Page 31 of A Fate of Blood and Magic (Fated #2)

Alastor exhaled once, slow and controlled, then he crouched at the man’s side. “He’ll live.” Without breaking eye contact, he reached out and dragged his blood-slicked thumb slowly across the man’s jaw, leaving a crimson smear at the corner of his mouth.

The man flinched, eyes wide with panic, but Alastor only tilted his head.

“You’re going to talk,” he said, voice soft and calm. “Then you’ll beg me to kill you.”

Two lirio ducked through the ruined doorway. I didn’t know their names, but I recognized them from their village.

“Thank you,” I said, softly to them. To Alastor.

Alastor stepped back, his shadow curling around my foot. Cold but familiar. Safe.

Needing something, anything, to ground me, I reached for Kieren’s hand. When he stepped closer, I wrapped my arms around his neck.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

His fists clenched the back of my shirt. I let go abruptly, remembering the blood on my hands.

The thunder of boots hit the porch. I turned.

George.

He stormed in, his hands immediately going to my shoulders. “Are you hurt?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before taking my hands and inspecting them. With a pulse of magic, the blood vanished from my skin. I nearly sagged.

I shook my head, unsure if I was actually okay or just not dead.

He pulled me against his wide chest, holding me tight. His hand brushed my hair before he patted the back of Kieren’s neck.

One of the lirio gripped the man by the collar of his tattered shirt, and as he dragged him outside, Alastor’s shadows disappeared like smoke.

“The kids—” My gaze flickered to the door, broken on the floor. “They’ll be home soon.”

“We’ll question him outside,” Alastor said. The blood was gone from his hands, but his voice still pulsed with quiet rage. “I also summoned Pietro. Guards are on their way.”

I nodded, wrapping my arms around my stomach as a tremor rippled through me. “Get whatever you can out of him. I need to know if we’re safe.”

“You are now,” George said. “I’ll stay with you unless you want to go to my place.”

Unable to speak, I blinked up at him, his face going out of focus with the tears that built behind my eyes.

“If you wish to stay, I’ll guard the forest,” a female lirio told me. “Others will too, Miss Teddy. You’re not alone.” She glanced at Kieren. “Though I’d say you held your own.”

I let out a hollow laugh. “There’s . . . a man. In the hall.” I swallowed, pointing. “I killed him.” A full-body shiver wracked me.

I killed a man .

He deserved it. He would’ve killed Kieren or me. Still, someone’s life was cut short because of me.

“I’m sorry to ask,” I said. “Can someone take him out? Before the kids see. I-I can’t.”

The female lirio, whose name I hadn’t thought to ask, disappeared down the hallway and returned with the body slung over her shoulder .

Alastor stepped beside me, gripping my arms. His touch was cold but steadying. My limbs finally began to still.

“I’ll stay too,” he said quietly. “No one will harm you or your family. Not while I breathe.”

Harm was all that seemed to follow me and those I cared about.

Why here? Why now? Why me?

What did they want? Who sent them?

Would this ever stop?

This was the second time humans, my people, had tried to kill me. This time I had no dragon. No Elias. No backup. Just Kieren, and it was my responsibility to protect him.

My stomach twisted, remembering him running toward that man, unarmed and unafraid. To protect me.

“If you’ll allow me,” Alastor said gently, “you and I can cast a protection spell over the house. Once it’s in place, it will only allow those who mean you and yours no harm to enter.”

“Yes.” I said immediately. My voice wobbled and my limbs still trembled, but inside, a part of me was eager. “What do I do?”

Alastor walked to the kitchen, selected one of our bowls and filled it halfway with water. When he returned, he held out a hand.

I laid the back of mine against his palm.

He raised a small blade in his other hand. “I’m going to prick your finger. We only need three drops of blood.”

My lips parted. “Why blood?”

“Unlike fae magic, mage magic requires a cost,” he said. “If you do not offer a sacrifice, the magic will take what it wants from you.” His gray eyes held mine. “You do not want it choosing what it takes.”

I nodded, the weight of that truth pressing into my bones .

“For your first attempt, we’ll mix our blood with water,” Alastor explained, his tone patient. “The water helps weigh the blood and keeps the magic steady.”

“Only for my first attempt?” I asked, trying to focus on learning and not how tight my throat felt.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s to help you familiarize yourself with the essence of mage magic.

If you use it more than once, you run the risk of needing the weight of the water rather than allowing your magic to grow.

