Destined Part I

Envision

They made it back to the castle within minutes, and as Haiden peeled through the gate and into the drive, Giada and Kristopher were there, running out the door to reach them.

“Where did she take her?” Giada asked, gasping for air.

Giada had heard Haiden’s thoughts before he even had a chance to get out of the car. She rushed up to Haiden, gripping his hands in terror.

“She’s from Paris, so we think she took her there,” Cain said before Haiden could explain.

As she squeezed his hands tighter, Giada’s eyes opened wide.

“Haiden, why would she have done something like this? Why Adia?” she asked, her throat clogged with her tears.

“Did you destroy someone in her family?” Kristopher asked, his voice somber.

Haiden thought about that for a moment, trying to think of all the evil he had disposed of. There were so many of Nicolas’s little minions that he had done away with, that he didn’t think it was possible to remember this one woman.

Then it hit him.

The party, the night he went looking for the two vampires. The women were with the two he was looking for, but one of them went inside. He remembered vaguely seeing the color of her hair as it nearly touched the ground in the dance...

Giada heard every word before he spoke it aloud and her hands flew up to her mouth.

“She is avenging his death,” she whispered shakily.

“I killed her mate,” Haiden said to Kristopher and Cain. His voice came out in an angry rush, making it difficult to understand the words. “It was my mission to get him and his partner. But the woman he was dancing with on the patio went back inside. I thought it was an opportunity for me to move in. I never dreamed that she would come back to find me. I don’t even know how she knew of me!”

Kristopher ran a nervous hand through his light brown hair. He had been listening closely, and the look on his face showed that he understood perfectly how this could happen.

“Because she is a part of their clan,” he explained. “Nicolas knows that I brought you in to kill his followers. They must have been working directly under him for Nicolas to react like this.”

Haiden’s face was solid stone now, and the only movement that showed was the muscles in his jaw as he clenched his teeth tighter.

“We have to go to Paris then, and find her,” he demanded. “We have to go now!”

He rushed in the house to get Marcus. He was completely blinded now, and it was apparent that nothing was going to get in his way of the only thing he cared about now- saving the love of his life.

He slammed through the door and skidded into the foyer. Before he made it past the staircase, though, a sharp, stabbing pain coursed through his body and he collapsed on the ground beneath him. Haiden laid there gripping his arms with his hands, tears pouring out of his eyes as his entire body shook uncontrollably.

When the rest of them came to the door, they noticed Haiden lying on the ground, writhing in pain. The three of them hurried forward, and Giada leaned down to touch Haiden’s shoulder, her body going instantly stiff with the connection. Her eyes had gone blank and it was apparent that her mind was somewhere far away, trying hard to see something in the distance.

Kristopher waited nervously, watching his wife and wondering if he should shake her loose of the spell she was suddenly under. Footsteps sounded in the foyer- a loud, angry beat as Cain paced furiously next to the staircase.

“She is trying to wrench her arms free of the shackles,” Giada said abruptly, her voice sounding thin and remote as she relayed the thoughts she envisioned through Haiden. “When she attempted to break them, she gashed herself badly. She is trying hard to communicate to Haiden that she is in Paris. It is nighttime and there’s a grey stone balcony.”

Giada looked up at Kristopher, then, her eyes filling with tears as she heard the next of Adia’s thoughts.

“The morning is coming soon,” she whispered carefully.

“No!” Haiden roared as his fist crashed into the wall beside him.

“They’re going to burn her alive,” Cain whispered as Marcus entered the foyer, shock crossing his face.

“Then we must hurry,” Kristopher declared. “We only have a short amount of time until the sun rises in Paris.”