~~

Reece

~~

I did my best to not hurt Vincent even more as I pulled the large snake's fangs from his body. The long, thin fangs had pierced him through the center of his chest and right above his belly button. Blood was pouring out of him from both wounds, front and back.

The fangs had pierced right through his body, coming out his back and dripping venom onto the ground that was so strong it burned the grass. I knew that couldn't be good, the wounds or the poison. Both of them could potentially kill the man and I couldn't let that happen.

It took me a few minutes, but I managed to pull the fangs from Vincent's body. The entire time, he just laid there and groaned in pain. He didn't scream. He didn't say anything. He barely even looked at me while I tried not to cause him to feel even more pain than before.

"I'm sorry, Vincent. Just hang in there, buddy. I'm taking these out and David is getting someone to help you. It will be alright."

There was pain in Vincent's eyes when I looked into his face. With tears wavering in his eyes, I saw that he was trying to speak.

"P..pl..pl..please t..t..tell H..H..Hea..Heather and th..th..the k..k..kids th..th..that I..I..I l..love th..th..them." With every attempt he made to form a word I saw the pain intensify in his eyes. "A..a..and t..t..tell T..T..Tr..Trin..Trin..Trinity th..that I..I..I'm s..s..sorry. I..I..I'm s..so..sorry th..th..that I..I..I f..f..failed h..h..her." A tear rolled down his cheek as he spoke.

"You can tell them that yourself, Vincent. I am not going to let you die. I forbid you from dying. Do you hear me, Vincent? You are not allowed to die. Heather needs you. Your kids need you. Trinity needs you. I need you. You can't die, Vincent, you can't!"

Dammit. I was getting emotional. I didn't want this man to die. I didn't want to see a close personal friend pass away and leave his wife and kids in despair. I didn't want to see my Little Bunny's first ally, after becoming my mate, leave her. They have been working together for years now and I know that she will blame herself if he were to die. He was too important to us all to die.

As I was looking into the man's pain stricken face, I saw something blurred coming toward me. There was no sound accompanying that blur, but I knew what it was already. It had only been about five minutes at most, most likely less, but I knew that it was David coming back with someone to help Vincent.

"I went as quickly as I could." David said, not even out of breath when he stopped next to us. He had literally just sat down a very disoriented Griffin whom he had apparently carried the entire way here. "Griffin is the best healer I could think of." I didn't blame him for thinking that. Griffin had been blessed by Trinity and had abilities that not many people were capable of.

"Th..that was a little, uhm, unique." Griffin was trying to regain his bearings as quickly as possible. He shook his head a couple of times to physically shake off the dizziness that he must have been feeling from the run. "What happened here?" He asked when he saw Vincent sitting next to me, bleeding like crazy.

"He was bitten." I told him before pointing at the python's head. "By that."

"And I am guessing that thing is venomous." He said, already on his knees on the other side of Vincent and ripping open the man's shirt.

"Yeah, the venom was dripping onto the ground. I saw it leaving scorch marks where it touched."

"That's not good at all." Griffin didn't need to state that obvious fact for me to know that it was bad. Venom wasn't supposed to burn the ground like that. That was just some sort of overkill that these fucking dark Fae had cooked up. Dammit.

"G..Gr..Gr..Grif..Griff..Griffin, a..a..am I..I..I g..g..go..going t..t..to d..d..die?" Vincent was already preparing for that to happen. He just wanted Griffin to tell him.

"I hope not, Vincent." I saw light moving from Griffin's finger as he assessed and healed Vincent at the same time. "I don't want you to die."

I wanted to keep watching the scene. I wanted to watch Griffin heal Vincent and save the day, but I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to watch them for fear that the worst case scenario would come true.

As I turned away from them, I looked at the battle around me. Or should I say, the last stragglers of the fight that was happening around me. There were maybe a dozen dark Fae still clinging to the fight. The majority had either been killed or captured.

Most of the people that we were close to, the onlookers that is, were people we knew. Gloriana, Trevor, Landon, Dietrich, Shawn, Shane, David, and several other members of the council. They were all watching on to see if Vincent was going to make it. There was pain and sorrow in every face that I saw around us.

The battle was over. The war was most likely ending. But the victory was hollow without Trinity and Vincent. Where was my wife? And, would Vincent live? Those were things that I needed to know.

I was glad that the war was over. I was glad that the fighting was ending. But how many lives had we lost? Over these last couple of days, throughout every wave of this battle, how many people had we all lost in this fight?

Too many. If even one person, Fae, shifter, vampire, magic user, and of the people we called in for this war, if even one of them died then it was too many. This was a war that needn't have happened. This was a war that was started because someone was stupid and petty and over all just plain evil.

We needed to do something about this world. We needed to stop more people from dying senselessly like this.

"How many children have lost a parent? How many parents have lost a child? How many people have lost a lover? How much will all this carnage affect our world?" I hadn't meant to say those words out loud. I hadn't meant for anyone to hear the sorrow filled words as they escaped, unhindered, from my lips.

"I don't know, Reece." Trevor came to my side, Gloriana with him.

"I am sorry, Reece. I should have been more careful. I should have been paying closer attention. I should have made it so that Vincent didn't have to save me. This is all my fault."

"It's not your fault, Gloriana." I assured her. She was not used to fighting, she was not accustomed to battles like this. Even so, she had done an amazing job over the last few days. "Vincent did his job and protected you. He knew that Trinity would have been upset if you were hurt. He was just protecting Trinity by protecting you."

"But, if he dies, won't Trinity be-."

"Yes, she will be devastated." I nodded, not even needing her to finish her question."

I could only think of  two things at the moment, 'Hurry back, Little Bunny' and 'Please don't die, Vincent'. Those were the only thoughts in my head at the moment. That was all I could process at the moment while I watched Griffin pour a bright healing light into Vincent. The problem was, Griffin didn't look too hopeful.

"Come back, Little Bunny." I whispered the words. "Please, come back." 

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