” He moved with precision, pricking the tip of my finger, then his.

Our blood mingled in the water, curling up like ink.

“The bowl acts as a focus. It doesn’t weaken the magic, but it can become a crutch if you let it. I use it often.”

I nodded again.

“Repeat after me.”

The words he spoke weren’t familiar, but somehow my soul knew them. They resonated. I echoed them back, and as we spoke, warmth bloomed beneath my skin, replacing the cold panic that had held me hostage.

The peach threads of my magic billowed atop the bowl, never touching the water. I wondered if my own curiosity was the reason my magic drew so close to the bowl, especially since Alastor kept his magic restrained inside himself. When I called my magic back, it returned reluctantly.

Our voices rose together, his steady, mine uncertain but growing stronger. The words seemed to settle into the very air around us, heavy and bright.

When the final phrase left our mouths, the bloodied water shimmered and swirled. A thin smoke curled up, spreading across the room. It drifted outward, through the walls, windows, ceilings, until it disappeared .

Something inside me clicked. My soul exhaled.

I pressed a hand to my chest, startled by how hard my heart was beating.

“It’s done?” I asked, breathless.

“It is,” Alastor said. “How do you feel?”

I took inventory. My magic, my breath, the tension in my muscles. “Better. I’m not trembling anymore.” I gave a breathy laugh. “I feel . . . okay.”

Strangely, I meant it. My anxieties had lessened, and while I was tired, it wasn’t the bone-weary kind of tired I’d felt before we did our spell.

“Good,” he said, a rare smile ghosting his lips. “Working with your magic should feel right. If it doesn’t, if something inside you resists, you stop. Always.”

Then he closed his eyes, and I felt the way he swept his magic over the house. Each pass made the house a little warmer.

An uneasy emptiness filled me when Alastor and George left to question my attacker, so I searched for the ease I’d felt after Alastor and I had completed our protection spell.

My body fought a shudder as I looked around the house that had felt like a haven.

It’d taken only a few moments for that sense of safety to shatter.

And I felt it would take far less for me to follow suit and crumble.

Startling me, Hee-haw let out a loud bray as he stepped from the hallway into the living room. He gave me an annoyed glare before he settled in front of the fireplace with a loud huff.

Damn donkey. I was glad he’d stayed hidden, probably in the girls’ playroom, until the danger had passed .

The female lirio came into the house again. She blinked at me, much the way Bon did when our conversations turned serious.

“You should sit, Miss Teddy,” she told me. “I’ll do my best to clean up, and we’ll get someone to fix your door, but you should sit and rest.”

“The man I killed broke one of the bedroom windows,” I told her, my voice flat while I pointed toward the hallway.

She bowed her head. “Someone will tend to that too.”

Gratitude stuck in my throat and spilled in the way of tears.

Kieren touched my arm, his palm hot. I reached a hand to him, feeling how much his skin had warmed, and as we made our way to the couch, I took in his grayish complexion. When we sat on the couch, I grabbed the closest blanket and gave it to him before I brought my knees to my chest.

He took his time wrapping the blanket around himself, his movements slow and sluggish. When he leaned his head back on the cushion, I touched his cheek and then forehead. His skin burned as hot as it’d done before he drank the herbal tea. It worried me how quickly his fever returned.

“Why don’t you go to your room?” I said, my tone soft.

“I’d rather stay here with you if that’s okay.”

I edged to the other side of the couch and placed a small cushion beside me. “Lie down.” I patted the cushion.

He did, bringing the covers with him and tucking the end close to his chin. I ran a hand through his hair.

“Thank you for what you did,” I said. “If you hadn’t thrown your dagger through his hand . . .” I shook my head.

He blinked up at me, a small smirk on his lips. “I’m not the one who used my body as a shield. Wait until Aidas hears you have a new favorite. ”

I snorted, tugging lightly on his hair. His chuckle sounded in my mind.

As he fell asleep, my mind whirled with all the possibilities of today. Of how things could’ve ended differently.

Kieren and I were safe and unharmed.

Were the babies okay? I held a hand to my stomach. Using my magic, I reached for them. Whether it was because I didn’t know what I was doing or simply that my magic couldn’t communicate in that way, I came back empty. God. ..was that normal? Should I be able to feel something with my magic?

I felt like I should. I shook the thought away, not wanting to cause my babies any more stress.