Warning: There is blood, gore and murder in this chapter! It is dark! This chapter is rated R. You have been warned!

The Gift of Cursed Blood

Chapter 9: The Price

Duo and Hilde followed Natasha’s soldier up a narrow set of stairs slowly, neither of them knew what was going to happen and their uncertainty showed plainly on both their faces. They both wondered what this woman had up her sleeve this time. Duo wondered what he was going to do once he reached Natasha’s room. He wondered if the children were there with her. What were they doing? How were they doing? Had she done something to them? Where had she kept them this whole time they had been away from their mother?

Hilde, on the other hand, was angry at the woman who had taken her children from her. She had taken them for no reason at all and she hated her for it. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on her. She wanted to tear her limb from limb. She wished the woman would just spontaneously combust. How dare she put her hands on Lucas and Claire? How dare she attempt to put a price on their lives? She and Duo were not worth anything compared to their children, and neither was Natasha. Ten of her would never equal Lucas and Claire.

They were precious; they were clean and untainted. The were not jaded by the outside world. They were as pure as the white, falling snow flakes. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice when the soldier stopped and she collided with his back.

The man glared at her and turned back to open the door at the end of the long stairway.

Natasha was smiling broadly when the three of them entered the chamber. Her eyes were alight with glee and satisfaction and they never left their faces.

Hilde hoped her face cracked from the big smile she had and scanned the room for any sign of her children. When she finally saw them her mother’s heart broke. She tried to run to them but was stopped by large, uncaring hands. She looked behind her to glare at the soldier and her heart sank into her stomach. Four more soldiers had joined the single one they had been following. Her angry eyes went back to Natasha’s smiling face. Hilde’s eyes were ablaze with anger and resentment towards the redheaded woman. She was so angry and the tightly kept leash she had on her emotions threatened to give. Her emotions screamed to be let free, to spill over. She wanted rain to come down, she wanted hail and she wanted to make the fire in earth’s core come up and consume Natasha.

Lucas and Claire didn’t say anything, but they did cast hopeful glances at Duo and Hilde. They knew better than to try anything when the woman, Natasha, was in the room. They were scared of her. She had yelled at them and she had slapped them before.

“I’m so glad you both could make it,” she said, genuinely happy. She smiled again, broadly, her eyes held amusement.

Neither responded to her comment, their eyes were fixed in Lucas and Claire. On their dirty, tattered clothing. Their tiny wrists bound by a rough length of rope. Duo physically flinched at the thought of their tender skin being touched by the coarse rope.

“Come now, don’t be so shy! We’re all her together,” she said and laughed. She would make them all pay for what they had done to her.

“Let them go!” Hilde yelled at her. She was breathing hard and the constriction in her chest was painful. She wanted to cry so badly. She had a lump in her throat and she was afraid it would choke her. She wanted to run to Lucas and Claire and hold them.

Natasha moved towards the children and both Duo and Hilde tried to get here before her but the soldiers’ hands held them tightly by their upper arms and pulled them back. They forced them both to their knees on the hard stone floor.

“Leave them alone, you bitch!” Duo yelled. “They have nothing to do with this!”

Hilde continued to fight against the hands that held her. Two guards held each of them and they saw one walk towards Natasha, who was now a few feet away from the children. The soldier grabbed the rope that held the children and yanked it upwards harshly making them stand up.

Hilde felt her hands grow hot with the need to do something, anything. She had a tight reign on her powers but it got more difficult with each passing second. She fisted her hands until they hurt, never taking her eyes away from her children.

“Oh but they have everything to do with it, my dear Duo. They are the reason you will not marry me. And I always get what I want, and if I don’t… well… then I destroy it,” she said matter of factly. She reached her hand out to softly caress Claire’s chestnut tresses.

“Don’t touch her!” Lucas yelled bravely. That earned him a chuckle from Natasha and a hard tug of the rope from the soldier.

“Such a brave little soul,” she said and continued to stroke the little girl’s hair. “Such beautiful children you two have. And they look so much like you Duo!” She laughed prettily and flipped her hair over her shoulder.

“Leave them alone, Natasha. Take your anger out on Hilde and me but leave them alone!”

