The Powerful Pride of an Immortal (Immortal Supers Book 4), Kurtis Eckstein [books to read for self improvement .TXT] 📗

She pulled away barely a few seconds later, looking at me pleadingly. “Daddy, she needs you. She needs you to save her.”

My shock finally shifted to torment, tears springing to my eyes. A part of me found it difficult to believe that what Rose was saying was true, but no way in hell was I not going to do everything in my power to wake her up from this horrible nightmare.

Freya immediately closed the gap, partially handing me our daughter so that we were both holding her in our arms simultaneously.

I sobbed uncontrollably as I lifted her small face closer to mine, my tears falling on her already tear-soaked cheeks, gently kissing her on the forehead before doing my best to speak.

“Shh,” I whispered softly. “Daddy has you. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

Instantly, her shrieking shifted to normal sobbing, causing me to cry even harder. Because there was no sound so pitiful and somber as hearing a baby sob and whimper. It was completely different than crying from hunger or even from being in pain due to too much air in her belly. Crying for a need was normal, but crying because a baby was sincerely sad was not a frequent occurrence in my experience.

Ultimately, I ended up singing to her in a shaky voice, the same song I used to sing to her over a century ago, and one I’d never forgotten, but also one I hadn’t sung in that same amount of time.

No, let’s be real. I hadn’t sung at all in over a hundred and twenty-eight years.

Not for Lily, not for Freya.

Not for Rose, not even by myself.

In fact, my lack of singing was so pronounced – to the point that everyone just assumed that it was something I didn’t do – that both of my fiancés actually noticed.

Heidi and Lexi appeared in the hallway just after I began, having felt the vibrations from Rose bursting through our bedroom door, but I ignored them as all my attention remained focused on my little girl sobbing in my arms, squirming to press her face against my chest.

I wasn’t sure the sisters fully understood what was going on, but it seemed that the same truth that applied the last time I was this emotional also applied now.

When a man cries, everyone cries. Especially if he’s a father, and those around him are his family.

Thankfully, Eden seemed to calm down pretty quickly, her crying picking up again a few minutes later to indicate she was hungry. In response, Freya took over speaking softly to our daughter as she took her to the bed to nurse, giving me the opportunity to step into the bathroom and collect myself.

Because I was a mess. An emotional mess, with a whirlwind of conflicting emotions plaguing me, everything from crushing guilt and devastating depression to overwhelming relief and elated joy.

My little girl still needed me. She still loved me.

But she also remembered. She remembered her horribly traumatizing death.

Would she be alright? Would she still forgive me when she was older?

I didn’t know.

But one thing was for certain. Whether she did or didn’t, nothing would change my response. I’d love her no matter what, and I’d protect her no matter what.

Never again. I would not let her experience something so horrible ever again.

By the time I was out of the bathroom, Eden was fast asleep again in Freya’s arms as if nothing had ever happened, with Lily’s arm wrapped around the new mother’s shoulders tightly, their heads resting against each other. They both looked at me in concern when I reappeared, Lily’s orange eyes glowing softly in the dim light, though neither of them said anything out loud.

Having mostly collected myself, I moved closer to kiss each of them on the lips for a long few seconds, the gesture full of affection rather than romance, before heading to the kitchen to make sure everyone else was okay. I knew Heidi and Lexi left to give Freya some privacy, but they were both still awake, likely having gotten the story from my oldest daughter.

Heidi had Rose in her lap in one of the dining room chairs, holding her tightly, with Rose’s face still gray around her black and red eyes.

The look made me concerned now that my emotions were more stable.

“Sweetie,” I said softly. “Are you alright? Do you need to eat?”

She shook her head.

Heidi spoke up. “I offered, but she said she wasn’t hungry.”

I nodded, kneeling down in front of the two of them as I held Rose’s small hands, realizing there were tiny white claws just barely protruding out of her fingertips. “Sweetie, what’s wrong?”

Rose took a shaky breath, her unfocused eyes finally seeing me. “Daddy, it was really scary. They wanted to get rid of me, and they stuck me in a box full of fire, and then you and Eden were there too, and she was so scared.” Her hands tightened in mine, to the point that she would have left bruises if I didn’t heal so quickly.

I grimaced at her words, understanding what she was trying to say – that she had a dream where she’d been shoved inside a furnace – probably the kind used for cremation. It was one of the horrors Freya and I previously discussed in private, almost a year ago, after we first met Rose – our new daughter’s memories regarding what they did with the clones they were finished with.

Rose had never actually been in the room, but she’d walked past it before – she’d smelt the terrifying scents lingering in the air, and just once she’d gotten a peek inside when someone was coming out while she was being escorted by another scientist.

Granted, surely Rose’s dream was truly only a nightmare, because I couldn’t imagine them throwing kids in there while they were conscious, but we really didn’t know.

We really didn’t know. After all, if they treated them so inhumanely anyway, then who was to say they didn’t choose to save