Chapter 121

I wasn’t awake. I knew that much. There was a floating feeling around me like I was just drifting around in space. I opened my eyes and rather than darkness, the world seemed painted in watercolors.

I had to be dreaming.

“Aren’t you precious?”

I frowned listening to the woman’s voice. I turned around and saw Candida kneeling in the grass. A small child offered her a flower and a bright smile.

The child had Candido’s hair and Candida’s eyes. He smiled innocently up at her. Candida lifted him into her arms.

“Could you put it in my hair? I think it would be safest there.”

The child nodded and leaned up, placing the flower in the bun her thick dark hair had been put in.

I smiled watching them. Candido couldn’t have been more than two or three years old.

A sound filled the air. Candida turned with a little smile.

“What’s wrong, mommy?” Candido asked. His voice was so soft and sleepy. He sounded so young and innocent.

“Well, it seems that our forest time has been cut short. That’s all.” She stood, cradling him in her arms. “Let’s go back so your father doesn’t think we’ve gone far.”

He pouted as I followed them. “Mean.”

She chuckled. “He can be very mean, yes.”

I frowned as the memory started to fade and shift. I heard a growl of fury as the forest vanished around me and I was dropped into a room.

“Candido, no!” Candida cried reaching out to him as he lunged at a larger blonde man. Lightning twisted and cracked in the air. Something caught fire. I could smell the smoke. The man flipped over his chair as Candido punched him in the face.

I saw blood spurt through the air. Something crashed to the ground. Candida looked horrified as Candido panted. Fury rolled off him in thick, hot waves, heating the air as the ground shook.

“If you ever--”

“What are you doing here?” I turned around seeing the Candido I always knew. He was much older than the furious young man in the memory.

I turned back and found the memory gone as if it had never been there.

I looked up at him and crossed my arms. “I could ask the same.”

He titled his head. “These are my memories, not yours. What are you doing here?”

“I didn’t bring myself here,” I said. “What are you doing here? Wandering around down memory lane?”

He eyed me. “Dream sharing isn’t always the way it has been.”

He turned from me. “Stay out of the pools or you might not find your way out.”

“Are you saying you’d just leave me?”

He sighed. “Must you take every statement I make as an attack?”

“Are you calling me defensive now?”

Candido tilted his head. “What else would you call this?”

I glared at him. “Angry.”

He scoffed. “I’m not discussing this with you. If you want to stay upset over the truth, do so. Just let me rest so I can figure out a way to get us out of this mess.”

He walked away, fading into white and leaving me alone. I stomped my foot.

“What kind of mate abandons their mate? What kind of alpha doesn’t apologize when he’s wrong?”

You’re in my mind, Hedy, his voice came from seemingly everywhere. You are hardly abandoned. And I do not believe in apologizing when I have done nothing wrong.

The light vanished, dropping me into a moonlit darkness then a door opened.

Go back into your own memories, your own mind, if you are so upset.

I frowned. “Now you’re trying to get rid of me. What exactly are you trying to hide from me?”

Candido said nothing. I could feel him ignoring me and it irritated me more than I could ever say. I turned away from the door and went walking through his mind. There were high walls in places. I could see pools through the separations of the iron bars that blocked off the area.

I didn’t know whether that was just something that he wanted to hide from me or if he was trying to protect me.

I turned from the gate, eyeing the height, and wondering if I could climb up it.

Then, a sound caught my ears. It was Allen’s voice. I turned and peered through the mirror to the day that Candido had come to collect me from the forest. I looked so thin there, so young and helpless, staring up at Candido with hope and apprehension.

I couldn’t get a sense of how he felt looking at me, but I watched him carry me away, and I swore I saw a little smile on his lips.

My heart fluttered.

I missed those days when Candido would treat me like a princess. If I could just have that for the rest of our lives, I wouldn’t be upset.

Could we go back to that if I just withdrew from Moon Shadow?

“It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” a woman said from behind me. “Oh, Candida, he looks just like you.”

“Doesn’t he! Except for that pesky hair.”

“Mom, please,” an older Candido said. I turned around and found him pushing Candida’s hand out of his hair and scowling. “I don’t see you making fun of her hair.”

I froze in place, seeing the face I had only ever seen in a portrait. Hedwig, my mother, was sitting at a table, smiling.

“Mom?” I whispered, walking closer to the memory. The teenaged Candido wrinkled his nose as Candida pinched his cheek affectionately.

“I’m not six anymore, mom,” Candido said.

“It’s a mother’s right to pinch the cheek of her child no matter the age,” Hedwig said sagely. Her eyes were just like mine, and they twinkled with mischief.

I sat and watched, staring at her face as if she would somehow turn to look at me. She did for a brief moment, but she was looking straight through me as if there was someone behind me in this memory, but I my eyes pricked with tears and I closed my eyes, trying to retreat back to my own mind.

“Hedy,” Candido called from far away. “Hedy, wake up.”

I opened my eyes slowly. I knew that I had been dreaming. My chest ached as if I was staring into my mother’s eyes again. Everything in me ached and I remembered everything that had happened the night before.

“Wake up,” Candido said softly in my ear. “They’re almost here.”

I frowned. Who could he be talking about? Vampires? My heart lurched in fear, and my stomach turned. We weren’t in any condition to try and fight off vampires. I was pretty sure that almost nothing that I had injured the night before had healed.

I pouted at the thought. Candido would have given me some of his blood to heal me before, but he hadn’t even offered it this time. I turned over, wanting to ignore him, then I heard the sound of a helicopter’s blades cutting through the air.

I frowned and sat up slowly as he stomped out the fire he’d built and destroyed the little campsite.

“They won’t be able to land here, but there’s a chance they can land on top of the waterfall,” he said. “Can you stand?”

I narrowed my eyes at him and pulled away as he reached for me.

“You said you’d met my mother before,” I said. “But you didn’t say that she and your mother were close.”

He stared at me, then he crouched. His eyes were so serious as he looked at me. I was almost nervous like he was about to scold me because I’d done something he didn’t like.

“Whatever you want to ask about your mother is going to have to wait until we get out of this forest,” Candido said evenly. “Can you stand, Pandora?”

I crossed my arms and glared at him. “I’m not going anywhere until I get answers.”

Candido said nothing. He scooped me up. I squawked and tried to get out of his arms, but he just tightened his grip until I hissed in pain.

He growled at me. “Stay still or you’re going to make your injuries worse.”

“Put me down!” I yelled. “What part of I am mad at you don’t you understand?”

He ignored me, walking towards the waterfall as the helicopter began to descend. It landed, shaking the trees, and getting moving the surface of the water. I looked back to see if there was anything in the lake, but all I saw was fish.

“Armageddon? Pandora?” Someone called from above. I saw someone standing at the top and looking down at us.

“We’ll need lines!” Candido called up. “And a medical kit.”

“On it! Standby!”

Someone else came to the edge and leaned over. This person was much bigger than the one before. “Good to see you alive, Armageddon.”

It was Gilgamesh’s voice.