Chapter 44

Chapter

Forty-Four

Rose

There was a lot of chaos, and I was struggling to focus. The blood coming from Magnus's side was so much worse than I realized and I had no idea how anyone could survive it, even if he was a strong dragon shifter made of magic.

As tears welled in my eyes I wanted to scream. I should have known. Revenge was a dicey pursuit at best, no matter how much it needed to be done.

A hand suddenly landed softly on my shoulder, and I turned, ready to bite it off. I didn't care what these people thought. Not a single one of these guards was going to get near my mate. Not again.

But it was Kitra standing behind me, not the king's men. "Are you okay?"

"No," I spat through gritted teeth.

"Sorry, I know that was a futile question. But we have to get him out of here now and I need you to focus."

"I thought we couldn't risk moving him?" The first tear landed on my cheek as I asked.

"We don't have a choice. The integrity of this room has been compromised. We're afraid it’s going to fall."

"What?" I searched the room for trouble, and sure enough chunks of wall and ceiling were raining down faster than could be stopped by magic. "Oh you have got to be kidding me."

"I'm afraid not. So we've got to stick together in case Isaac needs to shift to keep us safe."

"And Magnus? Won't moving him kill him?"

"Staying here 100% will. At least if we move, we'll all have a chance. C'mon." Kitra grabbed my hand and pulled me from Magnus. I glanced back, and he'd passed out. Isaac was lifting him into his arms.

"Move," Isaac yelled, and we followed his command. I swallowed hard when I realized a group of the guards moved with us. Were they going to stop us from getting Magnus help?

"Those guards are with us. Not all were as loyal to the king as he thought. Some are glad he's gone and I'm sure it won't take long for the rest of them to come around."

I didn't feel a lot of confidence in Kitra's assessment, but I also had no choice. I had to trust that if they turned on us, Isaac and Kitra would find a way to deal with them.

"Here." Again, I turned to Kitra just as she thrust the dagger I'd dropped earlier back into my hand. "You never know." She winked and then took off, forcing me to tighten my grip and charge after her. A few more pieces of stone fell from the ceiling and we both had to dodge them to escape. A lump jumped in my throat as I worried about Magnus behind us, but I clung to the bits of training that Kitra and Magnus had drilled into my head over those few intense days. Because right now it wasn't just my life on the line, it was his.

Isaac needed to focus and I would not be the one to split his attention. We were almost to the door when two guards sprang from nowhere. Kitra smoothly ducked, and a flash of light pushed both men back. Another guard charged from the side, headed straight for me.

I twisted and turned in the hope of avoiding his grasp, but his fingers grabbed the edge of my shirt and pulled. I raised the dagger and swiped at the vulnerable inside of his arm that held me. He howled in pain, letting go of me to grab his wound. The red spray of his blood arced in front of my face, and I turned away at the sight of it.

Relieved at least that I was free again, I immediately ran towards Kitra, who had two guards trying to overpower her. But she'd come prepared to win as well and quickly dispatched them with her magic. However, by the time we'd made it to the door there were at least ten more guards blocking our way to freedom.

"We're all going to die in here if we don't run, now!" Kitra frantically warned them.

"So be it. We made an oath to give our lives to the king and that is what we intend to do.”

"The dead king? Or the king that needs a fucking doctor?" I wasn't sure how much more of this I could take. "Blindly following evil makes you no better than him," I hissed. "Now get the hell out of our way, or I’m going to make you get out of the way."

"The only thing you should worry about is what we will do with you once he dies." They pointed behind me, but I didn't have to look. I could feel Magnus through our bond, and I knew he was weaker than ever. But I couldn't worry about that right now. We had to do something and we had to do it now.

"You son of a bitch!" I yelled, lunging for the closest guard and taking him enough by surprise to lodge my dagger in his neck. Unfortunately, it hit bone and stuck. I yanked and pulled to no avail, I couldn't get it free, and all I could hear and see was the tearing of his flesh and his agonizing wails.

