Icarus
He felt the scream before he heard it.
Like muscles popping apart from strain, like a bone giving way from too much goddamn weight, like a blade tearing through his chest. His ribcage folding, spine splintering, body seizing.
A flower pulled from its stem wailed in silence, but it burned.
It was pain like no other. And it slammed into him, stopping him in his tracks like a bullet to the head. And then the sounds, the awful fucking sound of Elysian's screams.
Primal, raw, like a soul torn into two. A guttural cry that did not seem natural, did not sound like it could come from anything that lived. The sound of loss had a tempo to it that he could not quite describe. A badly tuned violin, threads pulled and vibrating. It was a low, awful hum that collapsed through the octaves.
Pain.
Inhuman, unimaginable pain.
He must have teleported somehow because another second, and he stood at the door to the sight of blood on the floor. A panicked twitch, a blink. Old blood poured from Elysian's lips. His tears were red. He lay on the floor like a corpse, twitching with pale skin and wide, red eyes.
"Elysian," Icarus breathed, his hands shaking.
Elysian seized. He writhed on the ground, frothing at the lips. Another spurt of rust spilt down his chin. The vampire retched, and the colour seemed too dark, too bleak. The cries were fucking awful. It reminded Icarus of the sobs from a Lonely. The moments after the transformation, when they wailed as if they were still alive, still there, still thinking.
It had him standing still, shaking, unable to think, unable to comprehend. Solar was rushing in on fairy wings, arms around their mate. There were paramedics. Doctors. Nurses.
He followed them.
Something was wrong.
Something in him already knew what had happened.
Icarus's heart was twisting. He didn't want the answers to his questions. His anxieties. His fears. His heart pounded, his body trembling, quivering. His bond, as clouded and as murky as it was, felt intact. It felt whole. It felt alive.
Elysian was not crying for their mates.
He was crying for her.
"HE DID IT," Elysian screamed. He was thrashing, fingers clawing into the air for something—someone—who wasn't there. His back arched, his body seizing through dry, animalistic sobs. Solar was working on overdrive to keep him calm, hands glowing on the vampire's back. "He fucking did it. HE FUCKING DID IT."
Icarus did not need to be told to know what had happened.
Quinn was dead.
He had not said his apologies, had not told her everything that he had felt. He had always wanted to comfort her, to hold her, to cherish her, to tell her that he loved her.
There was a lot more he wanted to do.
And there was a lot more that Icarus could have done. But he had done nothing to soothe her. He stood and watched. He did not treat her well and had left her alone to cry about the horrors of his world. He did not think to do better because Icarus had wanted to protect himself. Avoidance was key; ignorance was bliss. He had wanted to protect his heart, his heart which had shivered after their kiss.
He knew she was destined to die. His feelings did not matter; the pack's survival did. Klaus had told him that, had pulled Elysian and Icarus into a room to repeat those words again and again. Pack or Quinn? Pack or Quinn? The answer was obvious. But now he wanted nothing more than to tell her how sorry. How awful he felt for letting his pack Omega know that she was Euodia.
It was his fault.
He killed her.
He knew this would happen.
Icarus couldn't fucking breathe.
B-But why? WHY?" Elysian's cries were twisted from his throat. A single hiccup, an inhale. "He knew what it would do to me. HE KNEW HOW HARD IT WOULD BE FOR ME. I TOLD HIM NOT TO. I TOLD HIM SHE WASN'T EUODIA—"
Solar's voice was calmer than it should be, quieter and too fucking careful. "Shhh, it'll be alright—"
"No," Elysian wailed, thrashing harder. "No. No. No. NO. NO. NO—"
A needle was jabbed into his arm and Elysian collapsed into the bed. Icarus's horror spiked. What the fuck? The monitor. Solar rose from his place on the bed. The doctors and nurses swarmed closer, they were pushing Elysian away. They were dressing him in a pale blue frock, plugging him up with drugs that bleached his senses.
"What are you doing?" Icarus yelled. His eyes were shifting, twisting to the professionals who strapped his mate into the bed, clamped his wrists and ankles. The Omegas were preparing him for something awful.
"He's already transforming." Solar had a hand on his shoulder. Icarus's eyes snapped to Elysian's lips, to the drip of something dark that stained his lips. Ink. The elder vampire was pushed into a room, and the doors clattered close. "Just trust me. Klaus has a plan."
"A plan?" Icarus laughed, sharp and broken. But the situation was a whirlwind of horror, a clusterfuck of bullshit. And all he could do was pace with a hand on his chest, feeling for the death of his mates. "What kind of fucked up plan is this?"
"Everything has been accounted for."
"We didn't fucking tell you about her just for you to run off and fucking shoot her in the goddamn head," Icarus roared. "I told you about her so that you'll—" His words caught in his throat, panicked tears beading in his eyes. So that they'll what? What did Icarus want them to do? What could they have done?
Solar was awfully quiet. A beat, and he opened his mouth to speak. "So that we'll?" He was so fucking calm, so fucking cruel.
"Make better fucking decisions!" Icarus snarled, pushing forward to slam his mate against the wall.
This wasn't a strategy. This was a sacrifice. This was murder. The fairy had gone silent, and Icarus stood quivering, now feeling colder and more awful than he had ever felt in his life. No. His lips trembled. He released the fey, backed off to sink against the wall, head in his hands. Her beautiful face flashed behind his eyelids, flushed a carnation pink. That stupid fucking kiss.
