Page 70 of A Fate of Blood and Magic (Fated #2)

Chapter

Thirty

TEDDY

While Elias rested because that was all he was doing—resting. He wasn’t unconscious but simply resting—I used a sharp rock to cut through the sweater I’d held against his stomach.

It was drenched in blood, as was the snow beneath him. Once I managed to cut the sweater, I pushed one side against the wound on his stomach and the other against the one on his back. I took his pain-filled groan as a good sign. The blue of his lips spoke a different story.

My hands and fingers were covered in blood, but knowing how much he loved it when I played with his hair, I combed my fingers through the long, dirty strands while he slept with his head on my lap.

My shoulders shook at the small burst of wind that blew around us.

I tried to huddle against myself, but I had nothing to ward off the cold with only a thin tank top.

Already, my feet and hands were numb. The snow had soaked through my pants, and every shiver that wracked through me jostled Elias’s head, drawing out another hushed protest.

I wasn’t sure how it’d come to this.

Almost ten months ago, Elias had broken the Guardians’ most important rule and torn through the veil to get to me. That decision and the countless others we’d made brought us here. To Elias bleeding in the woods I didn’t recognize.

We were left alone in the forest for over an hour. They had to know we couldn’t escape. Not like this.

Even without my mind-speak, I still tried to reach for Alastor, using the familiar threads of his magic to search for him. Whether it was because of my lack of magic or that we were in a different realm, I couldn’t reach him.

I sighed, trying my best to hold back another shiver.

When Elias lifted his hand, I peered down at him to find him looking at me. A slight smile played on his lips even while his eyes had dulled to a pale violet.

His fingers touched my cheek, and I cupped his hand for a few seconds before I clasped them against my hands. I rubbed his cold hand and blew a heated breath onto it.

“I heard you trying to call Alastor,” he whispered, slowly licking his lips. “I think together we can reach him.”

I didn’t question how he’d heard me or how we’d try to contact Alastor together. I trusted Elias and trusted that maybe fate wasn’t done with us yet.

He lowered my hand to his lips, where he placed a gentle kiss before nipping at me playfully.

My eyes widened, and I scanned our surroundings for Pietro. Not seeing him, I mouthed the words, “ Bite me. ”

His brows drew together, and just as he started to tell me no, I bit into my hand. Although he moved slowly, he sat up and tried to gently tug my hand out of my mouth. I didn’t relent until I tasted blood.

“ Drink, ” I mouthed. “Elias,” I said with a growl when he refused.

His gray pallor grew worse, and once he lowered his head back on my lap, I placed my hand in his mouth. His tongue swirled around the small puncture I’d made while he kept his eyes on me.

“ Bite me, ” I mouthed again, hoping my eyes reflected the panic and hope I felt.

His canines punctured my wrist, and a warmth filtered through my veins. I used my other hand to run my fingers through his hair, encouraging him to keep drinking from me.

I wasn’t sure if it’d work, if my blood could heal or help him, but I remembered Nalari believing it could help Brenton after he’d been shot with an iron bullet.

His attention never left my face, and I felt my body slacken in relief when his dull eyes brightened. Slowly, they transformed into a black that was as beautiful as it was lethal.

He angled his head to the side, and his canines lengthened.

“Pietro.” He angled his chin toward a sea of trees on our left.

When he shifted forward, I saw that both his wounds were still bleeding. He bent toward his ankle where he removed a small dagger. Before he rested his head on my lap again, he mouthed, “ Alastor. ”

Right, we still had to find a way to contact Alastor.

Hiding the dagger beneath him, he closed his eyes. I grasped his hand, and with another violent shiver, I sought out Alastor. Letting my instincts guide me, I rested the hand he’d bitten into against the open wound of his stomach .

He winced in pain, but I kept it there. Words I was becoming familiar with swam in my mind.

I reached for them, chanting them in my head while I thought of Alastor and the vibrant colors of his magic.

I focused on the deep green threads that braided with the gray and red.

I grasped the blinding white and tugged on it hard.

“Teddy.” Alastor’s alarmed voice rang in my head, and I jolted at its sharpness.

Elias did the same.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “In the woods somewhere in the human realm.”

“Keep this connection open. We’ll find you.”

“I don’t know how.” I wasn’t ashamed of the way my words shook with terror.