Natasha scowled and grabbed a fistful of the hair she had been almost lovingly stroking, making the little girl scream in pain.

“Don’t touch her! I swear I’ll kill you if you hurt her,” Hilde screamed. She once again tried to get up but the soldiers kept her down with a firm grip. “Can you read my mind? Can you? Can you see what I want to do to you? What I will do to you?” she screamed again.

Natasha’s mood brightened again and she laughed. “Hilde, Hilde, you must calm down. You don’t want me to hurt her do you?” With her hand still in Claire’s hair she produced a dagger from within the folds of her gown. “Because if you push me too hard I’ll hurt her and then him.,” she said pointing at Lucas.

Duo stared angrily at Natasha and the dagger she held in her hand. “You’re insane!”

She looked at him and scowled once again. She pulled Claire’s head back even further and put the dagger up to her neck.

The little girl whimpered making Hilde struggle more against her captors.

Duo immediately regretted his words. He was breathing hard now too with the anger and fear of what Natasha could do to Lucas and Claire.

“Don’t say that Duo,” she purred. “I’m not insane. My father is insane and you’re insane for turning my offer of marriage down! I’m not insane!” she yelled and dug the tip of the dagger a little bit more into the girl’s neck. She whimpered again but didn’t scream. Her violet yes, so much like Duo’s, were wide with fear but she kept them open and on the woman who held her young life in her hands.

“I’m getting tired of this! I’ll make you all pay for what you did to me! I’ll make you pay for keeping me here with my father in my misery!” She dug the dagger further into Claire’s neck, hard enough to draw blood.

Hilde screamed and the clouds appeared. She frantically tried to get up and out of the hands of the men that held her. With their combined strength she couldn’t get up and they held her to watch how Natasha hurt her daughter.

“Oh God! I’ll marry you if that’s what you want but don’t hurt her! Stop it! I’ll make you my wife but stop it!”

Natasha laughed again but this time her true, sick nature showed. She looked outside and saw it was raining. “You think that will make it all better?” She shook her head and laughed again. “It’s not about that anymore. This is all about teaching you all a lesson. You don’t get a second chance here, Maxwell. I make the rules and I say you don’t get a second chance to make everything right with me!” She looked down at the bleeding little girl in her arms and her eyes hardened. She plunged the dagger into the girl’s neck and watched her bleed. The little girl’s eyes widened in pain and in horror. She grabbed at her slender little neck but the bleeding was too much. She gurgled and blood poured from her mouth, her eyes rolling to the back of her head to finally close. She went limp and Natasha let her drop onto the floor all the while staring at the dagger she held in her hand.

Hilde’s eyes were wide with horror. In a second she was on her feet, the guards trying desperately to hold her thrashing body. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” she screamed over and over again. “No! Claire, Claire!” Rivulets of tears fell from her eyes and her cheeks were now completely wet. She thrashed around wildly trying to get to her daughter.

Duo closed his eyes at the sight. Anger and shame swelled up in his chest. Tears leaked from his tightly shut eyes.

Natasha looked around wildly and her eyes landed on Lucas. She stumbled over Claire’s now lifeless body and grabbed the little boy. “I’ll make you all pay,” she whispered. She grabbed the little boy and once again delivered a killing blow.

Hilde lost it then and with great strength and speed she tore away from the soldiers that had been struggling to keep her still. She blindly charged at Natasha, who was taken by surprise and had to time to react. Hilde grabbed the dagger that had killed her children from Natasha’s hand and sank it into Natasha’s neck and chest.

Kill her! Stab her! Take away her life!

She stabbed Natasha over and over and over again.

The soldiers stared at her in shock and fear. The small, black haired woman was like a savage beast. She tore at Natasha’s chest with the dagger like it would make her children come back to life.

The soldiers who held Duo, snapping out of their shock first, dropped his arms and tried to stop Hilde. A big mistake. Hilde turned on them, her eyes glazed over. The storm raged outside as well as inside. Wind swirled around in the room and Hilde pounced on the two men, like some wild panther, and they were dead within seconds.

Tbc...

AN: Um... *fidgets nervously* did yo like that chapter? I had trouble writing it. I couldn’t bring myself to kill poor little Claire but I had to. It was my plan all along. Please R&R!!!