Royal Blood

Everything Falls Apart

The next day, I woke up in Axton's arms on our bed like always but something just seemed off. I asked everybody else about it at breakfast but only Marie and Marianna said they felt the slightest bit strange.
It wasn't until about noon when I glanced out the window and almost screamed. There was Valentina standing not very far away from the main castle, which stood on a slight hill in the middle of a large flat field so that we could see everything around us, except she looked very different. Her hair was longer and grey, she was raggedy and looked to be in pain. That wasn't the most drastic part. She was floating slightly above the ground with her hands straight out to the sides with her palms turned up. Her eyes were bright white and tiny purple flames sat in her hands. Something seemed to be pulsing off of her, an almost transparent blue...something was slowly coming towards the castle.
I could see wolves behind her that I didn't recognize, running full speed towards the castle staying in front of the strange blue film.
It was about to hit the front part of the castle, I was the closest one but t was coming so quickly that I only had time to scream and warn everybody before the air around me turned blue and I immediately dropped to the floor.
-----6 hours later-----
I woke up on a concrete floor with a terrible headache. My children were also the most active they have ever been, both kicking and squirming, making me feel like I needed to vomit. I looked around me, the only light provided by a single bulb in the middle of the cell and the small windows outside of it.
I was shocked to find so many women in here, only women and many of them I recognized as women from my pack. Including Marie, Charlie, Melody, Birdie and all the women from my first pack. We were all waking up around the same time except for the women I didn't recognize. They were all silently curled up, giving us looks of pity. Two women were even crying at the sight of me and Marie. The only other obviously pregnant woman was a complete stranger to me but she looked like she had seen everything as she just stared up and out the dirty window while rubbing her small belly.
"Is everybody okay?" I winced as I sat myself up and realized a number had been tattooed onto my arm. 14.
"Yeah, I think so. What's going on?" Was the response from most of my pack.
"I'm not even slightly okay." Marie whispered and I glanced over at her to see she was holding her stomach with a look of pain on her face.
The oldest looking woman there, probably only a few years older than Marie immediately jumped into action. "I was a nurse in my pack. I'm guessing that the stress of your taking caused you to go into labor." A smaller girl, couldn't have been more than 16, quickly and silently grabbed a relatively clean looking blanket and spread it out on the floor and guided Marie onto it.
"Surround her and help this woman any way you can." I ordered the women of my pack who I knew could keep their heads on.
"Dove where are we?" Birdie squeaked and looked petrified. I got up and walked over to her and wrapped my arms around her shoulders.
"All I saw was Valentina using some kind of magic I think and wolves rushing towards us. What happened after I screamed?" I asked her.
"We all heard you, Axton took off towards the door but fell to the floor when this blue stuff touched him. We tried to run away from it but there were wolves everywhere. Then I woke up here." She hid her head in my neck and I tried to pay closer attention to our surroundings.
"What's that way?" I asked a woman near the bars. There was a wooden staircase in front of the bars on our cell and space to the right of it.
"Another cell. We hear children crying from it sometimes." Was her short and raspy reply.
"Oh hell. Birdie I am going to slip through the bars and check on whoever is over there." I couldn't say more as Marie started to scream.
"No no no no no. You musnt make noise!" The young girl helping the nurse kept frantically glancing up at the stairs and back to Marie. I quickly pulled off my shirt and ripped it to make it longer before tying it like a gag around Marie's head. She had tears streaming down her face as she struggled to deliver her babies.
"Okay, everybody. I'm going to shift and go check on the people in the other cell. You're going to see some strange things happen." I stood in front of everybody and tried to access how small I would have to make myself to fit through the bars.
"You can't. They enchanted the cell. none of us can shift." Somebody replied.
"They haven't met me yet. Melody you rest up, if I can't do it then I will have to teach you how." I pointed to my stomach and she nodded. The rest of the females in the room looked at me curiously.
I closed my eyes and tried to shift into my wolf. Nothing happened. Then I tried to shift into my royal wolf. There was some pain but eventually I stood in front of them, my enormous head brushing the ceiling.
"Wow." Marie breathed. I looks over at her and she was staring at me. She hadn't been there when we shifted into our second wolves because she was too pregnant to shift. I glanced at the nurse and she had a sullen look on her face.
"One didn't make it. I'm so sorry." She held two baby boys in her arms, one was crying and flailing his little arms around while the other was pale and still with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.
Oh Marie, I'm so sorry, the pack link wasn't working so I just had to invade her mind.
She just silently held both babies, she placed a kiss on her unmoving son's forehead and cried.
"Go Luna, we will take care of Marie." Birdie touched my leg and I nodded silently.
I shrank my self just enough to squeeze through the bars before going back to full size.
"Please don't leave us alone!" One woman wailed only to be pulled back by another who placed her head on her lap and pet her head. I cocked my head to the side and the woman trying to comfort her answered me.
"A particularly small woman was able to slip through the bars and ran away. We haven't seen her since."
I won't leave any of you. I'm not going anywhere without all of you. I assured them and they acquired the look of shock people always get when I speak to them in their heads.
I looked over at the other cell. It was much less full but there was a diverse group of people inside.
Are you all okay? I will get us all out of here I promise. Their heads all lifted to mine and they seemed a bit scared of me.
Everybody started to scoot away from the bars and cry or whimper as the stairs started to creak, signaling somebody coming down the steps.
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I'm so sorry everybody. This chapter was a little bit messy, and the whole baby thing. I'm sad just writing it but everything has a purpose. Is this considered a trigger warning? I feel like I should have written something about it. Well, I'm getting busy lately so updates might be slow. I still love you lovelies