chapter 167

Ryland’s POV

One minute everything was fine, everyone enjoying themselves. Flipping the steaks on the

barbeque I was waiting for Evelyn to bring out the tea towel I asked her for. I was about to walk

back into the house to check on her, when a shockwave blasted everyone away from the house.

None of us saw it coming, none of us expected this to happen. The windows on the house exploded

sending shards of glass everywhere.

I could hear everyone screaming, smoke and flames everywhere. Sitting up from where I landed

next to the shed. I see smoke billowing out of the house. Hear my daughter screaming her lungs out

and I look to Orion who had her last time I checked. I spot them near the car. Orion tried to calm

her but they seemed okay and intact. Everyone picks themselves up off the ground when I feel

Evelyn's pain smash into me. Orion screams at the same time I jumped to my feet remembering she

was still in the house. Thaddeus screams her name as everyone runs toward the house. Thaddeus

and I try to get in through the back door. The roof crushed inwards as we tried to push our way in.

Her pain gets stronger before she suddenly goes numb and I feel shock wash over her.

Thaddeus walks back a few steps and I manage to jump out of the way just as he uses his body

to crash straight through the side of the house. Smoke and dust billowing out of the hole he just

made. We both force our way through the rubble trying to make our way through to what's left of

the kitchen. The fridge blocks the doorway to the laundry and Thaddeus kicks it with so much force

the roof caves in on top of us as it hits the laundry wall.

“Evelyn?” I sing out into the smoke filled room barely able to see through the wreckage of our

home. I hear her make a strangled noise like she is choking when I see her leaning against the

bench. Relief hitting me as she stares back before she coughs, blood spewing from her mouth and

running down her chin. Only then do I notice what is clutched in her hands. At first I didn't

understand until she screamed. The sound so horridly agonised my stomach drops and Thaddeus

growls ripping through the debri trying to get to her as she suddenly slumps forward, her body

going limp around the splintered wood that went pierced through her.

Thaddues hands frantically tried to do something to help but I could feel even he was unsure

on what to do, the splintered wood going straight through her pelvis. I grab her shoulders, holding

her upright, realising we have no choice but to pull the wooden table leg from her to release her

from where she was pinned. Thaddeus wraps his hands around the wood and rips the splintered

wood from her before grabbing her. She slumps forward over his shoulder, blood trailing down his

body as I try to clear a big enough path for him to squeeze through and having to hold up a part of

the roof for him to squeeze through to the laundry and out the hole in the wall he caused.

Thaddeus places her on the ground, both of us completely covered in dust and smoke.My heart

skipping a beat as I see Orion pass our daughter off to Imogen who was watching horrified as we

try to save our mate and son.

Orion moves quickly as he plunges his hand into her stomach. I could hear her skin tearing,

blood gushing out of her turning the ground red and staining the earth. Thaddeus pacing clutching

his hair while I stood shocked watching on helplessly. Her skin turned paler as the seconds ticked by

when suddenly Orion pulled the umbilical cord out, the placenta coming out. The wood had gone

straight through the placenta. I watch his hand moving in her stomach when he pulls our son out,

his tiny body clutched in his hands.

That memory forever burned into my soul, he was perfect, perfectly unharmed by looking at

him, but the silence that follows was deafening. We waited to hear the cry, the cry of life. Everyone

holds their breath as Orion tries and fails to make him breathe. He was gone, everything we had

worked hard for, for the past year turning to dust before our eyes. Building a future that was now

shattered to oblivion.

Orion looks up, his face haunted as he shakes his head. My legs buckling under me and 1 hit the

ground hard. Orion is the only one able to keep his composure along with Theo but I could feel

Orion's devastation hitting me, hitting Thaddeus breaking all of us. Theo grabs our son shielding

him away from our daughter's eyes. Evelyn splayed out on the ground unmoving when Orion stood

up, ripping me toward her. I stare at her body, looking at the destruction it caused her.

Orion bites into my wrist holding it over her mouth and we all wait. She wasn't dead, her

injuries were bad but not enough to kill but her waking with the realisation of what we all just lost,

what she lost just may be enough for her to wish for death. I stared in shock looking at everyone

watching Orion working on our mate.

Amara was muttering and banging on her head with her fists as she paced, Tobias trying to

calm her. Nothing felt real. I looked around at everyone's grief stricken faces and yet I felt dead

inside, like it was some nightmare I was trapped in. Nothing makes sense and I keep finding my

eyes going back to our son in Theo's arms, waiting expectantly for the sound of his cries, praying for

some kind of miracle to happen when suddenly Thaddeus screams. Anger smashes into me like

never before and I hear Imogen shriek as the necklace containing Thaddeus magic suddenly

ruptures and she rips it from her neck tossing it on the ground. The darkness creeping out and

escaping its restraints looking for its owner and that owner was Thaddeus.

“Thaddeus No!” Amara screams. Everything happening in the blink of an eye as I watch

horrified as the dark mist of his magic rushes toward him so quickly no one has time to react. I

watch as it hits him in the dead centre of the chest. I feel it through the bond rushing through him

cold and sickly sweet, sadistic as it consumes him. Black tendrils creep under his skin and I see him

take a deep breath, his eyes turning obsidian as he looks at his hands, black veins spreading over his

body and over his face consuming him as his magic bleeds into his soul tainting it with its madness.

Amara only just managed to put up a shield in time, blocking his magic as it burst from him along

with his sorrow.

Amara’s hands go forward as she blocks his magic as it rushes toward us, her heels digging into

the ground while it pushes her back as she tries to hold it back from us. He flattens everything

around us before collapsing onto the ground. Amara drops her magic before bracing her hands on

her knees, sweat coating her skin and dripping onto the ground from her chin. I look around and

find we are surrounded by a huge crater bored into the earth.

Orion is still frantically trying to awaken Evelyn who was still unconscious. I feel Orion's teeth

bite into my wrist again as he tries to get her to heal and I still feel nothing completely

numb.00000000