It was all I could do not to crumple in on myself as my stomach turned, threatening to empty where I stood.

More guards sprang and in a matter of seconds we were surrounded. It was then I finally turned to Isaac and could see him trying to unleash his dragonfire. But the magic the king had used to ward this room against Magnus seemed to be taking a similar toll on his brother. Kitra ran to him, using what looked like her waning magic to help both men. I stared back at the guards and the venom of hatred filled my veins as did the fear of Magnus dying any moment.

His heartbeat waned and I knew he didn't have long.

"Please, let us go. The king got what he deserved and you know it."

"Shut up." the guard in charge said, grabbing my arm and yanking me towards him. "In fact, if you can't keep your mouth shut, I will shut it for you."

Isaac roared behind me, and I felt a familiar heat at my back. Magnus might be dying, but he wasn't dead yet, and he would sacrifice his own life to save mine. I knew that truth. Could feel it in my bones. My stomach turned again, and I grabbed it to steady myself. There was something very wrong with me.

All my worry and fear converged, and when the guard leaned forward and pressed his hand to the curve of my neck, I lost it. My body jerked, my arms going wide as that strange feeling erupted inside me again. I closed my eyes against the flash of blinding light and fell free, my eyes rolled to the back of my head and that burst of heat I'd thought I felt from Magnus erupted from my chest.

The strange feeling of bursting apart only lasted a second or two before I crumpled to the ground, unable to move.

"What the hell was that? And where the hell are we?"

I slowly opened my eyes, expecting that burst of light to burn through my retinas again. Kitra, Isaac, and Magnus were on the ground only a few feet from me and while Kitra and Isaac seemed okay, Magnus looked worse than ever.

"You are in the middle of my living room and someone better start explaining where you came from and how the hell that happened, or I'm going to incinerate you where you lie."

I groaned at the familiar voice at the same time my heart leapt for joy. If anyone could help Magnus it would be her.

"There's no time for explanation," I said, managing to get to my hands and knees without vomiting. It had happened again. I'd somehow rewound what happ?—

Wait. No. Magnus's injuries. This wasn't the past.

"Where is the king?" I asked Corvina.

She snorted. "As if you don't know. The entire village has been lit up for the last hour with the news that the King is dead and at the hands of him." She pointed at Magnus and squinted her eyes. "And by the looks of him, our new king is going to be dead within the next hour."

I grabbed her wrist with more strength than I thought I had and pulled her down to my level, her knees crashing to the floor. "Not if you don't want to die the second he takes his last breath. Fix this. Fix him. Or you're done."

She stared into my eyes for several seconds, and I could only imagine the wildness she found. But I spoke the truth. If she let him die, then my last act in this realm would be to kill her.

"Fine," she said. "But only because if he doesn't wake and take his place as the rightful king, then this realm will go to war until a new one is found." She jerked her wrist from my hand and strode over to Magnus and Isaac.

"Help me get him on the table. This is going to take some time, and I'm not about to spend the next twenty-four hours on my knees."

An evil retort hovered on the tip of my tongue, that I somehow managed to hold. She didn’t seem to like me much more than I liked her, but I needed her help.

Kitra and I helped her drag Magnus to the kitchen area of her small home, and by the time we got there, Isaac was on his feet and lifting Magnus into place. "As for the rest of you," she said, bending over to get a closer look at Magnus's now almost solid black side, "You can wait outside. I need peace and quiet and no one interrupting me. Especially you." She looked pointedly at me.

I started to object. I had no love for this woman who'd done nothing more than look down her nose at me. But Kitra grabbed my hand and dragged me from the room before I could get a word out.

"What are you doing?" I asked. "We can't just leave him with her. I don't fully trust her." I pulled my hand free and started back towards Magnus.

"She's his best chance, and you're going to have to let her work. Besides, we aren't going anywhere," Kitra said. "But we need to talk about what just happened. Why didn't you tell us you could distort time?"

