Destructive Embrace (21 page)

As hard as it was, I nodded and
stepped back, angling myself between Dmitri and Zeke so that I was
more protected than before.

“
Oh, boo-hoo!” Tywin
mocked. “You’ve figured out that I want you all to suffer. And here
I thought I hid my master plan well.” He snapped his fingers
sarcastically and rolled his eyes.

“
Who cares if you know what
I want. The question is, can you stop me from getting it? Somehow,
I think not!”

In the next moment, he darted forward,
shoving both Zeke and Dmitri aside in order to grab me harshly and
drag me back to the other side of the room. A dagger was pressed to
my throat, and I tried to move cooperatively so that I didn’t get
hurt.

Looking back at Dmitri and Zeke, the
panic in their eyes was easy to see, and I wondered if I should be
feeling the same way. Something inside me refused to feel it,
though, and I grew curious as to why I was so calm.

“
Elyssa…”

Zeke’s voice made me focus on him. He
was obviously terrified.

“
Let’s see how my eldest
son enjoys losing the woman he loves and the bastard child in her
womb,” Tywin said, laughing a broken laugh at both of his sons.
“Maybe seeing that agony on Zeke’s face will make Dmitri regret
killing me.”

“
I will never regret that,”
Dmitri snarled. “You murdered my mother in cold blood, in front of
me. You bet your ass I was about to kill you the same way you
killed her!”

Tywin’s grip on me tightened, and I
wondered if what Dmitri said was beginning to piss him
off.

“
Your mother was trying to
take you guys away from me,” Tywin sighed, frustrated. “Why am I
explaining this? You three already know all of it. This is old
news, so why are you making me say it over and over like some
broken fucking record?”

I halfway tuned out his complaining as
I focused on Zeke once more, hoping to communicate
again.

If I come at him, can you
get away fast enough? Or is it too risky?
Zeke was trying to figure out how to reclaim me in one
piece.

I considered the options. I’d only
been able to get through a few training sessions with Dmitri before
we found out I was pregnant, so my skills weren’t the greatest. On
the other hand, I was a better fighter than I was the last time
we’d gone against Tywin.

In addition, Annibel’s body was
nowhere near as strong as Reid’s, or as in shape.

Dmitri was still chattering on with
Tywin, but his gaze had curiously gone between Zeke and me, so I
could only hope that he understood. I stared at him hard, trying to
communicate with him as I could with Zeke. I just needed them to
trust me.

Something about my gaze must have gone
through to him, because he looked hopeful for just a beat before
giving the slightest nod.

“
So, what exactly are you
hoping to achieve with Annibel’s body?” I asked, interrupting
Dmitri mid-sentence.

Tywin stiffened, his hold on me
becoming tighter for an instant before it suddenly turned sloppy.
“She was supposed to be someone you would never suspect,” he
admitted.

I snorted. “You poor, misinformed
soul. Annibel told us the day you attacked me –” Zeke snarled
“—that she was leaving the castle for good. There was, of course,
no way for you to know that, but when we kept running into you, we
began to suspect.”

“
And who
exactly do you refer to when you say
we
? You and Dmitri? He can barely
stand to be around you since you decided to open your legs to Zeke
and get knocked up with his seed,” Tywin mocked in my
ear.

“
You can’t possibly have
meant you and Zeke, on the other hand, as you spent most of your
days avoiding my poor boy. You know he loves you, right? What a
dirty shame, moving in on his dead brother’s Mate mere days after
her Mate’s demise.”

Tywin chuckled. “That’s
it. You
had
to
have meant to name Reid as your partner!”

My blood boiled at his declaration,
and I took the chance of thrusting my elbow backward into Annibel’s
ribs. I felt the corner of my elbow catch the space in between two
ribs and the crack that came from applying a bit of extra pressure.
Tywin cussed loudly and I stamped my foot down on his; another
crunching sound met my ears and I was able to jump out of Annibel’s
reach just enough to where I was safe beside Zeke and
Dmitri.

“
And here I thought you
would need our help,” Dmitri complimented drily. Zeke nodded his
head in agreement, giving me a puzzled look.

“
He ticked me off,” I
murmured.

Zeke took that as his chance to catch
Tywin off guard, suddenly rushing forward and grabbing Annibel by
her slender throat.

“
Maybe I should have killed
you the first time we were down here together,” he growled, staring
deep into Annibel’s eyes. It was almost as though he was searching
for her presence; speaking directly to her.

Does that mean he’s let
more than me and Roxann live…?

Just as my hand encircled Annibel’s
throat, Wyatt burst into the room.

“Wait!” he pleaded, extending his hand
toward me. I snarled at him, not taking my eyes off of Annibel as I
held her above my head.

“What do you want?” I demanded, barely
sparing Wyatt the briefest of glances out of my peripherals. My
words were thick due to my fangs elongating to fill my mouth. “Why
should I wait?” I asked.

Wyatt’s eyes were desperate. “Because I
love her. I refuse to let her die here, like this,” he
said.

“My fiancée is dead, because Annibel
wasn’t strong enough to fight Tywin off,” I growled. “Why should I
care about the life of such a worm?”

Wyatt sighed. “As mad as you are about
this whole thing, would you really want another innocent life to be
claimed?” he asked.

I paused. I didn’t want to lose anyone
else, but Annibel was hardly on my list of people to keep alive.
But at the same time, the more lives that were taken, the more
Tywin won…

“What are you suggesting, then? We know
of no other way to get rid of the possession, aside from killing
the host,” I said quietly.

Wyatt’s silence filled me with dread,
but I had no choice but to wait for him to speak. I wondered what
he would say. Silence drowned us, and I fought the various urges to
glance back and make sure that Elyssa was alright.

