Covered in Blood

*Rowan*

“Mara!” I try to keep my voice as calm as possible as I use the mind-link to call for any healers or guards who happen to be awake to rush to my mother’s room as soon as possible. James must be sleeping, which isn’t a surprise this time of night, so I rely on one of his assistants, asking her to get here as quickly as possible.
Dean isn’t answering either.
Mara stalks toward me, our mother’s blood still dripping from the end of the large steak knife she grasps in her fist. “It’s all your fault. You must die!”
I don’t want to hurt my sister. Whatever has made her react this way, I have to believe it’s not her fault. Stupid fucking Darksky had to have manipulated her some way. I should’ve trusted my gut when it was telling me that Mara had been placed under some sort of a spell.
But chastising myself isn’t going to help my mother or keep me from getting hurt as I wrestle the blade away from Mara. Mother is still breathing–I can hear the blood gurgling up her throat with each desperate gasp for air. The healers need to get here soon, but they won’t be able to get into the room at the moment, not with the desperate, wide-eyed princess coming at me.
“Mara, put that down,” I tell her in a calm voice. “This isn’t you. This is what Darksky wants you to do.”
She steps into the swath of light illuminating the doorway from a sconce left on somewhere down the hall, and I can see the blood splatter on her light pink nightgown. She moves like a goss covered specter, her blonde hair flowing, her eyes unfocused. I don’t see a trace of the girl I grew up with behind the glassy orbs staring me down.
“You! You did this. You took me away from him!”
“Away from who?” I’m not sure why I’m trying to reason with her at the moment. She clearly wants me dead–or at least, the people who programmed her to act this way do.
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she rushes me, a shrill screaming cutting through the sounds of Mother dying. Mara brings the knife down in a wide chopping motion. For a moment, I have a flashback to the last time I was stabbed. I’d opened my eyes just in time to see Darksky’s asshole assassin standing over me, but I hadn’t been quick enough then to react, and he’d gutted me.
This time, I’m fully awake, and my sister is no match for me. I easily grab her wrist and twist. The knife falls to the ground.
Mara lets out another scream as I pull her around so that her back is plastered to my chest. She begins to thrash. “No! No! Let me go! Let me go, you fucking cock sucker! You must die!”
“Mara!” I hold her tight, trying to calm her, but she will not relent. Footsteps echo down the hallway as the healers and a few guards arrive. I don’t release my sister to them just yet because I’m afraid she’ll get hurt. It’s ironic, in some ways, that I’m trying to protect the woman who just slit my mother’s throat.
“What the fuck?” I hear Dean’s voice and turn my head to see him rushing toward me. He’s the only one I trust to take Mara so I can check on our mother.
“She tried to murder Mother,” I explain. “Here, take her, but be careful. She’s not herself.”
It takes some doing, getting my thrashing, screaming, unhinged sister into Dean’s powerful arms so that he can restrain her. Mara manages to slice my cheek open with a fingernail, and Dean gets a bite to his forearm, but eventually, he has her under control. I rush into the bedroom where the healer, an older woman named Susan, is doing her best to help my mother.
I can tell immediately, though, that Susan isn’t going to be able to help. Mother has lost so much blood the bed appears to be painted red. She’s hardly breathing at all now, but when she draws in a shallow breath, the gurgling is replaced by quiet, methodic wheezing.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” Susan says with tears in her eyes. “I’m doing everything I can to help her, but–”
She doesn’t finish the sentence. “I know, Susan, I know.”
James comes flying into the room wearing only his pajama bottoms. He immediately assesses the situation and steps in to relieve Susan, who goes to where a few of the nurses are attempting to help the night nurse, but she’s been dead since before I tripped over her trying to get into the room.
My friend and healer starts shouting orders to other nurses and healers as they arrive, but it’s too little too late. Even if they would’ve arrived the second Mara drew her blade through Mother’s jugular, they likely wouldn’t have been able to save her. I stand near the foot of the bed and watch them do everything they can to save her, but eventually, James hangs his head. He turns to me with glossy eyes. “I’m so sorry, Rowan.”
I nod. Part of me accepted that my mother was dead the moment I encountered my sister standing over her. I brush a hand over my face and discover a few tears that I quickly wipe away. I will cry for her–later. I’ll mourn for her in the middle of the night and weep at her funeral, as I did at my father’s, but right now, I’m trying to understand how this all happened.
What the fuck did that bastard do to my sister?
I turn toward the door, step over the body lying in my way, and return to the hallway. Mara is gone–as is Dean. Seeing one of my guards, I ask, “Where did he take her?”
“To her room, Alpha, I believe,” he answers with a bow of his head. Everywhere I look, I see confusion and sadness. We’ve had such a small staff these past few years, everyone was close. Everyone either loved or respected my mother. Now, she’s dead–and no one can understand how it happened.
I notice the knife lying on the floor where I removed it from Mara’s hand. “Take that into evidence, Braxton,” I tell him, and then I hurry toward Mara’s room. The sound of glass breaking has me hurrying along. When I get to her room, I find the door locked and have to wait for a guard to unlock it. He fumbles with the key for a few minutes and finally gets it open.
In Mara’s room, Dean still has his arms wrapped tightly around her, but she’s struggling to break free of him, calling him all sorts of horrible names.
I’m just about to call for James when he comes flying through the door, already holding a needle in his hand. I move forward to help Dean control Mara as James manages to get the shot into the fleshy part of her upper arm and push the plunger.
It takes a few moments for the medication to kick in, and we continue to fight her until she slumps into my arms. We’re all breathing heavily from the altercation.
“Help me move her to the bed,” I say. “We’ll need to restrain her.”
A few moments later, Mara is attached to the bed, unconscious, her gown still splattered with blood.
“What the actual fuck?” Dean says for all of us, wiping sweat from his brow.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But I’m going to fucking kill Solomon Darksky.”