Page 19

CHAPTER 19

CLAWDIA

I felt… unsettled in the darkness. I wasn’t sure where I was and tried to remember exactly what I’d been doing before, but nothing came to mind.

Didn’t I go to bed? Is this a dream?

Despite the blackness, I could feel my body, and a draught circled my ankles.

Where is that coming from?

I tried to peer into the pitch but couldn’t make anything out, and then a small glimmer appeared in the corner of my eye. I spun around to catch it but fell into the living room.

As though I’d just come out of the office, I stumbled over my feet like a newborn deer and grasped the stair banister to right myself.

Charlie sat on the loveseat facing me, on his phone. He caught my eye as he glanced up and chuckled. “Did you get me a stick of rock?”

“What?” I asked, confused and looking around. Baelen and Zaide cuddled on the sofa and turned around to smile at me … but something felt strange.

“You went on a trip.”

I rolled my eyes, but his joking made me feel immediately more at ease. “I swear you are older than me sometimes.”

“I’ve lived on the earth longer, so technically, I am older. You’re a weird time traveler. Speaking of which, where did you go?”

“I don’t know.” I frowned and rubbed my head. “Maybe I had a vision? I don’t remember it, though. I swear I just went to bed, and now I’m here. Is it a dream?”

“Pretty sure it’s not a dream.” Charlie looked at me, concerned. “Baelen?”

My soul mate rose from his seat gracefully and tipped my chin to meet his hypnotic red eyes. “You are missing time?”

“I don’t know. Where have I just been?” I asked. I looked around the room for clues.

Was that bowl there when I left for bed? I couldn’t remember. Did I even go to bed?

“You stepped out of the room for a moment,” Zaide told me, also rising to crowd around me, the scar over his eye tightening as he frowned.

That’s not good.

My voice rose as panic flooded through me. “I remember nothing but going to bed and then darkness until just now.”

“Is this a seer thing?” Charlie asked Baelen.

It bothered me that he didn't ask me, but he was probably right to consult someone else, considering I didn’t know what was happening.

“It could be, but I believe my mother always remembered her visions.” He frowned and cupped my jaw, his eyes searching mine. “Losing time could be a sign of some other otherworlder interference.”

My eyes widened. He’s looking into my eyes to see if a shadow was possessing me as it did him.

I wracked my brain, searching for signs of something else, another being, but found nothing. My bonds were as they always had been, glowing healthily, and I felt completely in control of myself.

“I don’t think I’m possessed. There’s no one in my head but me.” Another thought occurred to me, and I gasped. “A supernatural couldn’t have made me forget if I had a vision or what I’ve been doing. That’s not possible, right?”

“No one’s here but us,” Zaide replied, stroking my hair and bringing comfort to us both. “I don’t see how it could have happened without us noticing.”

“Maybe it was a spell cast from a distance?” Charlie pulled out his phone. “Let me get Elizabeth here. Maybe she can have a look at you and see if you’ve been spelled.”

I nodded, feeling better knowing there was a plan and someone would come to help. I didn’t enjoy the confusion and brain fog, but I had my bonds, and the warmth of their bodies surrounding me made me feel safe. I leaned into them and took deep, calming breaths, and Charlie spoke on the phone.

Then everything went up in flames. Literally. Suddenly, the whole place was on fire, and I grasped hold of my men as a scream erupted from me and I backed away from the heat.

What’s happening? It was so sudden, the landscape suddenly so hot and hellish, I questioned whether it was a nightmare.

Fafnir strode right through the front door as though he was impervious to the flames, and perhaps he was. I attempted to move, to push us toward the backdoor so we could escape through the garden, but I jolted as my feet refused to follow instruction.

Smoke clouded my vision as Fafnir smiled at us, and despite the heat, ice trickled down my spine, and I shivered. “You’re all here. Good. I’ve been waiting a long time for this.” He tilted his head and clarified. “Of course, when I say a long time, I mean the days since you killed my dragon.”

“By the sounds of things,” Charlie snarled, “you didn’t really want it anyway.”

I was frozen, but my fingernails bit into the soft flesh of Charlie’s arm, begging him not to taunt Fafnir. The building was already on fire. We needed to escape instead of get distracted, even if that meant we needed to fight our way out.

