Noelle pointed at Carlton, who was sitting on his haunches like a pet. An ugly pet with misshapen body parts, but a pet none-the-less. “What about him? I assume that’s Carlton, your husband.”
A smirk lifted the corner of her sister’s lips. “Yes, this is my beloved. I met him during my captivity. His father was Remdezevier. He had been one of his creations as well, sort of. I guess he was biologically his, but he’d been using your blood to heal him. Instead, it did this to him.”
She stared at the swamp-like creature, stunned to her core to realize all those experiments, the times she’d almost died from blood loss, had been when the crazy man had been giving her blood to that thing. She wondered if there were others like her he’d taken and kept captive, who he’d done the same to. Her stomach lurched thinking she’d been part of the making of things like Carlton.
“You think I can fix him with my blood?” she asked Merry, her eyes never leaving Carlton.
“He’s deteriorating every day. Before you broke us out of the lab, he was able to stay human unless he wanted to shift. He said when he shifted, his form wasn’t this way, but now, his shifts are more sporadic and for longer periods.”
“How do you know he’s telling you the truth? I was there for ten years and never saw another creature. How did you find him while you were there?” Noelle didn’t understand or believe Carlton. Plus, she could feel Ridge and his Crew getting closer. She needed to neutralize the threat of the duo in front of her, so they didn’t hurt the Mayhem Crew.
“Are you calling me and my mate liars?” Merry took a step closer, fury making her voice rise.
The woman in front of her wasn’t the one Noelle has known for the past several years. The stranger staring at her appeared to hate every fiber of her being. “I’m saying I don’t understand how he came to be in that place when I was there for years and never saw or heard another living being other than Remdezevier. How did you see him when I saw you strapped down on that table?”
“Because before you woke up from your little nap, he had me in another room where I was with Carlton. He...mated us there. If you hadn’t gone batshit crazy, Carlton and I would’ve been together. His father would’ve ensured his son was cured, and I’d have your powers. We’d have been unstoppable.”
“You mean he’d have destroyed me?”
Merry tilted her head to the side, stroking the amulet around her neck, not saying a word to dispute her claim. In that moment, she knew her sister not only didn’t love her, she actively hated her. A tear rolled down her cheek.
“Ah, what’s the matter, Noelle? Are you finally figuring it out? Nobody cares about you anymore. Not me, not our parents, and not my friends. No one but those crazy-as-fuck witches, and they can’t help you now.”
Anger spiked in her veins. Her parents loved her even if they didn’t understand her. “You’re wrong. You’re hateful and ugly inside.” Power crackled through her veins. Remdezevier had done everything within him to twist her into a being he could use, tried to make her evil. Although he’d never couched his demands in such a way, she’d known that was what he’d been doing. He hadn’t succeeded, but his efforts had been brutal to the point she’d been drained of blood and energy for days. Merry would fail too, if she had anything to say about it.
When she’d destroyed the lab along with the crazy doctor, it had been to save herself and the others. Now, she was fighting for people she wanted to build a life with. Mate. That word popped into her head in a male voice. Ridge, he was getting closer.
“You think you can stop me, baby sister? You can’t, nobody can. Get her,” she demanded.
The thing that was Carlton charged her, lumbering on all fours with a gait that reminded her of a gorilla. His breath came out in huffs and grunts. She opened her mind to him like she did with her two familiars, hoping to reach him in his shifted form. Chaos swirled in his mind with one goal—kill her. She saw the words and false narrative that had been told to him in her sister’s voice, telling him that Noelle was a monster who killed his loving father. The words stunned her since she had killed him, but she hadn’t done so in malice. Her sister had been feeding that to Carlton, and the conviction behind the words sounded so truthful that even Noelle would’ve believed her. Yes, she’d killed the demented man, but she’d done it to save herself and the others. In fact, she’d essentially saved Carlton. Had they come to her, she might have been able to talk Zelda and the others into helping fix the beast.
The bubble she’d created stood strong as Carlton’s beastly body ran smack dab into it. Noelle felt the impact, falling backward, but didn’t let up her protective spell.
Carlton rolled around in the dirt and leaves strewn on the ground, coming back up on all fours. “Grrhmm, kill,” he said in a garbled voice.
“No, Carlton, you don’t want to kill me. I’m not evil. I didn’t kill your father like she said. He tried to kill all of us. I can help you. I can try to fix...you,” she said, praying it was the truth.
“She’s lying. She was always a liar. That was why my parents let her go with your father. She wasn’t kidnapped, Carlton. Our parents gave her away,” Merry growled.
For a moment her world went fuzzy as the day in the park shifted. She and Merry were playing on the jungle
