Dreams of Eden (Ace of Queens # 4)

CH.33 Mother

Chapter 33

Eden heard the crackling of the fire before she opened her eyes. The scent of the smoke burned her lungs as she dared to open her eyes.

The house in front of Eden was ablaze. The porch, the swing, the windows.....everything. Everything was going down in the raging red and orange fury.

"Eden?" Someone called her.

Eden sat up slowly on the muddy ground and looked up.

"Mom...." her voice came out in a hoarse whisper.

The blonde woman with the radiant brown eyes smiled down at the girl in the mud. She smiled lovingly as she smoothed back the hair from her daughter's face.

"Let's go home, baby," She said quietly.

"Where are we?" Eden looked around. She was still frightened by the fire, but in her mother's arms, for the first time she felt warm.

"Where it all started," Eve, Eden's mother, said. "You have to get up now."

Eden let Eve pull her up to her feet. The back of her mind tried to whisper something to her but seeing her mom after so many years brought her to tears.

"Why are you crying, my sunshine?" Eve frowned.

"I missed you," Eden confessed.

"We will be together now," Eve pulled her daughter into an embrace. "I've missed you too."

"There is so much I want to tell you," Eden wept.

"No here. This is no place to talk."

"Where are we going?" Eden asked as her mother began to lead her away from the fire.

"We're going home," Eve said as she looked over her shoulder.

"Home?" The word tasted odd on Eden's lips.

Suddenly, a warm carefree laugh pulled Eden back. She stopped in her tracks and turned around.

"Alec?" She asked peering into the dark woods.

"There's no one there, dear," Eve said.

Eden waited a few more seconds before she turned and followed her other again.

They walked for a while longer before Eden's ears picked up Alec's voice from afar.

"If you're mad at me, sunshine, yell at me, scream at me....just never walk away from me."

"Alec?" Eden called out to him once more as she turned to the burning house in the distance.

"I love you forever,"

"We can go anywhere you want,"

"You are so beautiful, Eden Heywood,"

"I don't want her...I want you."

"You are my mate, Eden."

"Alec?" Eden called out to him as she dropped her mother's hand and ran towards the house.

"Eden?" Alec called to her.

"Alec!" Eden yelled back as she broke out into a run.

The damp soil beneath Eden's bare feet felt like a sponge as she ran over it. Every step she took, cold murky water sprouted from the ground. The unruly tree branches scratched and clawed at Eden's arms as she pushed through them. They seem to almost move in the night and come together to block her path.

"Ede, No!" Eve yelled for her daughter. "Come back, we have to go home!"

"I have to get to Alec!" Eden said over her shoulder. "He's waiting for me."