Chapter 475: No longer safe

After Clara left, Vincent went to Maddy, took the rag from her hand, and pulled her up to sit on his lap. "Why do you suddenly look so sad, my dear? Is it what Clara said?"

Maddy kept her head down. "You are going to be married in a few months, and crowned in a year..." She raised her eyes to him. "You will no longer be mine."

Vincent lovingly cupped her cheeks, tracing them with his thumbs as he said, "I will always love you." He kissed her, a kiss that led to something else and it was then that she conceived the twins, both of them carrying love in their hearts for one another.

Maddy, who never went back to the sea and avoided water at all costs, soon realized she was pregnant just a few weeks before Vincent’s mating ceremony, and she didn’t keep it to herself, she told him right away.

Vincent looked shocked at first, and then he took her hand and dragged her to his room, grabbed his trunk, and began packing his things and placing them inside.

"What are you doing, Vinc?" Maddy asked nervously.

"We’re leaving Mooncreek. I don’t want my father to find out about your pregnancy. They won’t spare you, and I don’t want to marry or mate with my fiancée. I don’t love her. Father only wants me to be with her for future alliances, and we’ll both be miserable if I stay. I can’t let you go."

"Vinc..." Maddy muttered anxiously.

He stopped packing and turned to look at her. She hesitated before admitting, "I’m scared."

At her words, he dropped the clothes in his hands and strode toward her, pulling her into his arms. He gently stroked her hair as he assured her, "Don’t worry. I will protect you with my life if I have to."

With that, he took her hand, and together, they left the pack in the middle of the night.

The couple eloped far away, to an island that put Maddy closer to the sea than she should have been. Her pregnancy grew with each passing month, no one knowing where they were, and with it grew Maddy’s fear that he would discover she was a mermaid once she gave birth to the child.

Vincent worked every day, wanting to make her comfortable and help her and himself adapt to a life without the privilege he was used to as the Alpha heir of Mooncreek. Maddy hated carrying that secret when they shared all secret together and decided to tell him one night.

"What is it, my darling?" Vincent asked, when she said she had something to show him.

"I have wanted to tell you this, but I couldn’t find the chance." Maddy pulled him toward the water outside their little house, and Vincent tried to stop her.

"Don’t get in that water, you have a phobia of it."

Maddy shook her head, "Not anymore," as she took off her clothes and stepped into the water, and right before his eyes, she revealed her shimmering tail and scales. She watched her man freeze in shock.

"This is who I am, Vince. If you want all of me, you’ll have to accept this part of me too." She said, looking at him, but right at that moment, before he could react, the sound of a helicopter could be heard from above, its light shining down on them, illuminating the mermaid in the water and the frozen Vincent.

Maddy’s eyes filled with panic as she realized she’d revealed her true self at the exact moment Vincent’s people had finally found them.

"You’re a mermaid..." He said, beginning to step back away from her.

The helicopter landed on the island, and Vincent’s father and his men climbed out, yelling, "There’s a mermaid in the water! Get her! Vincent get away from that creature!"

Maddy had no choice but to begin swimming backward, away from the land, her eyes on Vincent, who remained frozen until his father’s men pulled out guns and aimed them at her. He acted then, striking them and yelling out,

"Get away from here, Maddy! Don’t fucking shot her!"

Maddy couldn’t move until a gun fired in her direction, and she ducked beneath the water to escape being killed. She’d been underwater so long by then that, combined with her pregnancy, she began to feel strange and restless, because she believed her husband was waiting for her.

When Maddy surfaced again an hour later, Vincent had left with his father, and their little home stood empty. She was left alone on the island, with a single note waiting for her on the dining table where he had been sitting their meals, before she had interrupted their life together.

"It’s no longer safe for you. Don’t come back to Mooncreek, or they will kill you. I’m sorry, Maddy, you should have told me earlier."

Maddy took the note, pressing it to her chest as she broke down into a heart-wrenching sob that tore her apart. She had lost him, just like that.

Having nowhere else to go, the mermaid stayed on the island until she ran out of resources and couldn’t bear being there any longer, missing the few months she’d spent with him. Then she decided to go back home.

Going back home was a mistake. Maddy was met with her parents’ disappointment and how much they had changed toward her, as she had left without warning them.

"We warned you about those monsters since childhood, and you went and got pregnant for one of them. That is not how we raised you, Maddy, and your father knew you’d come crawling back once this happened, and here you are." Her mother said, and Maddy couldn’t help but reply,

"I don’t regret it, Mama. I just need to stay here for a while, until Vincent comes looking for me. I know he will come."

Her parents didn’t argue with her, believing she was simply in denial, and Maddy stayed. But as her due date approached and Vincent still hadn’t returned, she found herself peeking toward the surface every day, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.

Eventually, she went back to him instead, making another mistake.

When she arrived, she was met with the news that Vincent had been crowned, and that he had mated with the fiancée he had never wanted.

Maddy was so heartbroken that she went back to her mother, crying, "How could he... he said he loved me, Mama. You don’t marry another when you love someone else. You accept them no matter what they are..."

That, too, was a mistake, because her heartbroken cries only stoked her mother’s rage, and her father’s as well, for a monster had hurt their daughter and now left her in a state she would never be the same again. It wasn’t until the damage was already done that Maddy realized her parents had flooded Mooncreek and caused the death of many people.

"Nooo!" Maddy had cried, desperate to go save her beloved, but she was held back, and right at that moment, she fell into labor.