Queen of Ruin(Book three of the Immortals Series)
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE HALDIR

The full moon outside the window of Haldir's bedroom glowed red, and a wicked blast of wind like a woman's grieved howl made him whimper out as a vision started to unfold in his mind. "Tessa. Is that you?" His soft snores kept rhythm with the frogs creaking on the pond outside the Darke castle. The whole world around him was still and calm, yet his heart began to pound wildly in his chest as Tessa's screams for help echoed in his head. "Bring him back! He's mine!"

That cold, falling sensation between sleep and awake started in his hands and brushed through his chest, settling right in the center where Tessa gripped him with her bloody fist and yanked him into her nightmare.

As it sucked him into whatever hell she was living in, he approached the doorway and heard the sound of grunting and a man tugging something heavy across the floor. As the shadowy figure appeared in the hall, Haldir backed away as he saw Rafik's dark eyes lifelessly staring up at him as the guard dragged him past his feet. "Oh, fuck!"

"Grandmother! No! Please! She's all I have left! Please, don't do this!"

Her frantic pleading broke him from the horror of seeing Rafik's limp body thrown aside like garbage. As his eyes snapped towards the room, he saw Tessa bound by guards on each arm and another man grabbing her face in his hand. His teeth cracked, and his jaw popped as he shrieked through them. "Get your fucking hands off her!"

The madman rushed to his daughter's aid, but no matter how he punched and kicked and swung, his limbs cut through the apparitions as they wove themselves back together around him.

Balling his fists in terror and panic at being able to do nothing to save her, he begged her to hear him. To know that she wasn't alone in that room and that someone knew what horrors she was being subjected to. "Please, spit it out, Tessa!" "No, please don't take my baby!" Like she somehow heard his request, Tessa spat the poison across the room through garbled gasps and animalistic grunts only to have more shoved down her throat. Falling to his knees by her feet, he cried for his horrid gift and his failures as a father as blood began to trickle down from her legs. "No!"

The guards threw her to the ground, and he tried to grab her up in his arms as blood spread out from underneath her. "Oh, God! No!"

On his hands and knees, he put his face to Tessa's as she brought her bloody fingertips to her line of sight, and her once beautiful lips became a dreadful frown before her silent screams fell from it.

His shaking fingers reached out to her face, then slipped through the illusion. Crying alongside her, Haldir begged her forgiveness. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Hold on, Tessa, I'm coming."

The soft down pillow he rested his head on was drenched in his sweat, and he sat up, gasping for breath. "What the fuck was that?"

Throwing off his blankets, he stumbled from the bed as the quick knock came to his door. "Come in."

King Daniel opened the door and pushed his black hair off his forehead as Haldir threw his things into his bag of holding. "Tessa..."

"I know." Haldir stopped and breathed hard as he recalled the vision and prayed it was wrong. "Did I see what I think I did?"

Daniel came to his side and nodded as he wiped his hand across his mouth. "Yes. It happened. I saw it too."

His teary blue eyes burned with rage as he grabbed his chest leathers from the chair and started strapping them to his body. He snorted out his tears through his mouth and nose as he hiccupped out his ire and desperation. "I have no idea where the fuck she is. I don't even know how I'm going to replace her."

Rubbing the stubble on his chin, Daniel closed his eyes as he thought of a solution. "Teddy. He's...he's in a castle with a..." Holding his hand over his head, Daniel tried to gauge the height. "A giant man with a white beard."

His hand moved to Haldir's shoulder as Daniel stared into his eyes and gave the instructions. "He can mist to her without knowing where she is. I've done it. He just has to be angry enough."

Closing his eyes as he shook his head, he sighed because he knew when Teddy reached Tessa, the gates of hell would open on whoever was holding her. "That won't be a problem for him, trust me." Haldir nodded as he sheathed his sword behind his back. "Thank you for that." Grabbing his hatchet, he moaned out a pained breath as he tucked it into his chest strap. "Shit! I should never have left them."

"It's not the time for that, old friend." He was the King of many things, and regret was near the top of the list. No one understood Haldir's shame more than he did. "Your children need you." Thinking back to the days he first met his wife, he joined him in his anger. "Haldir..."

He glanced to the King as he pulled the straps of his bag closed and nodded as he waited for the rest of Daniel's words. "Yes, Your Majesty?"

Daniel lifted his finger as he shook off the visions in his head and thought about his family. What he would do to anyone who harmed them. "Indulge her the vengeance she deserves, no matter how cruel."

