Bloodstream

53 Is This It?

Sage

"This is not possible" 

"Is it not?"

Axel was pacing the distance between the bed and windows frantically with his hands on his hips. His coat was lying on the floor across the room, his tie undone, his hair absolutely dishevelled. 

I didn't know what else to say. I didn't even know if Hunter was speaking the truth or just trying to get under our skin again. This was a bad idea. This whole thing was a bad idea. We should have had Ezra's stupid Festum in Kallihan. 

No, that would have been too obvious. 

But now that I look at it. No one has been civil to each other since we've landed out here, so is any of this believable in the first place?

"Sage, do you understand what that means?" he ran his hand through his hair for the hundredth time, giving me a weak look. 

Yes, of course I knew what that bloody meant.  

I gave him a hopeful look "He said he wasn't sure if the rumours from the witches were true or not, so…" 

"So he went out on a whim and slaughtered her" he dropped his hands to the side in defeat… in disbelief?

"Listen…"

"Sage, don't" he put his hand up to stop me from taking a step further towards him "What if he isn't bluffing? What if..."

That frantic apologetic look was gone from his eyes, replaced by a vacancy I couldn't bear to see. 

"I guess we'll never know…." I whispered, fully aware that I wasn't being of any help. But neither did this situation. 

Pheonix implying about Madelyn being pregnant? How was that even possible? And even if it was true she would have died anyway. Humans can't carry dark energy like ours, especially a pure blood child. She would have died even if Pheonix didn't do it. But saying that out loud right now would only make everything so much more worse for Axel. 

"I couldn't save her…" he mumbled to himself and turned away from me to rest his hand against the glass window. His whole body was so tense… I hadn't seen him like this in a while. 

"You did everything you could, Axel" my body moved towards him.

"And what about you?" he looked at me with defeat in his eyes before gazing out of the window again. 

"What?"

"I couldn't get to you in time either" 

No.

I whipped him around to face me and grabbed his face in my hands "There was nothing either of us could have done, Axel. We didn't even know this was possible until it was too late" 

"I'm sorry" he whispered and for the first time I ever saw a tear slip from his eye. I instinctively reached out to wipe it away and he made my heart ache even more by leaning into my palm, squeezing his eyes shut. 

"Axel, don't do that" I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face into his neck. He wrapped his arms around me, completely engulfing me in his powerful frame. 

We stayed like that for a white, wrapped up in each other's warmth. He stroked my back as if he was consoling me, when in reality it was him that seemed in need of it, but he was calming down. His shoulders slumped down a little, his heartbeat was coming down from the rush to match mine. 

"Sage?" he pushed my hair to the side, his lips brushing my skin sent a chill through me, making the tiny hairs on my body stand on edge. 

"Yeah" I pulled away from his hot breath against my neck to drown in those violent swirling greys of his.