CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SHREDS AND SHALLOW BREATHS
The rest of the coven chases after him, but Carlisle barks at them to go back home in case Ariel goes there. His heart is already shattering enough as it is just at the idea of Alice's vision; he isn't sure what he would do if the coven was there to witness it. He already feels bad enough that Alice and Edward had to see whatever horrors could - or already has - happened to his beloved. They don't resist the suggestion too much, not when they see the dark shadows creasing through his eyes and hear the pained desperation in his voice that is threatening to break.
Carlisle immediately heads to Ariel's own house to see if Alice's vision has come to fruition. He barges through the back door, uncaring if it broke, bellowing her name out like thunder. The pigeons flew off the moment that they were able to and the fact that they do is the first sign that Ariel isn't present. The second sign is the fact that he's met with an empty household, he spots the shattered wine bottle on the floor - the glass remains everywhere they're not supposed to be. The fruit basket that she had proudly sent him a picture of is tipped over and spilled across the counter and floor.
But he can smell it immediately. He closes his eyes and he inhales it deeply and the monster that is crawling inside, scratching to get out, is just one little thread away from being loose. Ariel's scent is the strongest - it covers her house like a delicate perfume and he relishes in how fresh it is, how strong. She hasn't been gone long. But there is an undeniable scent of a human. Sweat, blood, scabbing skin and like the dust of an old church.
A scent he knows. Alice's words that had whistled through the wind as they ran, as she described what she could of her vision, spin through his mind - priest, knife, bloody. Clearing in the woods.
His eyes snap open, but there is no light reflecting in them. The dark abyss encasing them. The gleam glistening over his eyes is like a grim reaper's scythe as it swings on its target.
Father Briar.
His instincts guide him as he follows the scent of the damned priest.
He can hear Ariel's laughter - of all things - far off in the distance and it spurs him on. He would cry if he could, just at the mere sound of her makes his heart yearn. Every bit of his being screaming for her to hold on just a moment longer - that he is here. The tone of her voice sounds so enthralling and haunting; like a siren casting a spell before she tears the sailor it ensnares. He listens as her voice distorts into that of a wailing banshee, warning of death and bloodshed. An omen that he will fulfill, he vows it the moment that he realizes that the same clearing that they are in is the same one that had once been their own sacred ground.
Father Briar has no right to even stand on the very dirt where Carlisle kissed her lips.
Ariel's body hangs against the cliff side that they once leaned on in warmth. Thick chains binding her wrists. The sundress she wears would have been beautiful on her, but the color is soaked, darkened red and torn.
Any sound of her laughter is gone; she makes no notice of Carlisle's presence nor does she so much as stir. The smell of blood is stronger than the scent of the pine trees around them, wafting through the air like a deadly sin. Blood pools at the ground where her feet hover limply as it spills out of the thick deepened gashes along her shoulders and between her shoulder blades. Father Briar stands beside her brandishing the knife, digging it into her skin as if he is a poor man searching for gold in the dirt.
Carlisle didn't even know that she could get hurt. The idea was so foreign and distant, as it is with the rest of his family. It is an idea that is just too horrible to fully grasp, but he was foolish for ever thinking that anyone is incapable of being harmed; as much as he felt that she was in danger, it never fully registered that he may lose her.
Not until now. The moment that he realizes the very real possibility of losing her, the horrific scene in front of him harshly dragging him into reality as the dreams he had for her, for them, shatters like rose-tinted glass.
He blacks out; the world darkening to the point that it blurs around him as he jumps on the only thing that he wants to destroy. Every cell of his being is yelling at him to kill. He took her away from me.
The moment Carlisle spots Father Briar digging the knife into her, whatever control he may have had breaks away. The monster bellows; the sound of his heart shattering echoes into the roar through the night; loud enough that even miles away, the rest of the Cullens wince as the worst scenario starts to settle in their minds.
