CURSE OF THE MOON REBORN

Scarlet laughed, hysterical gags escaping her throat. “You must be crazier than you look. There is no way in hell that Stephan would love you.”

“He almost did. Then he saw that bitch at the beach, and then everything changed.” Marquis was livid.

“Who? Sotera?” Stephan hadn’t told her much about Solara’s sister, his first love. He never told her where they had met either and now she finally understood his obsession with the ocean.

“Did you think that you were the only girl he took to the beach and made love to under the moon and the stars?” Marquis laughed at her.

“That doesn’t matter now.” It bothered Scarlet, but that was not the time to think about it.

“It doesn’t, because now I will kill you and replace you.”

“You are crazy.”

Scarlet rubbed her belly, she hadn’t felt Christina move for a while and she was beginning to get worried.

“What’s wrong? Does it hurt?”

“Don’t bother asking because the gift of life is something you will never experience.” Scarlet hissed.

“You think so?” An idea had just crept into her mind and she thought it was perfect, “I have a new idea since I can’t have your son. I’ll have that thing inside you.”

“What?” Scarlet shielded her belly with her arms. “Over my dead body.”

“That is going to be arranged, but first I’m going to take your child from you and you are going to watch. I don’t know how much your weak body can handle, but I will make sure you are wide awake.”

Scarlet scrambled to her feet. She was trapped and as much as she tried to figure a way out, she knew she couldn’t outrun a vampire as old as Marquis.

“You can’t take my baby, she isn’t fully developed yet. You can’t.” Her lip quivered as her hand trembled. She wanted to scream, yell or run anything to get away from her.

“She? It’s a girl.” Marquis scowled, “Well she will have to do. I just want her daddy and not her. She’s just a ticket, a disposable one.”

“No, you can’t. Stephan will hate you if you kill any one of his children.”

“That’s true. Maybe I won’t kill them, I’ll just be their new Mommy.” Marquis forced Scarlet to the ground. “Now stay put I need to open you up.”

“With what? Nothing can pierce through the skin around my baby.” She was confident for a while.

“Are you sure?” Marquis pulled her lips and exposed her lethal teeth. “I think there is something.”

Without warning, Marquis forced Scarlet’s back to the ground. The other two vampires held her down as Marquis moved over her.

“This will hurt a lot.” Marquis bit into her skin and tore her flesh. With the little opening she had created with her teeth, she used her fingers to rip her open.

Scarlet was blinded by the pain that seared through her body. She screamed as loud as she could as the pain in her body escalated. She struggled against the hold of the vampires, fighting through the pain to make one last attempt to save her daughter.

“Welcome to the world Stephan’s daughter. I am your new mommy, and that is your old mommy.” She looked at Scarlet, “You want to hold her.”

The two vampires forced her to sit. Scarlet was weak, she couldn’t feel her lower body. “My baby.”

Marquis held her closer to Scarlet and just as she was about to touch her, Marquis pulled her back. “My baby. By the time I leave here with her, you will be dead and no one will know it was me.”

Scarlet gazed at her little girl as she squirmed in Marquis’s arms. She was tiny and didn’t make a sound, but Scarlet was comforted by the little rasp of her breathing. Christina was beautiful, her eyes were wide open and her little mouth looked like a little pink rosebud. Her fingers curled as her little foot stretched out. She was pink and beautiful.

In a heartbeat, Scarlet could see Christina’s life without her. What her innocence would turn to if she was raised by Marquis. She would be destroyed.

“Please.” Scarlet wheezed, “Please don’t take my baby.”

A dark cloud hovered over her eyes, Scarlet knew she was slipping into unconsciousness so she struggled against it. Her eyes were stuck on the immaculate baby in Marquis’s arms. Her baby.

Scarlet could feel her body give in to the darkness, but the sound of her baby’s cry pulled her out of it.

“Give....give me my baby.” She managed to huff out.

“My baby, how many ties do I have to tell you that.” Marquis thrust her hand back into the gaping hole she had torn Christina from.

Scarlet slipped into the darkness, the sound of her baby’s cry getting further and further away from her.

***