Eclipsed by Midnight (5 page)

Niall moves for a front kick, causing me to jump back and almost straight into Maurizio’s waiting clutches. Dropping down, I sideswipe Maurizio’s leg, adding earth’s elemental pull and shaking the ground with a tremor large enough to drop the beast of a man. Popping up, I meet Niall head-on, hook for hook, jab for jab. We continually dance around the ring, blocking one another and attempting to land a blow, but neither of us is successful. Niall forces me to circle with him a few times, and my attention drifts ever so slightly. A critical, stupid moment that finds me with a blow to the jaw and a front kick to the stomach, knocking the wind out of me and sending my mind racing as I am instantly dropped into a recovery crouch.

Anger floods me as I painstakingly move my jaw side to side, the splintering of bone scraping as I go, forcing me to spit out a mouth full of blood. Screaming out a battle cry, I jump to my feet, the sand clouding up under the impact, and charge Niall. He steps back into guard and braces to take a punch
.

Nope, motherfucker!

Suddenly stopping in front of him, I drop, side kick his legs out from him, and use my power to drive him down hard and into the ground. With a loud
thud,
his breath is stolen from his chest in a fierce whoosh as he lies there, trying to gasp for air that won’t come. Maurizio charges me, his heft tremoring the arena with each footfall. Given his size and talents, he never has been able to lighten his impact on the ground, giving away his every move. With a step-pivot, I turn to meet him in perfect stance, calling the energy around me to act as my strength and to make each move more impactful. I step forward and into him with an upper cut just as he about barrels me over. The exchange sends him back only about a step or two as he clutches his ribs and glares at me with an ugly, disturbing distortion coming over his face. Fuck, he’s pissed.

Snarling loudly, fangs extended and dripping with saliva, he comes at me like an unstoppable freight train. Damn it, this is going to hurt something fierce if he makes contact coming at me that hard! Calling earth and wind, I pull the sand up in front of me like a wall, long enough to provide a smoke screen and dodge him. Maurizio comes crashing through the sand, spitting and flaring his nostrils as he circles around, lining back up with my evading form. In an attempt to impede his onslaught, I throw a ring of fire in his direction, only to have him jump through it, unscathed, all while picking up more speed.

Sending another shockwave through the sand, I cause him to falter ever so slightly. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, I charge forward, front kick him back an inch, spin, and land a mean kidney shot that drops him to his knees. He staggers and attempts to rise so I marry the elements into a ball and blast it into his chest, knocking him down hard. Moments pass into a disturbing stretch as we wait for him to remember to breath. Finally, a brutal gasp rips through his chest as his lungs remember how to pump air in and out. He is otherwise unscathed, well, except his pride.

“Nuet!” Erik calls—game over.

Walking over to Maurizio, I look down into his stern face and ticking, steel jaw as he struggles to gather himself. “Jesus, big boy, get it together!” I chide as I offer him arms of truce. Niall stomps up too. Maurizio clasps onto our forearms and, together, we pull him up.

“Damn me, wee lass, you sure packin’ a mighty punch these days!” Niall sings in praise as Maurizio just grunts, pissed to be bested again.

“Ah, Maurizio, don’t look at me like that!” I wrap an arm around his trim waist and give him a hug. He softens a bit and finally offers a fist bump. Grouchy ol’ brother bear.

“I am out of the next round; ya fuckin’ took a cheap shot with the kidney.” He groans.

“Ya big pussy! Can’t handle a little girl fight?” Gabriel booms through the barrier from above, drawing our attention up.

“It’s about time, Gabriel!” I yell up before my eyes follow.

Two ghost-white faces stare back in shock. The boys! I motion to Erik to drop the barrier of wind and radiating earth energy we are yelling over. Naveed and Roman quickly comply, and I jump up and out of the ring. “Guys, you okay?” I fret, straining not to get too close into their personal space.

“Well, they got to see you in action.” Gabriel whistles.

“How much did y’all see?” I nonchalantly brush back some errant flyaways.

Vacant, disbelieving looks mirror back.

