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Maddy screams, holding her hand out to Caleb. “No! Caleb! This isn’t you! Caleb!” She launches herself out of Cora’s hold and comes to a stop near him. “Come back to me!”
He halts as a soft sensation washes over him. It’s as though he can feel Maddy’s love filling his own heart. This brings him to a stop and the drumming in his brain ebbs. The surge fades.
He blinks.
He blinks again.
And then reality hits him.
Bodies surround him. A council of vampires are dead around his feet. And it’s his fault.
His eyes widen at the gruesome scene. How? How?
Caleb drops to his knees and wails, terrified of what he’s becoming.
What am I? What have I done?
Chapter17
Madeleine
It’s deathly quiet. Too quiet. Quiet as the grave. No sounds of the dying.
No injured calls for help. Nothing. So much destruction… Did Caleb kill them all?
Maddy drops to her knees as Caleb wails and drops to his own. The forlorn sound weakens her, and his sorrow reverberates deep within her. What had he done? She wants to yell at him, ask him over and over, but his face crumples as he realizes what’s happened, and she knows that it wasn’t him. The bodies all around, the devastation, none of this is Caleb.
He didn’t mean it, and it’s not who he is or who he wants to be.
The gravity of what he’s done sinks into Caleb’s consciousness, his heart’s breaking, and hers is, too. All around them, life happens, dragging them one way and then the other. Everyone wants their piece of them, treating them like pawns in a game where no one told them the rules.
And their lives, their wants have become the perpetual casualties, sacrificed over and over.
Cora hovers nearby with the bag still slung over her arm, and the clear rectangular outline confirms that she still has the book inside it. Such a mess for a few pages. She starts checking the bodies.
No.Maddy shakes her head. Not for a few pages…to save the whole world.
Caleb’s in the middle of the carnage, rocking back and forth with his face in his hands. Will his magic destroy him? Maybe it’ll destroy all of them…before it’s over. None of this makes any sense. Why would fate decide to grant him powers he cannot control? Their lives are such a twisted, entwined mess now.
Trembling, Maddy climbs to her feet and takes a step toward Caleb. “Caleb,” she calls softly, trying to avoid being destroyed by a surge of whatever his magic is. “Caleb.”
But he doesn’t react, doesn’t flinch, merely continues rocking back and forth. He’s weeping, gut-wrenching sobs. He’s no longer the self-assured, never second-guesses-himself Caleb. Instead, he feels the severity of what he’s done. These were his people.
Maddy knows it’s because his vampire arrogance has all but gone, and in its place, a broken human, filled with something he doesn’t understand. Hell, none of them do.
When she lays her hand on his shoulder, he flinches as though she’s struck him. “Get away from me,” he rasps. “I won’t accidentally kill you, too, Maddy. I can’t. It’d kill me.”
“Oh, Caleb,” she whispers, unable to believe her heart is breaking even more. She crouches down beside him and tucks her arm under his. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”
“I have no home.” He pulls his arm out of her grasp. “No home should have me.”
“That isn’t true.” She tucks her arm back under his and grasps his elbow. “I’m not letting you go, Caleb. Not now, not ever.” She tugs him to his feet as though he weighs nothing, and her vampire strength surprises her once again. “I am your home.”
Maybe it’s cliched, too much, over the top…Maddy doesn’t know. But it’s how she feels. Their home is wherever they are, together, and she doesn’t intend to let that go. She’s not driven mad by blood-hunger, so for now, she can be strong for him. She wants to be strong for him.
She pulls him into her arms and hugs him, willing everything in her heart to wash him clean of his own hurt. “Let’s get you back to Veritas.”
His shoulders droop, but he doesn’t argue. Instead, he takes a deep, shuddering breath.
