Moonfire Bride: The One they all betrayed...till she awakened

It can’t be…and yet, it was.

They were all frozen, simply staring at her. Their minds seemed incapable of processing what their eyes were telling them. They all believed she was dead, and whatever had happened to her body afterwards was no longer their concern, because as far as they were all concerned, the Rotblood problem had been taken care of.

Even with the ancient scrolls spreading around, even when they all heard Malachi had admitted that there was still a rotblood alive, they believed it couldn’t possibly be Della.

They were suspicious, but…it just couldn’t be.

But now she was standing before their eyes, like a phantom that had appeared from the darkness. With a darkness now residing in the depths of her pale, terrifyingly calm and empty eyes.

“Impossible,” Beatrice whispered.

She was the most shocked amongst everyone.

Her lips had gone pale, and she shook her head repeatedly. She had spent months questioning her own sanity, wondering whether the doll had been real, whether somebody had been entering her chambers, whether Della had somehow survived. She had even begun to suspect that the blood-written messages on the Doll’s belly were the work of someone who knew her well.

But every time she considered the possibility that Della was alive, she reminded herself of the blood. The death. The certainty with which she had watched her sister fall.

She had killed Della Barrett with her own hands.

She had watched her die.

So why was Della standing in front of her now?

“You’re dead,” Beatrice whispered again, her eyes widening further. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Am I?” Della tilted her head.

The question was so casual that Beatrice’s stomach twisted.

Augustus finally found his voice, “What is this?! Where the hell are we?!”

Della looked at him, and the corners of her mouth lifted.

There he was!

The great Alpha of IronRidge. The man who had spent years making her think he had some ounce of love for her while truly behind the scenes, he’d orchestrated most of it. He’d kept her alive because she reminded him of the woman he had lost, and wanted her dead because she was a disgusting, irritating existence.

“And the hell are you still alive?!” He added.

She could hear the fear in his tone he was trying so hard to hide, and that only made her smile grow bigger. She would really enjoy carving him up till that fear was open for everyone to see, for her to properly enjoy.

“Della…” Evangeline murmured, as realisation crept up her spine. The woman who had approached her that day at the marketplace had been Della.

Dell was behind… everything.

“You,” Jaime stirred too, still in awe, “How the fuck are you still alive?”

“Well, I expect you all read the ancient scripts that has been going around, haven’t you? Then you know that a Rotblood fully awakens after death,” Della said, and then her eyes slowly moved and locked with Beatrice, “I extend my deepest gratitude to you for helping me awaken, Beatrice,”

Not even her twisted self could save her this time. Staring into those dead eyes was so terrifying, unlike anything she’d ever felt. Not even when Cassian had come close to killing her that day.

“And…my deepest sympathy,” Della’s voice turned colder.

“S… sympathy?” Beatrice stuttered.

“For what is to come, yes,”

Chills shot down the brunette’s spine, and once again and tried to pull herself free but her wolf wasn’t responding. Just like every other person in the room.

The blue flames above was Moonfire. And it was poisoning them. Just enough for their wolves to be unable to help them. Enough to make them powerless.

“Untie me right this second, Della,” Augustus shouted, and she looked at him again. Funny of him to think his authority still applied to her.

“I don’t know what it is you think you would achieve by bringing us here. Whether it’s revenge or hatred that made you do this, you should know that wolves like you were always meant to suffer and be killed. That is the fate of a rotblood. You cannot blame me. You should pity me instead for having a daughter like you!”

Nothing about what he said triggered her. She’d heard it all before, “You want me to untie you?”

His eyes narrowed.

“How about this, instead?”

One moment she was standing there, and the next second Augustus felt like someone had smashed a mountain into the side of his face. The pain was Indescribable. Everything blurred into nothing and one side of his face was bloody red.

That wasn’t the worst part.

Beatrice gasped in horror when she saw that one of her father’s limbs was now missing too, from the shoulder all the way down. Blood pooled all over the seat and onto the ground, and a second later, the pain finally registered and Augustus let out a loud, gruelling groan.

Della was back where she stood before, holding the dismembered limb.

“Who else would like me to untie them?” She asked.

That was probably the moment they all comprehended the weight of the matter at hand.

They were trapped. Trapped with their greatest enemy, who wasn’t here to just kill them. She was here to make sure she messed them up so bad that even torture would start to look like mercy.

The fear in their eyes was beginning to become clearer, and it fed the vengeful emotion that clawed at Della’s chest.

She stepped closer to them, and they instantly pressed their backs harder against the chairs as though that would save them.

“Come on, loosen up,” Della said, “I brought you here so that we could all have fun, and spend some quality time as a family,” A laugh almost escaped her as she said so. God, she was definitely more insane in the head than Beatrice.

“A…are you going to kill us?” Jaime asked.

He stepped closer to him, and the boy flinched even more. It reminded her of her childhood. She was the big sister, but he was always raising his hand on her. He’d physically and mentally abuse her so much while growing up. Some of the servants even whispered back then that the Rotblood was the heir’s personal punching bag.

“No, Jaime,” She leaned forward and grabbed his hair, pulling his face closer to hers. She wanted him to look into her eyes and see what he had helped created, and the way his eyes trembled and his fear intensified told her he had seen it, “I’m here to abuse the hell out of what remains of your lives. I’ll make sure you live long enough in pain and torture and drown in your nightmares. Then, I’ll pull you back to the surface and make you go through it all over again,”