(Amaia)

(Contents of this Chapter can be disturbing. Read with precaution.)

By the time I am done with Bettelgeuse, skinning his arms so his nerves can feel my electric shocks. His mother is already begging us to stop.

There is no mercy in my heart. The misery of my people, the wrath of my mates, the torment of my brother has sunken into my heart and turned it into so cold and dark that I can’t feel anything but a thirst for revenge. A desire to inflict as much pain on them as they had done on the people I love and care about.

His incessant screams continue as I shift from him to his sister.

I want to carve out her face. The terror in her eyes is frozen in place as I reach forward and slowly gouge them out of her sockets. Blood flows like rivers from her empty eyes sockets.

"That’s for hurting Saiph."

Turning around I throw both eyeballs in her mother’s face.

Horrified she can only wail and beg but I don’t stop.

"I told you, I will become your worst nightmare. Today, no one can save you from my wrath."

My body quivers from the rage that’s boiling inside like a volcano about to burst and bury her.

Anyone coming to their rescue is obliterated by my powers. The control is slipping from me, and darkness is engulfing me.

Rigel’s shadows spring forward and combine with the sizzling electricity on my fingertips, piercing Bellatrix’s palms. I torture her until her skin is burnt to a blackened crisp.

".....I am....sorry, please stop...."

"Did you stop when I begged you not to violate him?" I demand. "You dared hurt my mate."

Alnilam comes forward and holds me by the shoulders.

"Amaia, let Saiph take over." His tenderness and plea seep into me, dissipating some of the darkness.

I obey and let him hold me.

Saiph steps closer to Bellatrix. The rage is written on his face in cold letters.

The blood and snout have gathered on her face, streaming down to her neck. Her horrible screams won’t stop.

"I don’t even want to soil my hands by touching the filth like you," Saiph callously says. "Since you loved raping me. It will be only suitable if you are trapped in a similar nightmare."

His fingertips touch her temples and she goes stiff. Mouth arches in a forever scream. Her body tenses, going rigid like a pole.

"No....!" Their shrieks are useless. We are going to make them living breathing mannequins, they will be stuck in nightmares of Saiph’s choosing, unable to escape, living the rest of their pathetic lives stuck and rotting away.

Saiph repeats the process with Betelgeuse. Making him stuck in a loop where he kills his mate with his hands.

"What’s happening?" Meissa’s soft and confused voice has us turning. She is standing with her hands clasped in front, eyes wide in horror, amidst the chaos that is ensuing all around her.

"Meissa, help....help your mother and your siblings. Put them under your spell," the shameless woman yells, spitting out the hair Saiph had stuffed in her mouth. She is still not giving up.

But Meissa doesn’t move. She blankly stares at her siblings who are not living, not dead, they are suspended in between trapped in their own brains.

Her gaze slowly moves to my twin mates and comes to rest on Alnilam. Unlike every other time I have seen her, she is not smiling today. She trots forward with unsure steps and easily crosses my shield. It doesn’t hurt or stop her which shows she is innocent. "Can you take me away from this place once you are done punishing them?" She politely asks Alnilam in a soft voice. Her eyes swim with unshed tears.

"What are you doing Meissa?" Can’t you see what they have done?" Esmelda screams at her daughter.

Meissa slowly turns her head and observes her mother. "I clearly remember what you have done to me and thousands of innocent souls. I hope they give you a merciless death," she says without a wrinkle on her forehead or a single emotion in her voice.

I can’t even imagine what this despicable woman has done to her own daughter. The spells and torture she must have endured.

Esmelda gasps, wails, and chokes on her saliva. Her teary eyes stare at her children but this is all her doing.

I don’t expect Alnilam to answer Meissa but he does.

"We will take you along once Amaia has tested you."

Her face splits into a smile at his words. "I am no longer under their spells. My scent and body are no longer controlled. I want nothing to do with Istrale and these people." She points. "She is the evilest of evil. I hope you end her miserable life."

Hearing her daughter give testimony against her, Esmelda lets her powers surge out again. Like a bleed of darkness, it pours out of her. A tide of black fog hits my shield and I feel the tremor. She is putting everything behind it. The shield begins to crack.

I have to protect my mates. But they all stand beside me. Hands lift and their powers pour out and interlace—Mintaka’s crystalline frost, Alnitak’s swirling vapours, Saiph’s nightmares spreading like a heavy shroud of murk, Rigel’s creeping shadows, Alnilam’s gleaming hair, and even Meissa’s breath, which slips through the air like a murmuring zephyr.

They do not merge; they twine and braid together, each essence feeding into the next. The ice stiffens the mist. The mist thickens the nightmares. The nightmares lend weight to the shadows. The shadows brace themselves behind Alnilam’s luminous shield. And Meissa’s whisper coils around it all, sealing every gap like silk wrapped around steel.

Bit by bit, they coalesce into a living rampart. What emerges is no mere barrier but a formidable shield against the encroaching dark.

Together, we stand as one: a wall of frost, fog, fear, shade, shelter, and wind, ready to repel the last of her attack.