Chapter 171

Cassie

There was something beautiful and soothing about being woken up wrapped in the arms of the person you loved most in the world.

There was no birds singing , the weather was too icy cold for that but I didn't need bird song to wake me up because I had children.

Two gorgeous dark haired little boys who were wailing from the next room and by the sounds of it more that ready for their milky breakfast.

Sleepily I stretched , my heart so full of love and happiness that even though they were screeching away I was in no real rush to go to them.

I was a doctor, growing up that's all I had wanted to be. I had thought so anyway but now I was a mother and wife as well. And those two things made my life complete. When this whole mess was over and we went back to reality I would practice medicine again. I would somehow manage to juggle a loving family and a fulfilling careers. Millions of other women did it so I knew I could.

But for now I was just happy-

Julian's eyes met mine. Wide and almost frightened. Any happiness I had been feeling evaporated like a puff of air in the chilly room.

"Cassie." His lips moved to shape my name but no more than a hiss came out. Deep in my chest my heart began to gallop.

He heard it. I could tell by his face that he could hear our twins crying in the next room even though we both knew they weren't there.

"You hear them don't you?" I asked in an equally low whisper.

Julian didn't say anything at first. His eyes kept flicking from me to the door and back again. A muscle in his jaw was twitching and he was so on edge , he felt like a rock hard marble statue next to me.

"They aren't here." He muttered finally. "They aren't-" He repeated again like a chant. Maybe to try and convince himself. Wildly he looked at me. "Cassie?" He implored and it was at that moment that I saw the pain in his eyes. I'd been blind to it before. To engrossed on my own pain that I hadn't even noticed that he was grieving the twins loss as well.

Quick on the heels of that revelation was the realisations that if he was hearing them , which he clearly was then I most definitely wasn't crazy.

Unless madness could spread like a disease.

"I need to-" flipping the heavy blankets back he had one leg out of the bed before I realised what he was doing and tackled him back. It took all of my strength to pin him down onto the mattress. Straddling him, I caught his wrists and forced them down on either side of his head.

It would have been hot but sex and pleasure was the last thing on either of our minds.

"Julian stop." My heart kept thundering in my chest. So hard that it was painful. It felt like my heart was going to beat its way right out of my chest.

"I need-" Julian struggled and I had to lean all my weight on his wrists. Not that it would have made much difference if he really wanted to get away.

"I need to get to them." He finished.

"They aren't here." Lowering my face to his I brushed my lips to his. "The twins aren't here , they are far far away. Niall and Noah are safe. I don't know what you are hearing but it isn't them."

"Are you?" He began to say.

"Yes." I nodded. "I hear them. Loud and clear but we have to remember that what we are hearing isn't real. We can't go running off." I added. That's what I'd done , and look where that had got me.

"I know." His body slumped. "I know it isn't real but the pull to go to them feels like a tether to my heart."

I stared at him in shock. That was exactly how it had felt to me as well. Like my heart was connected to two little souls who desperately needed me. It wasn't that I wanted to go to them , and more I needed to.

Needed- lights burst in my eyes. Too bright, like the flashes from a camera at close range. Pain radiated from my eyes to spear my brain.

Crying out , I slammed the heels of my hands into my eyes. Pressing down so hard that darkness should have eased the light induced pain. Only it didn't. The light was still blinding.

The clash of metal on metal rent my brain.

Crying out again I toppled to the side, curling myself up in the foetal position.

"Cassie?" Julian's voice pierced the pain , I blinked my eyes open and the world was back to normal again. Weak winter sunshine, and no sound but the noise of our mingled ragged breathing. And faint, so faint that I wasn't sure it was there. The sound of our children crying for us.

"You came back to me." Julian whispered, covering us both with the blanket and tightening his arms around me. "You scared me." He shook his head.

I didn't know what he had seen on my face or how long I had been screaming but I found comfort in his arms around me.

"I'm sorry, just-"

A wail went up and both of us tensed.

"We have to ignore it." He muttered more to himself than me. He was right though. We had to.

Grabbing the top of the quilt I yanked it up over our heads.

"We stay here until it stops and then-" I took a deep shaky breath. "We go and talk to Scarlett."

His eyes met mine and he nodded. We were thinking the same thing, I could see. Something was wrong in Scarlett's pack. Something lurked between the darkness of the trees.

"There's something evil in these woods."