**Ch 327: Kai's Reflection

The second Victoria ran out of the room in hysterics, Kai gave a long sigh from his seethed sorrow. He didn't want to be that harsh on her, but he believed she needed to hear it. Deep inside his heart, he figured she still loved Orlando and her friends though he also understood the healing process of a broken heart would take time for her to get over them.

"That wasn't right of you to be so hard on her!" Veronica snapped. "She's a human girl. She's only recently discovered our hidden world. Everyone told you to tell her the truth about those Mills. If you would've just raised her–"

"Just shut up, Veronica!" Kai meanly growled at his older sister.

For a second, she was taken aback by his horrid temperament until she viciously narrowed her eyes. "Once your mind is tranquil, you best go in there and comfort her!" she hissed, and then left the room.

Kai took another resounding inhale as he stared at Ivan, who was still weeping into Mia's chest. His maddening expression rotated to be sincere as he went to him.

In a softer tone, Kai advised as he touched his shoulder blade. "You need to wake her, so she can fall into a detain sleep to heal."

Ivan lifted his head as droplets of thick blood bled from his eyelids, and he replied in tremendous heartache. "In all these years, she's never been detained! I feel like I failed her! I didn't reach her call in time to save her from such torture."

Kai bit the inside of his cheek as he replayed how this happened in his head. Back at the gender reveal party, Kai, his friends, and some of their family members went off to hunt. He wasn't sure how Orlando got ahold of Victoria because the last time he checked on her, she was safely indoors before he left, without telling her he was leaving like he usually does. None of his family members at the party could recall when she stepped outside, which frustrated him to recently learn that information.

By the time Mia called a distress signal to Ivan, they were already miles away. Minutes later, after Mia's call, Evan summoned Kai, and he briefly told him Victoria and Mia were in dire danger with Orlando. He imagined then what might have been transpiring, though he was surprised Victoria didn't call for him, but then he acknowledged Orlando must've bombed her with the truth, which likely put her in a state of shock for her to see his true colors, which prevented her from calling him, Kai concluded to himself.

There was no time to waste, so Kai gathered that Evan got there right away after smelling Orlando's scent. Unfortunately, by the time he and everyone else arrived, Mia, Evan, and half of his cousin's clan had already been detained. Once he got Victoria safe, he battled Orlando until the fight ended because he detained Alejandro's wife, Olivia. With a forfeit, the fight ended with them each collecting their detained Coven as agreed by their Vampire Oath.

In this case, their agreed forfeit meant, "Until we meet again to end this once and for all." Kai reflected before he came out of his mind to see Ivan was still hesitant to wake his mate, which he understood because Mia's pain was his pain too.

"You didn't fail her because she's here with you, and as she heals, you'll be with her." Kai merely whispered these encouraging words to his friend.

Whatever strength Ivan had left, he mustered it all in his heart as he leaned upright and wiped his bloody tears away. With an icy crack, his fangs pierced into the skin on his wrist after he pulled his sleeve back. Trickles of his blood poured into Mia's parted mouth as her internal organs absorbed it from the inside of her body. Brown discolored tissues and muscles regrew before reattaching her head back on her neck. Though her body still looked like a mummified corpse, Mia's eyes cracked apart with a bone-chilling screech.

"It's ok, baby. I'm here." Ivan was quick to react, and he carried her forehead up to his chest, and he held the back of her skull in his hands. In sheer pain, Mia shrieked from feeling Crystal's and Olivia's toxic venom eating away at whatever thin flesh she had left, which hardly covered her bones. From a human's point of view, Ivan would only look as if he was intimately holding a carcass.

"Fall asleep, baby, I'll wake you after you heal," Ivan whispered as he laid her skull on the pillow, and then he kissed her dried-out corse lips.

Mia whimpered, staring at him helplessly while Ivan tried not to cry with her. Instead, he showed her a small smile that was compassionate. In a slow flutter, Mia's flaky eyelids finally shut after she briefly resisted, and then her breath stilled as if she was indeed dead.

"She'll be ok." Kai squeezed his shoulder as Ivan didn't take his eyes off his mate. On those last words, he left, and went to the door of his bedroom. But he halted his hand from twisting the knob when he heard how hard Victoria was bawling from behind the closed door. Sure, he wanted to love her, hold her, and kiss all the painful tears away, but a part of him couldn't do it because he knew he was the one to blame for her misery. She cried because of the selfish decision he made in his past.

"If I could go back in the past and change history to ensure I'd raise you myself, then I would," he whispered, pressing his forehead against the door. One red painful teardrop rolled from his right eye, but he was quick to wipe it away as if it never existed.

Afterward, he stepped back, and shifted his heel only to find his mother not too far behind him. He was so caught up in his grief that he didn't even smell her scent. The look on her gentle face hinted that she had heard what he had whispered. Not even the teardrop he brushed away as if it never occurred got past her.

With a delicate smile, Mrs. Collin told him, "The past remains in the past, my son. It's time to move forward. The love she has for Orlando will finally die, and you can regrow her heart with yours."

"I know," he whispered with a frown. "I need to check on everyone else."

His mother solely smiled in her gentleness, which was rather bleak as Kai disappeared from her sight.