Chapter 5

Thaddeus Pov

How fucking dare he threaten to take our daughter. I was fucking over him and the dramatics, he needed to man up.

“Just go calm down” Ryland tells me when I wanted nothing more then to go in there and rip him to fucking pieces.

“Go Thaddeus, go blow off some steam” Ryland says. I look over my shoulder and can see my father and mother watching worriedly.

“Nothing to see mum go inside” I yell to her.

“Stop Thaddeus just go now you're just trying to pick a fight, your mother is only worried about you, we all are, now just go” Ryland says, giving me a push. I look to the shed where my mates and daughter are.

“Come with me” I tell him and he looks behind him. “Be like old times just the two of us” I tell him and I could feel the longing within him, he missed being in control, he missed the fear people had of us.

“I can’t, we have a child now, we can’t do those things anymore” He says.

“Fine, don't worry about it” I tell him, turning around and unlocking my car.

“Thaddeus….. Fine just give me a second, I will come but no killing anyone” He says rushing back inside. I hop in the car and he takes a few minutes before coming out fully dressed hopping in the passenger seat.

“So where are we going?” He asks.

“Home”

“Why?” he asked and I could feel he didn’t want to go back there. When I first did I felt sick to my stomach, but Ryland I built that place together, I couldn’t just throw it away like it meant nothing. It was home.

“You’re fixing it aren't you?” I say nothing, I wasn’t sure what I was doing, I had been cleaning up what's left and salvaging what I could.

“She won’t want to go back there Thaddeus, it won’t bring him back”

“I know that, I just”- I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I didn’t have the answer for this. I just wanted things back to the way they were, yet I knew they never truly would be.

“You just what Thaddeus, Orion thinks you have been off on killing sprees, when really you have been at home?”

“I was on a killing spree. I have only been back here twice” I tell him. I didn’t need to hide from Ryland, he knew me and didn’t really judge because deep down he is the same, he used to live for the hunt, the chase, the screams.

“Then Why? Why are we heading home?”

“I don’t know, Ryland I just can’t be here anymore. I can’t handle the pity in my parents eyes, you think I don't know they blame me for another thing I failed at, I couldn't even protect them” I tell him.

“No one thinks you failed, you can’t predict a gas explosion”

“What if Evie is right, what if it has something to do with our past?”

“Then we deal with it, but this isn't going to work. She won’t go back there. I don’t even want to go back there”

“Then what do you suggest, I am too old to be living at home with mummy?” I tell him with a growl.

“Come house hunting with me tomorrow, it will calm Orion down. But you need to do something about Evelyn, Amara needs her mother Thaddeus” They always choose her, choose her over me now that she is here. I knew it was ridiculous to be jealous but I missed when it was just the three of us. Everything was simple then, now it’s just one big clusterfuck.

“I know she hurt you but please even if you don’t do it for her do it for me and Mara, Please Thaddeus” Ryland says gripping my knee.

“She hates me” I tell him and he shakes his head as I pull the car over.

“She doesn’t hate you, she is just grieving and taking it out on you, she is angry. Both of you are to stubborn, for once be the bigger person and just do this and you can go back to ignoring her till things settle down”

“If she doesn’t come around then what, you all leave me?” I ask.

“No one is leaving anyone, we are all mates” He says.

“Yeah well everytime something goes wrong, you all pick sides and it is never mine” I tell him before turning the car around.

“What about the house though we can’t leave it like that?”

“I will send some people to clean it up” Ryland answers and I nod before turning the car around and heading back home. I hated being stuck there with everyone's gloomy faces, pulling up out the front I could hear Mara screaming uncontrollably, hear Orion frantically trying to calm her. His emotions all over the place smashed into me. I usually tune them out, not able to deal with their heartache. Orion was always so well together but feeling his raw emotions now I could feel he was breaking. Guilt flooding me over earlier and I hop out of the car.

Hurriedly rushing toward the house, Evelyn still sitting staring off vacantly while Orion tries to calm Mara. It annoyed me how she can sit through that and not want to soothe her own daughter. “Please just stop crying” I hear Orion tell her as he tries to rock her, while sitting on the end of the bed. I walk over to him placing my hand on his shoulder. He looked up at me and I could see tears of frustration in his eyes.

“Let me try” I tell him and he passes her to me. I cradle her in my arms rocking her. She slowly calms down and I see Orion go out for a smoke, Ryland following after him leaving me with Mara and Evelyn. I glare at her pissed off she was right here yet so far out of reach. Once Mara was calmed down I walked outside with her asleep.

“Where are you going?” Orion asks, jumping to his feet alarmed.

“Letting mum take her for the night, she keeps offering” I tell him.

“No I am fine, just go lay her down I will be back in, in a sec” He says but I keep walking toward the house.

“Thaddeus I can handle her,” I stop looking back at him and his frazzled state, he was tired,and mentally and physically exhausted.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t but we need a break, let mum take her” I tell him, Ryland squeezed his shoulder and he finally relaxed before nodding. I take her to the main house and walk in to find my father sitting on the lounge.

“Where’s mum?” I ask him as he hops off the lounge walking toward me. He smiles down at Mara asleep in my arms. He holds his arms out for her and I place her in them. Ryland walked in looking around.

“Where’s mum?” he asks.

“Upstairs showering, she is fine I can take her. Orion doesn’t like handing her over I am surprised you managed to convince him”

“He is just scared for her” I tell my father just as my mother walks down the steps.