“Well, just about all of it,” Erik pipes in, quite pleased with himself.

Niall jumps out of the pit, landing next to me with a fascinated expression before extending his hand in introduction. “How’s it goin’ there, lads? I’m Niall, yer grandad,” he jubilantly greets them.

“For fuck’s sake, Niall!” I growl, my fangs lengthening and tremors sneaking out from where we stand; Etienne does nothing but shake his head and step back, ready to let me rip Niall apart.

“Oh, Jaysus. I’m sorry.” Niall’s cheeks deepen as he shoves a hand in his jeans and rocks back on his heels.

“Mom, it’s fine. We were bound to find out.” Ethan’s calm, compassionate voice breaks the silence as he thaws from his shocked state.

Snapping my fangs back, I sneer once more at Niall before inching closer to them, waiting for Aiden to snap out of it. He’s my wild-card child. Who knows what’s going to fly out of his mouth next.

“So, this is the dipshit who cursed us all because he couldn’t wrap it up?” Aiden scoffs.

The room goes quiet and notably chills, the disrespect not lost on these honorable males. Niall’s dejected stance breaks my ever-lovin’ heart. He didn’t deserve that.

“Apologize,
now
!” My voice blasts and echoes from all around as my disgust for his attitude rings clear.

“Why should I? This is bullshit!” Aiden challenges. The males in the room circle, muscles bunching, chests rumbling, fangs dropping down at the threat to one of their own. Niall is the only one who backs up, his kind soul not wanting to get in the way. That’s the thing about him; he may be a brutal, wide span of solid warrior who’s surprisingly quick and light on his feet, but that’s not all. He has the biggest heart out of all of these males and really does mean well despite his lack of brains sometimes.

“Bullshit? Bullshit, you say? Were you given a choice? No. Does this all suck? Yes! Does that give you the right to treat any of us the way you have been? Abso-fucking-lutely not!” I snarl.

“But he—” Aiden’s mouth continues to flap as I cut him off.

“Enough! You don’t have the right to speak on matters you have no clue on!” My temper is lit, and the elements are beginning to swirl in a disconcerting manner, nipping at my heels, crawling across my skin. If I don’t rise above his childish reaction and view this from a different perspective, it won’t end well. The wind howls around us, carrying away the last remnants of hauntingly spoken syllables. How do I make him see what took me years to understand? He cannot continue on this path or he will end up getting hurt. The tension in the warehouse fluctuates as the viewing eren wait for me to right this level of wrong in their eyes. A child speaking out in this nature is completely unacceptable. “Kneel,” I demand of Aiden, who in turn gives me a look of disgust. This will be unconventional, for sure, I deserve that.

“Son, I suggest you do as your mother requests,” Etienne warns in his thick accent, hissing each syllable over the ominous symphony of rising elements.

“I am not your
son,
” Aiden spits, crossing his arms and jutting out his chin, not at all phased by the show of unbelievable happenings concurrently taking place. A normal kid would be shitting his pants. Hell, I would have initially when I first found out this world existed.

“He is your stepfather and has every right to refer to you as such. Aiden, I will not ask again,” I seethe, attempting to maintain some form of calm and rationale but doubting in that ability based on dark clouds collecting above us, and I don’t mean outside.

Aiden’s eyes rise up at the rumbling, cumulous clouds manifesting before our eyes prior to narrowing them at me and complying. Ethan breathes a sigh of relief, and I taste the hint of fear stemming from both boys. Goddess, I wish my own kids weren’t afraid of me and trusted me—haven’t I earned that much? How do I make him see? I know my displays of anger can be a bit overwhelming but geeze! They know I’d never do anything to hurt them.

The kneeling form before me quakes as another gust sweeps through. This path Aiden is headed down scares me to death, for if he turns with this blackness brewing in his heart, I may never get my son back after transition. Internally scrambling for the answers, I stare down at his questioning, now-upturned eyes—ones that have way too much pain, anger, and fear. Seeing me train and throw my clout around just made this real for him, cementing his sour mood and cruel disposition. Closing my own eyes to center my breath, I inhale deeply and call the sweltering power into me. Going on pure instinct because I have no fucking clue what else to do, my hand comes to rest on top of his head as my shoes shuffle across the concrete to get a bit closer. I cannot take him up to see Nannau. That could injure him deeply—if we even made it that far.

