Sheila swerved swiftly when she heard her Lucille laughing like a psycho would. She was instantly at loss when she saw the latter with Derek, laughing. Derek wasn’t laughing really. But there were tugs on his lips. What was going between the two? Did they know something that she didn’t? Did they know something that the ancients didn’t?
Her eyes widened a fraction when her daughter zapped around them, zapped around her, with such a speed that dazed her, and stood at the edge of the cage as if she could see the beginning of the cage, as if she knew the end of it.
Sheila saw that this singular action of Lucille fazed Legardo, but she wasn’t about to lose a daughter she had just found. “Lucille! What are you doing?”
Lucille turned her head and looked at her mother, the smile not wavering on her lips. And with a voice, loud enough to be heard by a confused Legardo, she spoke: “He said there was no medium of communication in the cage but I was in Freya’s mind some minutes ago.”
Legardo shifted on his feet, not believing what he was hearing. Had he cast the spell wrong? He wondered, perusing the cage again, which should be invisible, except to the one who had cast the spell. How had she seen the door? Could she be bluffing when she had spoken of communicating with the other? That must be it. He thought, amused at the girl’s audacity. He was about to echo his thoughts when Lucille continued her speech.
She was still looking at her mother.
“I’m sure he didn’t bargain for that, the connection I mean. I’m sure he didn’t bargain for the possible reason why the gods had made us triplets. I’m sure he didn’t consider that there might be private pathway for the three of us to stay connected. It was how Emma had sensed Freya, when Kane had cautioned her. Well, I wouldn’t have known either if Derek hadn’t pointed that oblivious fact to me…”
Legardo stepped away from the cage then, and even though he was wearing a mask and the others couldn’t see the expression on his face, they knew that he had lost his earlier confidence by a measure. Alpha Lorenzo however watched still, enamored by what Lucille was saying.
“So, I had been in her mind, and you wouldn’t believe what I saw, mom…”
Lucille turned away from her companions, from her mother, and stared at Legardo, who although refused to squirm under that psychotic gaze, couldn’t help the tendril of fear that started around his spine.
He shook it off, but it stuck stubbornly, especially when he saw her step closer to the cage’s thin line, the door. Would she break it down, and pass through it? But that was impossible!
“I watched her move into the chambers within her-turns out there are actually chambers within us, levels to our powers. I watched her break through six levels….”
As Lucille spoke, she was calmly honing herself, she was using her story to buy time to pipe into that which was her power. She was already past the first chamber.
“I watched her become fire,” The second chamber was scaled.
” I watched her become a god,” The third and fourth chamber were scaled.
“I watched her put your shadow warriors into submission, after killing a quarter of them. And because I watched her do it, I am sure I can do the same.” She said, stepping into the fifth chamber of her magic.
Lucille was burning as Freya had burned. Her eyes were twin orbs of fire. Fire which replicated itself in her hands, fire that didn’t burn her flesh, or hurt her. Fire that was blue and red hues. Smoke emitted from her ears and nostrils, and her tattoo glowed deep purple, so bright that her companions behind her gasped, and stepped away. Her red hair blazed upward, intertwined with fire as she stepped out of the confines of the cage, and stood on ground free from energy.
She chuckled and bouts of thunder roared in the skies. The earth beneath her feet, quaked and shook in their roots. Alpha Lorenzo didn’t need to be told- he ran away from the spectacle to where his family had been confined.
Legardo, however, just watched from a distance, his mouth agape. But when Lucille’s fiery gaze met his, he got himself back, and commanded the shadow warriors to attack her, to attack her companions, as he lifted the invisible cage off the occupants with just a word.
Immediately, Lucille, with just a flick of her hand, created a visible black cage that cocooned her people, keeping them safe from the shadow warriors that now surrounded her, since they couldn’t get past the cage.
Sheila kept shouting, trying to get out of the cage to help her daughter fight, but Derek touched her by the shoulders, and reassured her that Lucille will be fine. Aiden and Dobah already knew that.
They all watched as Lucille rose up, with the multicolored flames propelling her to the air, above the shadow warriors, and wondered what she would do. But unlike Freya who wanted to put the shadow warriors into submission, Lucille wanted them dead.
But first, she needed to get their master. With that decided, she turned to look at Legardo who had gone unsteady on his feeet at what he was seeing. When he saw that Lucille was looking at him, he turned to run away, but Lucille had no plans of letting him go. With just a finger pointed at him, he was stuck to one place.
He will remain stuck till she was done with these evil beings. She thought, taking her eyes off him to the shadow warriors.
After a deep inhalation, she shouted at the creatures, watching with satisfaction as the beings turned ti ash. Echo mechanism. She liked it.
Lucille turned to the next batch, who attacked her all at once. Without much ado, she opened her mouth wide and breathed fire on them all as a dragon would, causing Sheila to shake her head in disbelief.
For the remaining batch, she raised her hand to the sky, and commanded the thunder to strike at them. As the phenomenon obeyed her, she pointed to the earth, and the force of nature opened up and swallowed the warriors, both dead and alive.
However, when she turned toward Legardo, to collect the trophy for her father, the male was gone. Lucille bared her elongated twin teeth in anger, the flames in her eyes and on her head burning brighter with every moment.
Where did he go? She wondered, descending as light to the ground. She walked to the point where she had kept him stuck. There was no trace of him. It was like he had disappeared. How did that happen? How had he broken past her magic? She had weighed him first in her scale, and had held him with a magic higher than his calling, so how had he escaped?
She looked around the vicinity, searching with her bird vision. There was nothing, even in far distances. It was like he had vanished. Like he was teleported.
But he has no teleporting power like Prescott. She thought, looking around again. If he had, he shouldn’t have teleported still. Had someone taken him, when she had been distracted with the shadow warriors? But who was that? Who could contest against her powers? Who had that much, like her siblings?
Lucille heard her mother shout her name, but she refused to answer. She had to present Legardo to her father as a spoil. She had to find him. She felt Freya in her mind path, trying to reach her, but she shut it down. She needed to trace Legardo like Emma had traced the mage who was Amelia’s master. If her sister could do it, then she could do to. She had to try. She wouldn’t let Legardo escape to concoct another plan.
Ignoring her mother’s call, she took a deep breath, centering herself. And then she tried to reach, but anger was competing with her focus, so much so that she lost control of the magic which she hadn’t honed before. Suddenly, she was sinking into her power, falling helplessly, becoming as a spectacular to her own self.
She struggled to come back to herself, but she kept on sinking, she kept on watching herself torching houses, she kept on hearing the screams of people, she kept on seeing people running out of their houses.
She opened her mind path, and sent a plea of help to Freya. ‘Sister, come help me.’
However, just as fast as her loss of control had started, it stopped. She get herself floating back to the surface and she thought her sister was behind it, until she saw Derek hugging her to himself, not minding the fire licking him up.
What was he doing?! She shouted mentally, noticing that he was burning, that his flesh was shrinking. How had he broken out of the cage?! His state brought her back to her senses.
She shouldn’t have been over ambitious! Now look at his sister’s mate!
“I’m sorry, Derek.” She muttered, when she burned out, when she watched him slump to the floor, breathless. “I’m sorry.”