“Keep doing what you’re doing. We’re coming for you and Elias.”

I let the string of tears slope down my face without batting any of them away.

Instead, I focused on picking at the small puncture wound Elias had made so that it kept bleeding, not only to maintain a connection with Alastor but to make sure I paid the cost of this mage magic with Elias’s and my joined blood.

Pietro stalked toward us, his long legs eating the distance with silent footsteps. When he threw a pile of wood beside us, he used his fire magic to light it.

I jolted back, expecting that same fire to turn to us to consume us, the way it’d flamed across Elias’s skin earlier, but the fire remained on the logs.

Elias shifted on top of me, blinking a few times as he scanned my face before he closed them again. I wasn’t sure if the small burst of energy he’d had after drinking my blood was gone or if this was an act so as not to alert Pietro that he was somewhat better.

Although I doubted he felt any better. Sure, his eyes had gone to their normal color before he’d slipped into his primal instincts. But his right hand and arm were burned, and he had two stab wounds that hadn’t stopped bleeding.

Maybe he’d be able to hold on long enough for Alastor to get to us and return us to Niev, where a healer could treat him.

Suddenly, Pietro stilled. With his face in the air, he sniffed. Then he turned to us, eyes the color of night, and kicked Elias. I threw myself on top of him before Pietro could kick him again. It didn’t stop him, and I braced myself for an impact that never came.

I wasn’t sure how it’d happened. One second, I was using my body to shield Elias, and the next, I was lying on the snow, unharmed, while Elias stalked toward Pietro with the small dagger in his hand.

Blood spilled from Elias’s mouth, and when he bared his canines, I saw the blood that covered his teeth as well.

“Did your mate truly believe a little bit of blood would save you?” As if unbothered, Pietro leaned against a tree, watching Elias move closer to him.

“I’m not worried about whether I live, just that you don’t,” Elias said.

He snarled. “You’re so worried about killing and righting wrongs. What about the wrongs you and your family have committed?”

“Is that it, then?” Elias took a few more controlled steps. “You hope to kill me to right my family’s wrongs?”

“I plan to kill you, the human you made our queen, and the abomination she carries.” Pietro’s canines elongated past his lips. “Your bloodline dies with you, leaving Niev to find a new ruler.”

I felt like a prisoner, stuck in Pietro’s journey for vengeance, but I still wasn’t sure who he was avenging. Maybe in his twisted mind, he sought revenge for all of Niev. Perhaps he thought his anger made him powerful, but somehow, I’d make sure I carved out his death with my dagger.

“I assume you want the position.” Another few steps.

Pietro straightened to push away from the tree. “Guardians, no.” He circled Elias’s approach. “Just like you, I don’t care if I survive this. My only goal is to make sure no one in your bloodline ever wears a crown again.”

“If all you wanted was my death, why did you help the humans kill your own people?”

Pietro’s growl was low but as powerful as his fists that trembled at his sides. “They weren’t supposed to kill anyone but simply cause enough disruption that the people of Niev would force you off the throne.”

“I saw your fire magic at the compound,” Elias said.

“That was my payment for their assistance.”

“Three hundred and sixty-two people died because of you.” Elias’s snarl echoed in the desolate woods.

“How many more died because of your parents?” Pietro pulled out his sword.

“How many died because you ripped through the tear? How many people that you were charged to protect lost loved ones because of the mage whose revenge should’ve been focused solely on your family?

” His nostrils flared as red spread over his neck to his face.

“Your parents destroyed my family. They stripped my father of his position because he knew the truth about them. They took me from my home to be raised in a castle filled with their lies. I knew, though, as did every youngling I grew up with under your parents’ roof.

Since our youth, we’ve planned our vengeance.

Even if I die this day, they’ll see it through.

We’ll have our uprising, and you and your family will die. ”

Elias staggered back a step, clutching his stomach as blood spilled through his fingers. “Who else betrays us?”

“After all that destruction and death, you brought humans back to our realm,” Pietro continued.

“You gave them shelter and food when your people didn’t have either.

You gave the surviving mage access to our kingdom.

You sided with the lirio, who’d always been our enemies.

Over and over again, you chose yourself over your people.

Over and over again, you made choices that damned us. ”

Except Elias never chose himself. He chose me. He chose his people.