Huffing out through his mouth, the old Viking's teeth chattered as the adrenaline started to course through his system, and the dirty, primal animal in him made its way to the surface. "You're goddamn right I will."

He stretched his neck out from side to side while the mist started to consume his feet, then lowered his head to his King and closed his eyes as he concentrated on the old castle in England.

When his leather boots hit the gravel of the driveway, Haldir ran up the stairs and beat on the door. "Let me the fuck in!"

"Teddy! Where are you?" Rushing past the butler who opened the door, he peeked in every doorway until Teddy stepped out in the hall.

"Haldir!" Running into his arms, Teddy's tears spilled over as he grabbed his back and whined into his ear like the scared child he was. "They took her; my grandparents have her. I don't know where she is."

He backed him into the office and put his hands on his shoulders. "I know." Seeing Billy and Delia from the corner of his eye, he glanced at them and shook his head. "Rafik is dead; he's gone." Dropping down into her chair, Delia softly whimpered as she pulled her night robe closed. "Are you sure?"

Rubbing the back of Teddy's head, he pressed his lips together and nodded. "I'm sure. Teddy..." He pushed Teddy back and balled his shirt into his hands. He knew the only way to get to Tessa was to bring out the warlock, but he felt guilty for what he was about to make him see. "You reach out to her. Make her show you where she is."

Teddy closed his eyes and took deep breaths through his nose as he pressed his forehead into Haldir's shoulder. When time came to a still around him, the picture-lined walls disintegrated into nothing like cereal falling from a box until the only thing that remained was darkness and the putrid scent of iron.

"Tessa!" Snapping his fingers in front of her face, Teddy knelt beside her on the cliff. "Sugar, are you alright?"

He shook her shoulder, but she barely even blinked as she sat on the edge with her feet dangling over the side. Noticing the smears of blood on her face, he put his fingertips to her chin and turned her to face him. "Did they hurt you?" His eyes followed the track of the tear falling from the tip of her nose until it dropped to her blood-soaked lap. He moaned out like a ghost when the hopeless nothing she was becoming seeped into his fingertips, and he instantly understood what happened.

Hearing the faint cries of a baby in the darkness below them, his heart sank, and the tears spilled over as he pressed his forehead to Tessa's. "Oh, Sugar. What did they do to you?"

When she turned to face him, her dead eyes finally revealed the room she sat in. "See what they did."

As the handmaids pulled Tessa from the floor by her armpits, he turned his face away as they ripped her dress from her body without care.

They threw her in bed and started scrubbing the floor, but didn't notice her reach out to the man kneeling beside her in another plane of consciousness.

Taking her hand, Teddy curled up on the floor next to her and kissed her cheek. Stroking her hair with the backs of his fingers, he rubbed his nose against hers. "We'll kill them all, I promise you."

Her eyes moved to the door beyond him, and she whispered against his lips. "Don't let them have him. He's mine."

His eyes narrowed at her, and then he turned his head to see Rafik's body tangled up in the hall. "Those sons of bitches." Giving her one last kiss on her cheek, Teddy nodded. "I'll take care of it. Look away, Tess."

Passing back through the room, Teddy wrinkled his nose as he shot the servants dirty looks and pointed his finger at them. "I'll be back for you two soon."

He kneeled beside Rafik's body, slid his ring off his finger, and then put it on his. "I'm sorry. I'll see you in the next world. Don't worry; I'll take care of her." Wiggling his fingers over Rafik, Teddy closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to watch. A brilliant light swept through the hall as Teddy incinerated Rafik and the guard who stood by into nothing but a memory.

When the walls of Delia's office rebuilt around him, and Haldir's voice reached his ears once again, Teddy collapsed into his arms and screamed out through his gritted teeth. “No!"

Unable to breathe or speak, Teddy clenched his jaw and rocked against Haldir's chest as his anger climbed into the stratosphere. Finally sucking back a breath, Teddy's entire body shivered as he spat out the words. "They took her baby." Haldir joined him in his trembling fury as he pressed his head against him. "Take me there. Take me there now."

The cloud of hate rose from Teddy's feet as Billy stepped through and wrapped his arms around their shoulders. "I'm with you."

A flicker of lights became a steady pulsing, and the floor shook beneath them as the whispers rose from his chest and called out to their twin. Their screeches sprung from him in a rush of wind that wove around the three and pulled the breath from their lungs as the whole world fell away into nothing.