She was dead.
What had he wanted to do when he had confessed that Quinn was Euodia? What had he wanted to happen? Guilt had eaten him alive when he'd spoken the truth. His breath escaped him in short pants. He already knew what they could have done. He already knew what Klaus would do. And he'd confessed because Zen's bond had felt as if it were decaying. The situation had been dire.
He'd panicked, he'd feared—
She was dead.
"Klaus," Solar said softly, "will be fair. He has thought of everything that could have happened. He would have made it quick. He did what had to be done."
Those words seemed to explode in Icarus's brain. Something within him felt as if it were fracturing, lightning shattering through his core. He felt as if he were collapsing, imploding like a dying star.
His Omega roared.
"You're making a fucking mistake," Icarus snarled. "You're both making the biggest fucking mistake of your goddamn lives—"
Milky.
Sweet.
Unmistakable.
The new milky scent was what had him freezing, eyes wide, growing hotter as he turned to stare. Elysian had been wheeled out from the operating room. The vampire laid motionless behind them, strapped to the bed, a patient restrained.
His mate's scent was always a little sweet, a touch of yoghurt and a dribble of juice. But there was a new smell on him, one that wafted up deliciously. One that pulsated like peach and milk, jiggled with sugar, twitching from within Elysian. A new scent now wafted from his skin.
A scent that made his Omega instincts roar.
Milky.
Sweet.
A father's scent.
And Icarus knew.
"You used him." Icarus's voice trembled. "You fucking used him." Solar did not seem fazed and had simply gestured for the nurses to push Elysian into another room. One with a glass window that allowed them to look upon his sleeping form.
"It had to be done," Solar whispered. Icarus's mind was breaking as he stared. "I survived a broken claim because I had her child. Elysian will too." His smile was cruel. "It's male. We made sure."
Icarus felt as if he were going colder, eyes burning, molten unfurling.
"The packs that make it through the Lonely's affliction had pregnant mates. It is good that this little one took so quickly." Solar's smile was soft. "It would have been difficult if it didn't take so well, but his Omega holds on so desperately. I'd be surprised if it didn't."
"You're out of your fucking mind."
"Look at him, he's alive. He's stable."
"YOU TURNED HIM INTO A FUCKING INCUBATOR!" His voice was breaking, shattering. Icarus sniffed long and hard. Tears burned in his throat. His eyes were trained upon his sleeping mate. "You're fucking insane."
"We do what needs to be done."
"You don't know what you're fucking doing," Icarus's voice peaked then into a scream. "You didn't even fucking ask for permission, you used him. You don't even know what you've done—"
"We were running out of time. It was going to be either one of us. Trust me, if I could, I would. But Elysian's her mate." Solar turned to look at him then. "With this, he'll live. He'll do anything to live, to keep the last of her alive. And eventually, he will recover."
"What was the plan?" Icarus's growl was loud, awful, vibrating disgustingly in his chest.
"Keep your voice down."
"What was the fucking plan?"
"He'd find our boys. He'll make sure they're safe," Solar murmured.
"And then what?"
Solar seemed to hesitate, and then quietly he spoke. "He'd kill her. Take her heart. And if that hurts Elysian—" He looked at the glass where Elysian lay, unmoving. "—I'd inseminate him. So he wouldn't die."
Icarus's knees seemed to give out. He hit the floor. His hands shook as he scrubbed his face hard. She was dead. She was gone. The confirmation was still just as awful, just as sickening. He wanted to vomit. After everything, after all he had said, after all the silence, all the distance, all the love he had buried too deep inside of him.
Gone.
His heart was a thunderstorm, wild and splitting from agony. His rage billowed.
Solar's brow deepened into a frown. "Icarus, please be realistic."
Icarus looked up at him. "You killed her."
Solar's jaw was clenched tight. "She was already dead."
"She survived!" His scream echoed down the hallway. "She fought and survived! She wasn't Euodia—"
"She was."
"She wasn't."
"She is," Solar snapped. "It's in her DNA."
Icarus shattered then, fist hitting the wall hard enough to break skin. There was blood on his knuckles, bubbling as he pulled away with a scream. Solar's frown was disgustingly disapproving.
Icarus could not bring himself to look at him.
"You're a fucking murderer," Icarus spat. "She was Quinn." There was no response. Just the soft buzz of machines, and the scent of peach and milk bleeding into the air.
"She's just one girl," Solar mumbled. It was almost as if he were trying to comfort himself. "And you are all so much more important to me than she is." He swallowed hard then and sighed. "Look, look at your mate who lives."
Icarus turned then to stare at Elysian. Elysian, who stirred so quickly, so rapidly that there was not enough time for Icarus to calm himself, for Icarus to school his features into a pleasant smile. Icarus quivered.
"Please don't make this harder for me," Solar begged.
"You did this." Icarus gritted his teeth. "You. Did. This."
"You have to convince him to eat her heart," Solar whispered softly. How cruel. "You need to help me. He'll listen to you. Please, for us all." Icarus was silent then, speechless.
"I liked her."
"I know, I did too."
"I—" His voice caught in his throat. "I loved her."
Solar's eyes were a mire of tears then, his voice breaking just enough to show how he felt. "I'm sorry."
That was the worst part.
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