CHAPTER 23

Edmund

I am suffocating, unable to breath. Things are starting to become dark. Images of my life flash before my eyes. I feel I'm a goner.

Then, suddenly, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The grip on my throat is gone. I don't feel it any longer. I am able to take a deep breath, but it hurts, all the way from my throat down to my chest. I feel like I've swallowed stones, and now they are resting inside my chest cavity, with no option to get them out.

I blink heavily, looking around. I can barely prop myself up from the pain. But I know I can't stay on the ground. I need to get up, I need to continue fighting.

The shifter on top of me, with the bear arms, suddenly flies off of me, as if something pulled him away, some weird force. Then, I see her. Bianca is standing behind him, her arms extending into long branches, as thick as tree stumps. She looks like a force of nature not to be reckoned with. Her hair has turned into a white greenish hue, and it's flying around her head, as if there is a storm brewing around her and she is in the very epicenter of it.

I try to get up, but I'm unable to. I'm too weakened.

She recognizes immediately what is happening, and she rushes over to me. She is keeping us safe with her branches, creating a cage around us, but I know it won't last forever. They will break through it. Besides, I know that breaking those branches will hurt her. They are a part of her, after all. A part of her own being. I need to protect her. It shouldn't be the other way around.

She sits down next to me, and a single branch slides underneath my neck, helping me sit up.

"Are you alright?" she asks more tenderly than ever. "When I saw that shifter strangling you, I thought I lost you forever."

"You will never lose me," I manage to say, my voice down to a raspy whisper.

"I love you," I hear her say, in the most inopportune moment, as the shifters around us are trying to break down the cage of branches she has created around us, to keep us safe.

"I love you, too," I say back. "I've loved you from the first moment I saw you." I say all of that, although every word hurts like a stab in the throat. But she is worth it. She is worth knowing all of that, and if we end up dying here, I want her to know that I died with her in my heart.

Suddenly, she closes her mouth, and her body strains as if she's about to vomit.

"Bianca?" I ask. "What's going on?"

Her eyes widen in shock. She gags a few times.

I'm petrified. I don't know that much about dryads to be able to figure out exactly what is happening to her right now. Maybe she's overexerted herself. After all, she didn't know how to do any of this, and now she was forced to protect both me and herself. It probably came at a cost to her body.

I look through the branches, around us. Kano is still on his feet. So are a few of my other vampires. But it doesn't seem like it's good news. They are still outnumbered. I don't know how long they will be able to hold on. I need to be out there, fighting alongside them, not be protected in this cage of branches.

At that moment, Bianca opens her mouth widely, and gags two more times. Then, she spits out a white flower. An orchid.

"It's… the ghost orchid!" I exclaim, incredulous at what I'm seeing.

She looks at the beautiful flower with disgust at first, then her facial expression changes.

"What is it?" she asks. "A flower?"

"It is the healing flower of dryads!" I exclaim, still unable to believe that this is happening.

Ghost orchids have become the rarest flowers in the world. Dryads have always been able to magically conjure up one, and legends claim, if one is to eat one of these ghost orchids, it is even better than drinking the water from the well we've been looking for all this time.

"You made it," I whisper, my voice at the point of breaking. "For me."

"I… I think so," she nods, looking at the flower, then back at me. "What are you supposed to do with it?" she asks.

"Eat it," I say.

Without thinking, I grab the flower, and shove it into my mouth. I expect it to taste like sand, like grass, like dirt, but instead, it melts on my tongue like sugar. Instantly, I feel my body react to it in incredible ways. My throat stops being sore. My lungs spread out and I can finally inhale properly. I sit up on my own, feeling power restoring in every part of my body.

At that point, I notice that the cage around us is starting to crack. She can't hide the pain any longer. I lean over to her and kiss her on the forehead.

"Let them in," I tell her.

"Are you sure?" she asks, her voice quivering.

"Yes," I nod. "You did what you could do. Even more than you could. Now it is my turn. Let me protect you, the way I promised I would."

I can see all the love in those beautiful blue eyes. I know she is mine forever, just like I am hers. I want to keep repeating this to her over and over again, for as long as we are alive. But there will be plenty of time for that later. Now, it is time to kick ass.

Instantly, the cage around us disappears, as if it never existed in the first place. I stand up, feeling rejuvenated, feeling as if I possess the kind of power I never imagined, not even in my wildest dreams. I attack instantly, like an enraged animal, not even looking where I am hitting.