“Hello, descendent. It seems you are my newest dragon recruit. A shame you have to die because I could really use you a dragon, but I’m told your bond with my wife means you’ll all die together, and since she’s been nothing but a thorn in my side since the moment I clapped eyes on her, you’ll need to die with her, I’m afraid.”

My wife… Just the term made me feel sick, and from the smile he gave me, he knew it.

“Appreciate the warning, but that will not happen.”

Zaide also spoke up. “You’re just a witch and a broken soul. You can’t harm us.”

But he can. He was. The flames licked at our skin, smoke filled our lungs, and fire burned at all the happy memories I had in this house. Fafnir stared at us like he’d won, like he knew this was the moment it all ended.

I hoped he was wrong … but he wasn’t.

“I don’t need a dragon to be powerful. Dark magic is so much more powerful that you can imagine. Let me demonstrate.”

The fire stopped, vanishing as though it had never been there. Then he pointed at Baelen, who went ramrod straight like he was caught in an invisible grip.

“Baelen, I heard you have some interesting objects that could be of use to me. I don’t want them damaged in the fire.” Fafnir’s smile turned vicious. “Get them for me.”

Baelen let out a cry as his body moved without his permission and he walked away from us. Having been possessed before by the shadow king, I knew being controlled by Fafnir and handing over his artifacts was a kind of torture for Baelen.

As I gasped and tried to reach my mate, I suddenly remembered I wasn’t as helpless as I once was.

He might have dark magic, but I could see the threads of the universe and manipulate them. I’d used Baelen’s blood threads against Fafnir before to make him slap himself, but a slap would not help us win the day. I needed to do to Fafnir what I did to his dragon and drain the blood from his body.

Yet when I reached for the threads, when I tried to attack him, to kill him once and for all, they were gone. I couldn’t see threads of healing or of blood. And when I tried to reach out to Zaide to ask him if he also couldn’t use the threads, our bond was dull, muted.

How has he stopped us from using our power? But I didn’t have time to consider the question because panic rose to block my throat. I can’t move, can’t use my power, can’t talk to my bonds… What should I do?

To make matters worse, witches poured in from the front door like ants, and Fafnir greeted them with a smile.

“Find your kidnapped cousin,” he ordered, and an older witch who looked the most like Elizabeth and another who reminded me of Mary left the house.

“Find out where the other witches have been hidden. He knows.” He pointed at Charlie, and another of Fafnir’s followers approached him. I recognized what was happening. Deborah did the same spell to me, and I remembered how frightening it was to have my mind violated as she searched for information.

“Leave him alone!” I shouted and struggled against whatever held me to the floor.

“Leave him alone?” Fafnir repeated, as though surprised. “This is the least of what I’m planning to do to you, Margaret. And you’ll deserve every single thing.”

I was forced to my knees, something powerful pulling me into a low bow on the floor in front of Fafnir. He laughed. “This is more like it. If only you could have been so submissive when I married you.”

Humiliation was the last thing I felt as, from the corner of my eye, I saw Zaide struggling against other witches as they attempted to force him into a cage. On my other side, Charlie collapsed, and a cage spell formed around him.

“They are in multiple safe houses. We can force the faei upstairs to portal us to most of them once they are dead.”

Unable to move, I stared up at the man who caused my death through abuse and fear. Hope faded and fear quivered inside me.

I’m so sorry, I tried to tell my men through our bond, but they couldn’t hear me. Fafnir had even taken my last words to them.

Baelen returned, walking stiffly, and handed over his artifacts like he was a puppet on a string. Then he was pushed into sharing the magic cage with Zaide.

One witch sneered as they passed us and headed upstairs to capture Daithi and Savida while three others stood behind my bonds. Fafnir’s face was as blank as a piece of paper, his emotions—if he had any at all—carefully concealed as he bent to tip my chin so I stared into his dark eyes.

“You’ve done this to yourself. You could have left me alone, but you had to involve yourself in my business. You killed my dragon. You killed my descendant. You caused the fallout with the hunters, and all I wanted…” Tears made my sight blurry, but I saw as he clenched his fists and hissed in anger. “But you ruined it. So, I’ll ruin you. And you’ll watch your mates die like I watched my dreams crumble.”

