"Victoria, I love you, baby," his masculine voice whispered into my ears like he was here before an image of him appeared to me as everyone else vanished.
"Orlando," I uttered his name as he wiped away the lingering teardrop from my eyelid.
"You're not real," I uttered as his solid hand touched my cheekbone.
His breathtaking ocean-blue eyes sparkled more vividly than the Hope Diamond. My fingertips brushed through his short-cut ultralight blonde hair, which almost felt silky, though he always hated me saying that about his hair. His diamond-oval-shaped face was etched like a dreamy Greek warrior, and his nose was flawlessly ordinary without a knot or kink out of place.
"What are you talking about, baby? I'm here. Like I always am." Orlando's breathless voice resonated like an angel ascending from heaven.
His soft lips kissed mine, and I instantly melted as he embraced me into his loving arms. Perfectly kissable, his lips were naturally ideal, and I could never get enough of his taste.
"Dance with me, baby," his capturing breath fanned against my lips as he pulled me forward into a land of clouds as his lips drew in to kiss me some more. But this time, I yanked away, backing up as I left him in the dreamy rainbow-colored clouds.
"You're not real. Even if you are, I will always choose Kai because he's my destined mate," I whispered as Orlando desperately reached his hand out for me to take it, but I wouldn't give in to him and maintained my distance.
Those majestic ocean-blue eyes warped into a blood-red raging sea. He lunged at me, and I fell, hitting the snowy ground. Coldness encased my body as my mind came into reality. Along with those rainbow clouds, Orlando was gone.
"Wow, she has stronger willpower than I thought," Bella seemingly complimented me as I sat upright on my hand from lying on my side.
"Ah!" my mouth gasped when I almost rolled off the cliff before I realized I was lying across the edge.
Mustering every ounce of my strength, I collected it all and stood to my feet, and I got away from the edge, facing them. Each time Bella blurred my heart and mind to see Orlando, she kept veering me to fall off of the cliff, which I couldn't allow her to accomplish.
"Her connection to Kai is too strong. Break her heart. Remind her of what she felt and lost with Orlando," Roxy instructed while she grinned.
"It won't work!" I yelled before intense pain pierced my heart.
Another slam struck my heart with such might as Bella performed her evil wing spell over me when her song entered my head. All the lies about Orlando filled my heart. He never once loved me. His love was nothing more than a scheme to ensure I never found Kai's detained body in Egypt so he could marry me. Then he would turn me into a vampiress himself once he told me the truth about vampires, but I would've never known about Kai. Emotions of grief drowned my heart once the dam broke. Without meaning to, I wailed a tearless cry from the pain that floundered inside my heart.
"That's right. Let it all out. Vampires can be such jerks. I had a few heartbreaks myself," Bella encouraged as she shared her pointless relationships with me.
Then she pulled another twist on me and added all those happy memories of Orlando and me. Everything I had pushed aside and forgotten resurfaced in my mind and heart. Kai's face withered as Orlando's replaced his. My eyes snapped awake just as fast, if not maybe faster, as I found myself staring at the crashing waves from below me, yet the pain was still there.
"Just think, all the pain you feel will go away if you jump," Athena's voice enticed me the wrong way.
"Come to me, my baby," Orlando's voice called me from the sea below.
"Orlando..."
The pain of Orlando pressed on my heart so severely that jumping seemed to be my only solution to end it. Bella made me feel as if I couldn't live without Orlando, and I wanted the pain of facing that reality to go away.
"Jump and be free," Bella's euphonious voice sang, and my right foot stepped forward.
"Victoria, don't listen to them!" Kai's roaring voice resounded far behind my back, but it was too late.
My entire body fell forward as I plummeted closer and closer to those raging icy tidal waves until someone's arms wrapped around my waist. I was scooped up like a bride in Kai's arms, and he flew us back up to the cliff like Superman.
He put me on the ground as Seth's clan was battling Kai's clan, and the vampiresses from Seth's clan were gone with Athena. Then Roxy and Bella were already captured by Kai's guardians. Brandon unfurled his wings, and he spun in a half circle, severing off six heads from Kai's guardians straight off of their necks with his sharp wingtips. Their headless bodies flopped to the snowy blood-covered ground. Seconds later, I saw their heads rolling back over to their headless bodies, and then their heads reattached themselves to their necks before the guardians stood up to battle again, while my jaw hung loose with disbelief at what I had witnessed.
Arms were gnawed off while legs were torn out of the joints. Some vampires screwed their torn limbs back onto their bodies. Other vampires grew a new limb while their detached body parts rotted within seconds on the ground as I gaped my mouth in utter shock.
Once Brandon was seized by Jack and Ivan, Seth called his clan with a whistle, and they whisked away, leaving Bella, Roxy, and Brandon at the mercy of Kai's clan.
To my uttermost surprise, Headmaster Edgar and his advisors whisked in with Athena held by them, which had Seth return with his advisors since he'd never abandon his mate.
"Let her go!" Seth growled at Edgar. "My mate had nothing to do with their warfare!"
"By the Vampire Covenant, you weren't to touch Victoria unless you made warfare with the Collin Coven!" Edgar snapped at him.
Athena responded as she resisted, being restrained between Edgar's two advisors who had her seized by her forearms, "The Silverdawn Coven were the ones ending the warfare with the Collin Coven. All I did was tell them how to reach Victoria. My actions are legal according to the Vampire Covenant. Isn't that right, Headmaster Danny?"
Most of us turned our heads to the right as another Light and his advisors came around the trees, wearing hooded black cloaks.
"She's right. I have been observing the situation before any of you showed up. You are to release Queen Athena," Danny demanded from Edgar.