“As much as you guys think I am not
around,” Wyatt began slowly, “I do pay attention. When I am in my
tower, I am always reading up on new things. And over the years, I
have gathered a lot of information.”

My body froze. He knew? He had known
what was going on, and he had done nothing to stop it? I suddenly
hated my brother, and nearly snapped Annibel’s neck right then. Not
that that would have killed her, of course.

But it would take her out long enough
for me to cut out her heart…

“If you knew,” I started,
fighting the trembling that was slowly taking over my whole body,
“then why the
hell
would you withhold such information?”

By this point I was glaring head-on at
Wyatt. I trusted that my two brothers and Elyssa would let me know
if it looked like Tywin-as-Annibel was planning to escape or injure
me.

“Brother, I have known for years. Reid
told me of his Blood Contract in passing one day. I knew it was
unlike him, and so I began to look for other signs that he wasn’t
himself,” Wyatt said quickly. I could see that he was trying to get
it all out before I could jump down his throat, but he didn’t quite
succeed.

“You
knew
?! You knew and you didn’t get
the help of one of us?
You didn’t do
anything to help us keep him alive!
”

“Zeke, stop,” Elyssa interjected. Her
voice shook, and I knew that she was just as torn up as I was over
Wyatt withholding information. “He obviously has more, or he would
have just let you kill Tywin.”

She made a valid point, but it was
difficult to remain calm after such a confession. “Go on,” I
seethed.

Wyatt nodded gratefully at Elyssa, and
spoke once more. “I know how to save Annibel…”

I chuckled darkly. “If you think your
pleas will save her life, you are sorely mistaken,” I
hissed.

“And Reid’s life.”

The sharp gasp that came from Elyssa’s
mouth was all I could hear. It played over and over in my head. I
was grateful, as it prevented me from having any thoughts of my
own.

“How is that even possible?” Elyssa
asked.

“I don’t know for certain,” Wyatt said,
eyes still trained on mine. “But if my theories are correct, then
Reid is not dead, and we can avoid killing Annibel.” I was still
torn up about the idea of letting Annibel live, but I knew Wyatt
was right: it wasn’t Annibel’s fault. Tywin killed Roxann, using
her body.

“How would we go about testing your
theories?” I dared to ask. It was then that my brother looked away
from me.

“I will take Tywin.”

“What, no!” Dmitri argued, rushing to
Wyatt’s side. “What makes you think we would allow
this?”

“You do not have a choice!” Wyatt
barked, staring down his nose at Dmitri, who shrank down under the
glare. “It is my life to do with it as I please, and for Annibel I
will give up my life.”

It was then that I knew I couldn’t
possibly have loved Roxann. Not truly. For, if it were to come down
to it, I would try to save her, but I would never give up my own
life for hers.

For a mere human.

Whereas Wyatt was giving up his
immortal life for a woman who had just been trying to leave
him…

“If you loved her, why did you not show
her?” I asked quietly. Wyatt glanced up to meet my eyes
sadly.

“I chose Reid over her. I chose to
devote my time to researching everything I could, until I came up
with a solution to the problem.

“Having chosen that path before, I will
not do so again when her life is on the line. I will not help you
until I take Tywin from her and you run her off to safety,” he
finished.

Now that I knew his demands, I had no
choice but to consider them.

He was a fully-grown man and vampire.
He had lived his life to the extent that he wanted to. If he wanted
to give it all up to give the woman he loved a chance at life, then
who were we to stand in his way?

“Annibel wouldn’t want that,” Elyssa
said before I could speak. “She loved you, too. She was just hurt
because you never spent any time together.” Her tender words seemed
to strike at a soft spot within Wyatt, and he sighed.

“I must give her a second chance in
order to make up for ignoring her before,” he said softly to
Elyssa. “I know what I am doing,” he assured us all. “So please.
Let me take the parasite from her so that I may help you get Reid
back and rid the world of Tywin for good.”

“What do you need to do?” I
asked.

“With my telepathy, I can force him
from her mind and into my own. It will leave her unconscious, but
she will remember the horrible things she was forced to do when she
awakes. As my mind is stronger than Tywin’s, I will have no trouble
at all with maintaining control over my body. I will be able to
tell you if my theories are correct, as well as how we might be
able to reverse the damage that Tywin has done.”

He paused. “I trust that you have kept
his body? Since there has yet to be a funeral for our baby brother,
I am going to assume that he still lies somewhere in a puddle of
his own blood.”

I placed my free hand against my face
and sighed. “You didn’t move his body?” I asked Elyssa, turning
around with Annibel in my hand to glare at her.

“What! I didn’t know where to put him,”
she said nervously.

Dmitri didn’t look surprised at the
news, and I scowled. “Did you know?” He nodded with a shrug. “Why
didn’t you tell her where to put his body?” I demanded.

“It wasn’t like he was going to decay
at a fast rate or anything. This castle is cold enough to keep a
vampire body for a month or two,” Dmitri replied sheepishly. “And I
was too distraught over hearing the news to do anything about it. I
thought you would come around and move him. Since, you know, you
helped to kill him.”

I flinched and sighed again. “It would
appear that the body is still in Reid’s room,” I told Wyatt,
pinching the bridge of my nose.

What a bunch of barbarians I was
related to.

“That happens to serve our purpose here
today rather well, actually,” Wyatt said.

He went quiet suddenly and moved toward
me, his hands outstretched toward Annibel. I tentatively allowed
him to come within arm’s reach of her, until he had his hands
placed on her temples, pressing carefully with his fingertips. He
then closed his eyes.

After a few moments of silence, as well
as a lot of eyelid fluttering and a few jerks of Annibel’s head,
Wyatt opened his eyes.