As I wait patiently for a sign, energy begins to vibrate from us, causing the circling entourage to take a wary step back, except for my mate, who comes up behind me. I can feel his radiating warmth as he readies for anything—an unmoving force by my side. Aiden clenches down under the radiating sensations. Suddenly, a gut-clenching, ear-splitting, tearing sound rings out, momentarily stopping my heart mid-beat before it flutters back to life, figuring out what to do and hoping too.

When I open my eyes, it takes me a moment to understand what I am looking at. I’m now viewing myself posed over Aiden, linked to him through that hand on his head as our group worriedly looks on to our statue-still figures. Etienne is standing behind me, scrambling internally, with forearms drawn tight across his chest. Stress lights him up. Something tugs my hand. In slow motion, I turn to look at Aiden standing next to me. His eyes are as big as saucers as he registers that we are somehow now separated from our bodies and watching the scene in front of us in a third-party perspective.

“Mom?”

“I pulled your spirit from your body so that I could show you something,” I confidently reply, but really, something else is guiding, as this is all new to me. However, I have to come across as in control or I will lose him.

“Okay, please don’t let go,” the little boy in him begs as his big hand squeezes mine in a sweaty death grip.

“Never.” My words bounce around in the stifled air. This was always a strange place to come, suffocating yet revitalizing all in the same. Here, we are everything and nothing, our own best and worst in one. Here, we exist in pure, elevated form and are only hindered by what limitations we set.

Together, we slowly turn around and are met with blackness, dotted with twinkling stars reminiscent of my time up above.

“What is this?” His shaky voice grows stronger by each syllable.

“A place that exists beyond the time and space you know.” When I wave my free hand at the darkness, an image manifests from memory to be displayed like a rolling camera, plucked from my mind by my subconscious. It was an act that had me questioning if was there another piece of myself within that I have yet to meet, running the show.

A woman screams bloody murder, cutting through the air like a knife to startle us. Her chest appears sweaty and red with knees drawn up and blankets sprawled everywhere, telling of a fierce battle of mind and body. We are seeing this through her eyes. Distant background noises pitch and roll, but nothing is clear. Soon, the cries of a newborn reach us, coming from all around like surround sound. A set of hands brings the baby up to rest on her chest. The urgency in her being to instantly clasp the bundle is innate and intense. As the wiggling baby meets her skin, she begins to weep from pure, exhausted, and total joy as her hands move to hold him nearer. Her cries of joy sweetly join the suckling sound of the baby finding his fist as she looks over to a man, Stephan. His young eyes team with dampness as he reaches to coo at the baby before leaning in to kiss the woman’s cheek. “Mi amour, te amo,” he whispers. Making a clicking sound at a now-visible second baby in his arms that he is gently rocking, he stills and brings this infant to rest next to his brother on the woman’s chest.

“Stephan, if I never have the chance to do anything worthwhile again, I would die happy knowing that we brought these two miracles into this world.” She struggles to hold back more tears as she leans in to kiss each baby and sing to them before the picture fades.

“Was that the day we were born?”

“Yes, one of the most important days of my entire life.” I sniff, the emotions of that day hitting hard.

The sky shifts and ripples before us and another moving picture plays. Viewing from the woman’s eyes once more, she’s running out a door, across a lawn, and up to the base of a tree as fast as she can. Her heartbeat thuds in our ears as she mutters “oh god, oh god” to herself as she travels. Coming up to a moppy-haired, brown-eyed boy of about six, she quickly assess the situation, taking note of his crocodile tears, bloody legs, and how he is holding his arm that looks broken.

“Mommy! I…fell,” the little boy gasps through each syllable, his chest heaving and rattling; verging on pain-driven hysteria as his looks up to the offending tree he must have been climbing.