was right but he didn't want to admit it and he really didn't want me to risk my life by facing Arthur on my own. I didn't need to be able to read his mind to know any of this, it was written all over his face.
"No you can't do this. I won't let you kill my father." Orian screamed.
He picked up a knife from the table and ran at me, holding the knife high over his head. He tried to plunge it into my heart but Elijah stepped in front of me, taking the knife in his shoulder. Elijah growled before punching Orian hard enough to knock him out cold. He was still breathing but he was going to have a nasty headache once he woke up.
"Fine. If you insist on doing this then I am coming with you, that is not up for negotiation." Elijah told me as he pulled the knife out of his shoulder.
I nodded my head in agreement. We didn't have time to argue about it, we needed to find Arthur before he worked out what was happening and slipped out of some secret exit.
We left Orian unconscious on the floor as we went in search of Arthur, it wasn't as easy as I expected it to be. The silver on his skin must have cut off his connection to his wolf almost completely because I couldn't use my power to locate him, the connection was too weak. Instead I had to use my sense of smell to trace him, it took me a few minutes to work it out but I eventually traced him to one of the rooms at the back of the house.NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.
"I can't let you go in there." My mom told us as we approached the door. She was standing in front of it and she looked as though she was getting ready to fight me.
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"Why are you doing this?" Elijah asked, voicing the question that I was thinking.
"He might not be the best man in the world but he isn't really evil. He doesn't deserve to die."
I guess I was right when I thought that she was suffering from Stockholm syndrome. How could she really believe that he wasn't so bad after everything he had done? It just didn't make any sense to me. "Would you really fight me to protect him?"
My question seemed to take her by surprise. Maybe she had been expecting me to simply give up when she got in my way. That just proved how little she knew about me because there was no chance of me giving up that easily. I would rather not fight my mom to do this but I wasn't going to let Arthur go unpunished.
"He is never going to stop until he gets what he wants or he kills me. Is that what you want?" I asked, hoping that it would be enough to make her back down. She was on the verge of it but something was making her hesitate.
"I know that you need to stop him but please don't kill him. He doesn't deserve to die," She told me before slowly stepping to one side. As soon as she had moved aside enough for me to squeeze through I did just that, Elijah following me into the room a few seconds later.
The room that Arthur was hiding in was mostly empty with a few boxes stacked in one corner. He was sitting with his back against those boxes, holding his knees and mumbling something incoherently under his breath. I could see why my mom wanted me to take pity on him, he looked so pathetic when he didn't have his powers to fall back on.
He was still a monster though, I couldn't forget that. Just thinking of some of the things that he had done made my blood run cold. If I didn't stop him now then he would just do this again to someone else. But thinking about what he did gave me an idea.
"You gave me a choice, now it is my turn to give you a choice." I told him. He didn't look up as I spoke to him but he shuddered at my words.
"You can either let me kill you now or you can agree to let me strip you of your wolf. Just like you did to that poor woman you impregnated."
I read about that particular spell in one of the books when I was doing research before I came here. I remember seeing that spell and thinking how cruel it would be to separate someone from their wolf. Thinking that Arthur had done that to someone made me feel extremely angry, it seemed appropriate to punish him by putting him through something similar.
Beside me I could see Elijah tensing, I don't think he was happy with the thought of me sparing Arthur but I knew what I was doing. Not only would it make him weak but it would also turn him into what he hated. He would have to live amongst the humans as one of them if we ever let him earn his freedom.
"Why would you do that to me? All I wanted to do was love you." Arthur asked, he was hiding his face and I think he might have even been sobbing.
"I'm not discussing this, just tell me what your decision is,"
I allowed my claws to elongate as I took a couple of steps towards him. I would honour his wishes but deep down I wanted him to choose death and end this for good. I should have known that I wouldn't be so lucky, he wasn't brave enough to take the dignified way out. He even started sobbing as he begged me not to kill him.
"Fine." I mumbled as I pulled him to his feet and held his wrists behind his back.
I wish that I hadn't made that offer but at least once he was human he wouldn't be able to cause any more problems. It was just a shame that I would have to look at his face for a little while longer.