“Finally he is letting us take her for a night” She says walking over. I watch as she runs her fingers through my father’s hair. His green eyes sparkling back at her.

“So you good to take her for the night?”

“Of course” My father says walking back to the lounge with her, I wouldn't be surprised if he held her all night, he didn’t need sleep, not like my other father or my mother and for a so-called big scary vampire Mara had him wrapped around her finger.

Ryland hands the baby bag over that Orion must have rushed in to make.

“Go be with your mates she is fine, we know what we are doing besides you will hear her anyway” My mother says rubbing my back, I nod walking out. When we got back inside Orion was laying on the bed staring at the ceiling.

“Don’t you zone out too” I tell him climbing on the bed beside him.

“I won’t” He whispers and I pull him closer so he rests his head on my chest. “You came back” He states.

“I’m sorry” I tell him, the words stinging as they slide off my tongue, I hate apologising no matter how much I have had to, it still feels unnatural.

Orion props his chin on my chest looking at me. His hair falling in his eyes as he had let it grow out over the last couple of months. I brush it back before cupping his cheek, his stubble rough against my palm.

The darkness makes it hard for me to see past my anger. I knew they wanted me to give it up and I know it was selfish keeping it. But having it back I felt more alive than ever, it numbed the pain my anger overshadowing the loss.

"Can you wake her please, I know you can," he says and I look over at her. My anger is dissipating. By letting her remain like that I was hurting them not punishing her. Although I knew she didn't deserve to be punished she was hurting more than any of us. She had him grow inside her, felt his kicks. Her womb full with her heart and now it's gone, she awoke empty with nothing to show for it, no baby in her arms crying for its mother. Just empty arms and empty inside.

"Yes, I will bring her back" I tell him when he suddenly sits up leaning over me. His lips pressing down on mine and I could feel his desperation, as his tongue plunged into my mouth. It matched mine, wanting to feel anything other than sadness.

I kiss him back, needing him as much as he needs me. Longing fills me when I feel the bed dip Ryland climbing on the bed next to me. I pull on Orion's pants before reaching my hand in and grabbing his hardening length. He groans into my mouth, his cock twitching in my hand as I run my hand up his shaft.

Pushing on his shoulder he lays back and I climb on top of him kissing him as he removes his pants underneath me. I nip at his mark and he shivers as my teeth graze his skin. I sink my teeth into him, drinking from him, before running my tongue over his neck sealing my bite before moving lower nipping and kissing his skin and the hard muscles underneath it.

Moving between his legs I grab his cock, he thrusts into my hand and I watch my own dick twitching painfully in my pants as I watch Ryland lean over him and kiss him as I take his length in my mouth.

**

Evelyn POV**

Time slips by when stuck in your own head. Time is measured differently here. An hour feels like mere seconds, I wasn't sure how long I was stuck nor did I try to leave time escaping me. I was left to my own thoughts and feelings no longer consumed with theirs.

The mind is the most torturous place as it makes you go over every little detail, everything and leaving nothing out. My thoughts haunting me in repeat as I relived that day over and over looking for what I missed. Did I leave a burner on, on the stove, did I bump it when I tried to walk past. Was it something, did I miss something? My mind is plagued with questions and consumed with doubt.

Pulling every thought and memory apart piece by piece trying to repuzzle it together to figure out where I went wrong, what I missed. When suddenly I gave up, forcing myself back which is hard. Orion has told me different ways to come back but doing them was something else. Trying to pick up on emotions from them when you have shut them out for so long was like trying to find a needle in a haystack as I sifted through my own feelings trying to find theirs to pull on.

Finding a flicker of emotion from Ryland I try to reach it, let it consume me and force me out of myself, astonished when it works before anger floods me when I wake. The room materialising around me instead of the darkness of my own head. Amara's room comes into view and I look to the bed.

I put my walls up blocking them out when I found them together, that didn't bother me. We are all mates after all. What bothered me was that we just lost our child and they were going around like we lost nothing.

Getting up I walk over to my daughter's cot only she isn't in it. What? They got rid of her so easily too? I think to myself before quietly walking out and toward the main house, it was dark. The sky is filled with stars, the night sky is clear out here. I open the door walking in and find Theo on the lounge my daughter tucked in his arms.

He looks startled to see me as I walk over and I lean over the lounge kissing her sleeping little head. Straightening up I peck Theo's forehead.

"Where's ma?" I ask him and he points to the roof, telling me she is in bed.

"Amara?"

"Went to Bianca’s" he says and I go to walk off when his hand grabs mine that was placed next to his shoulder.

"You okay?" He asks and I nod, how do you answer that? I don't think I will ever be okay, I'll just learn to live with it.

"Did you see them?" He asks.

"I saw them, they didn't see me. They were preoccupied" I tell him walking into the kitchen. Theo walks in a few seconds after me and I look at his empty arms.

"On the lounge safely tucked away, come here" he says. I hesitate before walking over, he wraps his arms around me hugging me. I hugged him back, I had the best in-laws who always treated me like their own. I suddenly feel another set of arms wrap around me. Imogen's scent hits my nose as she hugs me from behind.

I let out a shaky breath suddenly flooded with all the emotions I have been ignoring. I step back and they both let go. Imogen cupping my cheek with her hands softly before walking toward the kettle and flicking it on.