My mouth opened in a scream as the witches materialized knives, ones that looked like that killed Winnie, and, without hesitation, sliced them across my mate, my soul pair, and my witch’s throat. Our bonds became unmuted, and their fear, regret, and helplessness pressed into me as if they were my own. They could have been my own.

It was worse than when Winnie died. The pain was unbearable. We shouldn’t have been conscious. Our minds shouldn’t have taken it, but we held on to each other. We held on to the bonds because letting go would mean the end. We wanted to say goodbye.

“Love you, Little Cat. Forever.”

“Until our next life, Sunlight.”

“You were the best thing in my life, Clawdicat. Thank you.”

I choked on my tears, and through the blurry vision, I watched a slow grin appear on Fafnir’s face, his face alight with the misery he caused.

He might have been a mistreated child, but he had changed through his deaths, through his long life, and he was no longer the boy worthy of sympathy. He was an evil, cruel person, and I hoped all the suffering he reaped came back to him tenfold. I cursed him with it as we died.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I love you all. I’ll wait for you in our next life.”

As the blood from their bodies pooled around us, my breathing got weaker. I squirmed to get close to them, their gazes following me as I curled up between them. They couldn’t talk. Charlie’s brown eyes fluttered closed forevermore, and I gasped as our souls separated like a knife severed the bond between us.

No! I cried. Charlie! Charlie!

Zaide and Baelen grasped my hands and squeezed as they, too, succumbed to death, my breath hiccupped, and I was glad I wouldn’t suffer seeing their last breaths too. We would go together. We would join Charlie in the beyond soon.

I woke up screaming.

Being tangled in sheets only seemed to make my panic worse, and I fought to escape, wailing at the top of my lungs, the fear, and pain and sadness from my dream still with me, buried deep in my mind.

I was so distressed I didn’t realize I was fighting Charlie too.

Charlie trapped my arms and shushed me. “Clawdia. Clawdia. Calm down. It was a dream. You’re okay.”

The office door flung open, and Zaide charged into the dark, his scars glowing as he crawled across the mattress to get to me. “What is happening? Why is she screaming?”

Baelen’s voice was distant. “Clawdia?”

I was shaking and crying just as I had in the dream, except now, I felt sick too.

“Little Cat. You are well. We won’t let anyone hurt you. Calm yourself.” Zaide nuzzled into my hair and pressed slow, gentle kisses to my brow.

“It was you. You were hurt,” I whispered. My stomach lurched, and I had to close my mouth to hold back vomit.

“Me?” Charlie whispered.

“All of you.” And this time, I couldn’t stop the sick from rising. They released me, and I dived from the bed in the office and raced up the stairs and into the bathroom just in time for my head to go into the bowl of the toilet.

Of course, Zaide followed me to hold my hair and rub my back as I heaved. Breathless and tearful, I rested my head on the seat and tried to take deep, calming breaths.

They are here. They are safe. They aren’t dead. Fafnir can’t find us … yet.

“You want to tell us what happened, Clawdicat?” Charlie asked from the doorway.

I nodded weakly and used Zaide to hold me up as I rinsed my mouth and brushed my teeth before heading to the bedroom where Zaide and Baelen had been sleeping and crawling into the middle of the bed between my mate and my witch. I nuzzled into Charlie’s neck. The smell of him was enough to bring tears to my eyes.

“It was so real,” I began in a whisper. My lips brushed the skin of his neck, and his pulse beat against my lips, reminding me he was alive and well. “I was in the living room, and you were all acting like yourselves, and it felt real. Then Fafnir and his witches turned up, and you all died.”

“You didn’t die?” Baelen asked slowly.

“I died too, but not before Charlie.”

“But it was only a dream, right?”

“It felt like our souls were severed. I felt everything. It was … awful.” I hiccupped a sob and tried to prevent the following tears as their hands roamed my body in soothing strokes. “I don’t know if it was a dream. I think it was a vision. I think Fafnir finds out where we are and what we are doing and kills us.”

Later, when I’d cried out all I could, I still wasn’t sure if it was a dream or a vision, but considering the detail, I was leaning toward vision. I wanted to speak to Nisha and wished I could call her as easily as Charlie picked up the phone, but even if I could contact her, I wasn’t sure if she’d be well enough to help.

