“Please, I will do anything you ask, just don’t kill our baby,” I beg him.
He sighs, pressing his head against mine. “Fine, we can keep it,” he whispers, and my heart skips a beat; they are going to let me keep the baby, our baby.
We stand there for a few seconds until I lose feeling in my arms from his grip. I wrap my legs around his waist, trying to pull myself up from the position and relieve the pressure on my arms. Thaddeus’ eyes snap to mine. “I can’t feel my arms,” I tell him. He chuckles.
“Sorry,” he says, letting go, and I feel the blood flow back to my throbbing limbs. He places my feet on the ground and steps back. His hand cups my cheek. “No more fighting us,” he states.
“I won’t fight you.” He nods, opens the car door, and I climb in. Orion walks over to the driver’s door and hops in while Thaddeus climbs in the back with me, pulling me against him.
“We need to get hold of Amara,” he tells Orion, and I see him nod as he starts the car, turning it around, and heading back the way I came.
When we pull up at the hotel, Ryland is out the front waiting with our suitcases. Thaddeus looks at me as he opens the door. “Stay in the car.” I nod, and he hops out, talking to Ryland.
My eyes follow them as Thaddeus opens the trunk. Ryland climbs in the back with me, and Thaddeus gets in the front. Orion pulls out of the parking space. “We are leaving already?” I ask.
“Yes, hunters are close; remember, no fighting us,” Thaddeus answers, and I shut my mouth.
Ryland looks at me, confused. Then, he leans between the seats. “Did I miss something anyone wants to explain?”
Orion’s eyes flick to me in the rear-view mirror, and I can tell he is smiling with the way his eyes crinkle, flickering red for a second. “We are having a baby,” Orion states.
“We are?”
Orion nods, but Ryland looks to Thaddeus, who looks over his shoulder at him.
“Yes, Ryland. We are letting her have the baby,” he says slowly, making sure he understands.
“Yes, yes, yes!” Ryland shouts, grabs his face, and smashes his lips into Thaddeus. “Aw, I hope it’s a girl; we could dress her in cute little dresses,” he says, letting go of Thaddeus and turning to me. I raise an eyebrow at his enthusiasm. He reaches for me, pulling me onto his lap.
“Seatbelt, Ryland,” Orion says to him.
Ryland clips the middle seat belt around me, pulling me against him awkwardly. “We are having a baby,” he whispers in a sing-song voice below my ear. I look up at him, his eyes sparkle. He is so happy. He kisses my nose, crushing me in his huge arms against him; I twist, putting my feet on the seat beside me, trying to get comfortable with the seatbelt latch digging into my backside and my hip.
We drive for what feels like hours, and it is becoming impossible to remain comfortable; I can barely keep my eyes open when I hear Thaddeus whisper to Orion. “We will do a loop around the state and cut back across. I can’t get hold of Amara; I assume they went underground,” Thaddeus tells Orion.
“What are we going to do now? She won’t be able to run for long, Thaddeus.”
“She won’t have a choice,” he says, moving, and I squeeze my eyes shut, pretending to be still asleep. I feel his gaze on me for a moment until I hear him turn back around. “I should never have killed all of those hunters back at Leven,” Thaddeus says, making me confused.
“You led them straight to us, Thaddeus, and nearly died in the process.”
“I was angry; I lost control. I didn’t realize this would happen,” Thaddeus admits, and I feel my heart skip a beat.
He said he stumbled across their base, but he went looking for them by the sound of it. Is he really that much of a monster that he would go looking to kill people? He said that sometimes people die, but he didn’t mean it, that it isn’t his intention to hurt them.
“This is why you need to give it up, Thaddeus; we can’t keep doing this. Evelyn will get sick of running, and what will happen one day when she finds out you kill people because you like it? You think I don’t know when the darkness takes you over that you want to hurt her? That you like it when you do. Even if you don’t mean to, you still enjoy her fear?” Orion tells him. There is silence until Orion speaks again. “How many this time?” he asks.
“How many I killed or are still alive?”
“Both,” Orion says.
“I think I killed around a hundred of them, but there are many more. I didn’t realize it was a family base,” he says and my stomach drops. A family base, does that mean there are children there? “It doesn’t matter anyway; they would have turned out like their parents,” Thaddeus answers with a total disregard for human life.
“You don’t know that, Thaddeus; I am sick and tired of the blood on our hands for loving you,” Orion snaps, his voice rising above a whisper.
“Then fucking leave! You don’t like it? Leave, Orion. You knew who I was when you met me, and I am not changing.”
“Not even for her? Or our child when it’s born?” Thaddeus growls, but adds nothing. “Answer me, Thaddeus; I feel it. Feel it getting worse within you. I know you like the power, Thaddeus. I know you are addicted to it. Do you want to lose her?”
“You know I don’t, so why ask? I fucking love her!”
“Then give it up for her; if you can’t do it for yourself, do it for her.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“What do you mean? Just get your mother and Amara to help you.”
“It has attached itself to me, Orion, okay? It’s a part of me now. I don’t think it is possible any more. Why do you think I left? Do you think I want this for any of you? For myself?”
“We can find a way; there is always a way. But you have to want to give it up, Thaddeus. It attached itself to you because you let it. After all, you wanted it, too,” Orion yells.
“Shh, you will wake her,” Thaddeus whispers.
The car goes silent until I hear someone turn the radio up slightly.
Does Thaddeus really kill innocent people? Like he goes looking for them just to kill them? The thought sickens me; I know he is a monster but hearing this makes my stomach churn. Does he really want to hurt me and inflict pain on me?
I never realized how much of a struggle it is for him; sure, I feel him struggle against himself through the bond, feel his guilt after he does something that hurts me, but is he really enjoying it when he does it? Nothing Orion says makes sense to me; for the most part, Thaddeus is good to me or tries to be anyway, so why would Orion say that he enjoys it?