I froze and turned back to Kitra. "What did you call it?" Finally, someone other than me realized something had happened.

Kitra looked over at Corvina. "Not here. Knowledge like that could get you killed or worse."

"Outside. Now!" Isaac demanded, turning for the door.

I looked to Magnus. I did not want to leave him.

Kitra took my hand gently. "Corvina may have no love for you or me. But she does for him. She will do everything she can to save him. Or Isaac will kill her."

Well, that sounded extreme when she said it. And yet, it gave me the tiny shred of comfort I needed to step away from him. My stomach quickened as Kitra led me outside where Isaac waited, pacing.

The moment the door closed behind me, he rounded on us both with fire blazing in his eyes. "Where the hell are we? And why the hell can't I remember how we got here?"

I took a step back from the force of his words. Whatever Kitra had figured out, Isaac obviously hadn't, and based on the scales shimmering across his skin, his dragon was about to crawl out of his skin and confront us.

Kitra reached for her mate. "Calm down, Isaac. It's okay. We're okay. We moved through time. From the sound of it, maybe a few hours in front of us."

My hands shook as I listened to her words.

"What?! That sounds insane. How is that possible?"

Kitra shrugged and looked around. "Considering the proof is staring us both in the face its moot to argue over it. The real question is why the hell didn't you tell us about this?"

Kitra rounded on me again and I quickly backed away. "It—it just started happening the first time we snuck into the castle. I didn't even know?—"

"The first time?" Isaac asked, taking another step toward me as well. "What in the hell does that mean?" He snapped his mouth shut and flared his nose on a hard breath.

"I'm telling you, I don't know. The first time it happened Magnus had just been beheaded by an ax."

Isaac rubbed his face and turned away. But Kitra wasn't letting it go. "And the next?" she asked.

"My throat had been slit. And Magnus had been stabbed in the heart by a sword."

Kitra smiled. "That makes so much sense."

"Excuse me?" I stammered. The thrill in her voice was one thing, but the way she practically vibrated with excitement sent a chill up my spine. None of this felt like anything to be so happy about let alone celebrate.

"I had hoped that once you got back to the fae realm some latent powers might reveal themselves. The idea that we'd sent you here on a lie didn't sit well with me. Dark fae were born of dark magic and sometimes display more power than other fae. Why else do you think everyone here is so afraid of them? But this? It's unheard of in the last two hundred years."

"I didn't know they were afraid of dark fae. I thought they were just natural enemies. You know like side-by-side countries who were always fighting over stupid stuff like land and money. And what do you mean sent me here on a lie?"

Isaac lifted a brow as he and Kitra eyed each other. Clearly they knew a lot more than I did.

"Oh, they were definitely enemies, but that's not my point. My point is these powers manifested instinctually when you needed them most. When Magnus died, when you died, and then when we were all about to die. We just have to figure out how to harness that energy so you can shape and control it. Not to mention hide it. Plenty of fae will fear that power."

I bit my lip as I let what she said sink in. So much had happened that I was feeling overwhelmed. I just needed to take this one step at a time. "Whatever. I can't deal with that right now. Not until Magnus..."

There were no more words I had to give. I didn't want to voice anything negative and the way my stomach continued to churn, I couldn't help but press my hand against my belly and will for all of this to just stop. I was in a strange land with people I barely knew, and the one person I needed by my side was not here.

"What if they aren't her powers at all?"

Both Kitra and I whipped our heads to meet Isaac's gaze. "What in the fae goddess's name are you talking about, Isaac? I know you don't remember it quite like I do because your magic is different. But I saw it happen. In real time. Time exploded right in front of my eyes and when it re-pieced itself back together we were here. That wasn't me and it sure as hell wasn't that witch in there."

Isaac was shaking his head his lips beginning to spread in a strange grin. "I wasn't talking about you or the crazy witch doctor. You said it yourself that Rose doesn't have any magic. I'm talking about the baby. What if the baby was doing the protecting?"