Zaide helped me get dressed and ready for the day, combing my hair in long soothing strokes that made me feel loved and cared for. My eyes were swollen, and my stomach rumbled with hunger by the time he held my hand and pulled me out of the room.

As I stepped toward the stairs, I glimpsed the front door, the living room floor, and the office door. I froze in place as images struck me. Flashes of my vision/dream, but they’d slightly changed now.

Definitely a vision. I started shaking, and sickness rose in my throat.

“I—I can’t—” I stuttered.

“What is it, Little Cat?”

“I can’t go down the stairs.” Tears welled in my eyes, and I pressed my palms into them to stop the tears from falling. I felt ridiculous and embarrassed, but I couldn’t get my legs to move. After all the growth and the changes I’d done, I still couldn’t bring myself to face him.

“Your vision is going to come true now?” Baelen asked, alarmed from the bottom of the stairs.

“I don’t know.” I shook my head as my mouth flooded with saliva and my stomach rolled. “I don’t know when it will happen, but I know this is how it starts, and I just can’t do it.”

“You’re being?—”

“Don’t,” I snapped and pointed at him, anger suddenly taking over. “Don’t tell me I’m being silly. Don’t make me feel worse for this than I already do. I’m trying to be honest about my feelings. I’m trying to do what you’re asking of me, and if you invalidate me now when I’m so scared I’m shaking, we are going to have worse issues than the visions between us.”

“I—” His bronze face had paled, and his mouth was agape as he tried to find words.

I interrupted again. “I don’t know when this vision may come true, and since your mother looks worse every time I see her, she can’t help me decipher it. I’m terrified. Everything I do is directly relevant to the threat we face and the future we hope to strive for. So, I’m sorry if my fear is making me freeze, if it’s triggering all the horrid helplessness I felt a hundred years ago, and I’m sorry if it’s taking a minute for me to work through all that.”

I spun around, heading for the bathroom, only to enter and find Savida in there, wrapping a towel around his waist. It didn’t stop me from bowing over the bowl again and vomiting all the remaining food and drink out from my body.

Instead of leaving me, Savida stroked my hair and patted my back as I heaved, coughed, and cried. “Are you certain this is normal? I’ve never seen a creature expel so much.”

His concern made me chuckle softly. “I’m fine. I think I’m over the worst of it. I just want to turn my brain off now.”

“Come. We’ll hide you from your bonds.” He helped me up, his wings fluttering nervously as I brushed my teeth. He opened the door and said, “Begone with you. She will see you later. Leave her alone.”

I don’t know who he was talking to, but I was grateful he was trying to protect me. We waited for the footsteps to go down the stairs again, and then he took my hand and pulled me into the guest room, where Daithi lay, propped up in bed, reading a book with a title I couldn’t understand.

He eyed us and asked slowly, “Are you well?”

“I’ve been better,” I replied, standing just in front of the door, not really sure what to do with myself.

Savida was like the wind behind me, swooping and pacing and fluttering as he dressed. “I will return with sustenance,” he announced and pushed me further into the room before leaving.

Daithi placed his book down in his lap and sighed. “I have also been better.”

My brow raised, and I crept closer. “You’ve seen something?”

“I saw something…” He nodded, his pale skin looking glossy as he whispered, “…disturbing.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing about you.” He waved a hand. “It was a vision for Savida and me. I think most would be glad?—”

He cut himself short, and I waited for him to continue, to explain, but he didn’t. He remained staring at his book. “Glad of what?” I asked finally.

“I can’t say.”

My lips twisted. I hated not knowing, but if anyone could understand the volatility of visions, it was me.

“I understand,” I began softly. “It’s awful to see a future you don’t want, something you fear. My only advice is what I’m telling myself.”

I took a deep breath and drew on every ounce of courage and fearlessness I had. The kind I felt in my familiar form.

“I’m not going to let it happen. I’m going to pull my big girl pants on, stop letting him scare me, and stop him. I’m going to weave my own fate.”

“I don’t think I can weave this fate differently,” he whispered, and he looked so defeated, so unlike himself, that it made me throw my shoulders back in defiance.

“There’s always a way out of something, Daithi. Believe me,” I told him fiercely. “Change it. Fix it. You’ve seen it. Now you can make sure it never happens.”