When the color starts to return to his eyes, dimmed and not quite as bright as hunger stirs in him but still yellow even as the blood of the remains of Father Briar are drenched into his clothes. His mind is foggy as control and sanity are slow to come back to him, but he still runs to her the moment that the priest is taken care of; the knife that the priest had used lays in the dirt.
He is barely even able to turn to her as she breathes out harshly, blood gurgling in the back of her throat as she screams. Whatever daze the priest had put her in - he knows that the love of his life is too strong to be overcome so easily - has worn off as her eyes snap open harshly.
He calls out to her, in such a heavy sense of relief that it is palpable in his voice, and concern for the wounds in her back as her arms flex. The chains around her wrists break, flying through the air at such a speed that he even has trouble dodging their remains as he runs toward her, prepared to catch her as she tumbles to the ground.
But as his arms reach out toward her, his fingertips brush against soft feathers, but he doesn't falter. His steps don't stop as he still reaches out to catch her as he takes in the sight of long wings outstretching from the spaces of the wounds on her back. Seeming to glow under the dark influence of night, the light-colored feathers are speckled with an auburn gold and as breathtaking as it is, as much as he wants to step back to admire it, his first thought is how much they suit her.
Even though some of her blood stains the ends of her wings.
Her wings drape against the ground as she collapses, but she can feel his arms tenderly and tentatively dip under her wings to wrap around her waist. He goes to his knees to gently guide her, supporting her weight as much as he can because as beautiful as her wings are, they are heavy. Heavier than he expected. Every time a feather grazes against his skin, they feel warm and heavenly.
He knows with certainty what she is now; he can't deny it, not when the evidence is draped over his arms as he helps support her. Not when looking at them fills some odd hollow spot in his heart, as if some primal part of his being knows what they are.
But it isn't the time nor tells himself he can get answers later - when she's better, when she's ready, when she wants to tell him everything because she will get the chance to if he has anything to say about it.
"Careful, love," Carlisle mutters softly, "I'll take care of you, don't worry."
Her blood drips and mixes with her murderer along his clothes. Her eyes look at him - her eyes are glistening as she smiles, reaching out to cup his cheek. He wishes that she wouldn't look at him like that. As if she's trying to memorize his face, as if it would be the last thing that she would ever see. As if she is trying to comfort him when he should be comforting her. His chest hurts so much that he knows that vampires must have souls - that Edward must be wrong - because his is aching so much just at the scent of her blood and the look in her eyes.
"Takes more than a deranged idiot to make me worried."
Her words are a bit slurred. Her eyes are just a bit dimmer than he would like them to be as they glance around, taking in everything as she comes back to reality. He makes a comment about taking her to the hospital, but she waves him off nonchalantly and as much as he wants to disobey her, he knows that a hospital won't do much for her. Not now.
Her eyes still scan in everything with a certainty that shouldn't be possible with how much blood she's already lost. He winces when her eyes drift toward what he did to Father Briar, but she doesn't even flinch.
"I would've done it," her voice is soft, "But I guess you beat me to it just like I thought you would."
He lets out a soft laugh at the casualness of her statement, placing a gentle kiss to her knuckles.
"Promise me that you won't beat yourself over this," Ariel whispers softly, her eyes glistening as she meets his gaze evenly, pleading with him. When he is finally able to whisper his promise, swearing to her that he won't, no matter how it makes him turn on the inside knowing that he won't be able to uphold it.
But it seems to be enough for her. She rests her head on his chest and her eyes drift close as she finally relaxes. He can't help the astonished breathless sigh of awe that leaves his lips as the wings that draped over his arms vanish so smoothly, with no trace of them, leaving him cradling her body closer to his. He doesn't question it, not much, not when he just wants to hold her and never let her go just like he promised her.
He's felt her body's warmth so often that he knows it's colder than it should be. Her chest still rises and falls with shallow breaths.
"Carlisle," Ariel hums softly, "Take me home."
Reference for Ariel's wings: Golden Sakar Falcon