"Go hide," I tell Bianca.

But instead of doing that, she stands by my side. My warrior queen. The kind I always wanted for myself. Now I finally found her.

I can't take my eyes off of her. I loved her before, when I thought she was just a human. Now I think I love her even more, more than I thought I could ever love someone. She belongs to my world. Although I didn't know that in the beginning, neither of us knew that, but now we do.

I watch her take out one shifter after another, fearlessly and courageously. She takes risks. She attacks even when she herself is open for an attack. But she doesn't back down. I never expected her to.

I look in awe, thinking of the path she has taken to get here, to where she is now. She shied away from conflict. She kept her head down. That was all because others tried to convince her she was weak and powerless. In fact, she was anything but all this time. She was much more than all those shifters, and they couldn't even see it. If they had, I'm sure they would have used her for their own advancement. Or maybe, they were just waiting for her to transform, so they could start using her.

The thought awakens more rage inside of me. Now that she is mine, I will do whatever I can to keep her safe, starting from now.

I join in the fight, and shifters start falling down like flies. I jump to Kano's rescue, when a shifter tries to grab him from behind and stick a claw to his sides. I snap his neck, and let his body drop down to the ground. There is no room for pity here. This is a war, and there are only winners and losers in a war. There is no in between.

"Glad to see you back," I hear Kano remark.

"Glad to be back," I grin, as we stand with our backs to each other, waiting for another attack.

A small group of shifters surrounds us. There is about a dozen of them. We are only two. But we've been in worse trouble before.

"So, the girl's a dryad then?" Kano asks, as if it was to be expected all along.

"Yeah," I nod. "Can you imagine?"

"I could smell something different about her," Kano says.

"Yeah, me, too," I agree. "I just couldn't put my finger on it."

"Nice to have one of those on our side," he points out.

Before I can say anything to that, the shifters start their attack. A few of our vampires join in, and together we take them out easily. I don't even know what I am doing. It seems like my body has taken on a mind of its own, a new and improved mind of a warrior with a million years of expertise at his side, and he doesn't even need to think about his moves. They all come naturally. They all come like second nature. All I have to do is listen to that inner voice, and I can't make a mistake.

That is exactly what happens. I can't see someone attacking me from behind, but I feel their presence. I feel their fist in the air aiming straight for my head or my sides, and something urges me to bend or move, therefore avoiding being hit. It is like I am following the instructions of someone who sees everything and even knows what will happen before I know it.

I have never been in a fight like this one. I think all the other vampires feel this way. Almost as if me having consumed the ghost flower makes them stronger as well. We are a clan, after all. We are all somehow interconnected. My power is their power. My weakness is their weakness. We work together as a team, in both cases. That is how it functions now as well.

I don't know how long it all lasts, but what feels like a small eternity later, us vampires are all standing, breathing heavily, while the shifters are lying on the ground. Some are dead. Some were fortunate enough to be just rendered unconscious. Some managed to run away.

I turn to Kano. He's got a few bruises and scratches, but nothing major. I check for everyone else. Through some fluke of good luck, we're all here. All of us. Even the vampires I've seen lying down on the ground unconscious at some point. We are all here, all accounted for.

"Now what?" Kano wonders, looking into the distance, where the leftover shifters ran away.

"We go for the well," I tell him. "After all, that is what we came here for. Not to prolong this war, although the shifters sure seem to want it prolonged."

"The Elder didn't come," Kano points out.

"Yeah, the coward," I nod. "I should have expected that he would send others to do his dirty work."

"Should we attack the town?" Kano wonders.

"That is not our priority," I say, although something tells me if we were to do that, we would have all the luck on our side. Luck, and of course, Bianca. She is more than just good luck. "Our target is and remains the well and the benefit of our clan. As for the shifters… well, you know that war will never stop. Not until both sides make a change, and I doubt that will happen any time soon."

He nods, without saying anything. It is true. This war has been raging on for far too long, but no one has yet been willing to be the first one to make the effort at a treaty. I know that, as the wronged side, we won't make that first step. And knowing the shifters, neither will they.

"Edmund?" I hear Bianca from behind me.

I turn around and wrap my arms around her, burying my face in her neck. She smells like trees, like the woods, like a meadow blossoming in wildflowers.

She smells like love.