Page 18 of Deadly Little Games (Four Ways to Fate #2)

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I fought, kicking and screaming as the man dragged me deeper into the dark woods. I vaguely sensed a strange shift as we stepped over what felt like a boundary, then he threw me onto the ground.

Fierce pale eyes looked down at me. His hair was some other pale color, difficult to tell in the moonlight. It fell neatly to his chin, framing a sharp jaw. His clothing was black, blending into the night around us. He was fae, but he didn’t seem like the others, throwing himself wildly into the chase.

No, he had calculated things perfectly. And I had run right into his waiting arms.

I realized with a start that I could no longer hear the distant fighting. Whatever strange boundary we had crossed, it blocked out all sound. I couldn’t see anything beyond the surrounding trees.

“I hope Ivan is paying you well,” I spat. “Because the rest of your people will soon be dead.”

He sneered. “I do not work for Ivan. I do not want the blade.” As if to emphasize his words, he drew a blade of his own. It was as long as his forearm, and glinted wickedly in the scant moonlight.

I started crab-crawling away, but he knelt almost too fast for my eyes to follow, grabbing onto my hair. He tugged my head to one side, bending my neck at a painful angle. Thorns and slick grass sliced across my hands as I tried to lift my neck away from the blade.

“If you kill me you’ll never find my mother.”

“I am saving your mother,” he hissed into my ear. “Your foolishness is going to get her killed.”

I went perfectly still. “ What ?” I winced as he pressed his blade against my throat. My heart hammered so forcefully I thought I might faint.

“So many fools believe your mother condemned us. They don’t realize she saved us. And I will not let that sacrifice be in vain, even if it means the death of her progeny.”

Oh gods, I’d had a lot of close calls lately, but I knew this one was it. I knew I was going to die. I closed my eyes, trying to shift, but absolutely nothing happened. It was like I had been cut off from my magic entirely. Whatever barrier he had carried me across had nullified everything .

Tears leaked down my face from my closed eyes. “I don’t understand.”

“I know you do not, and for that I am sorry. But the pathways must not be reopened. It would spell utter disaster for us all.” His final words were barely a whisper. The blade pressed into my throat, drawing blood.

Even with my eyes closed, I could tell when everything went dark. So dark that not a shred of light came through. For a moment, I thought it had already happened. I thought I was already dead.

Then I felt the knife fall away from my throat. The grip on my hair loosened, and the man’s body fell heavily to the earth.

I screamed when someone touched me, my renewed panic making me realize my magic was back. I pictured the guys again, preparing to shift, then someone lifted me up and a familiar voice sounded in my ear. “The idea was for you to realm jump before they caught you, not after your rescue.”

My breath whooshed out of me. I blinked my eyes, but everything was still so dark. Then the darkness cleared. It was Sebastian carrying me in his arms. It has been his darkness that surrounded us.

And the one who caught me… I had no desire to look back as Sebastian carried me away. “Is he dead?”

“Yes. I had not expected a full silence charm, else I would have reached you sooner.”

My heart was still racing. I couldn’t seem to make it stop. And yet, despite all of the blood flow, my body felt cold. “What in the hells is a silence charm?”

“A charm to cut off not only noise and sight, but magic. He neutralized you, knowing you might be able to escape. What did he say to you?”

As my heart finally slowed, my body started trembling. “He… He wanted to kill me to protect my mother. He said the pathways shouldn’t be reopened. That it would mean disaster for us all.”

“I truly hadn’t expected anyone else to try to kill you, not after Lucas was set straight.”

I met his eyes as he looked down at me, and my chest constricted. There was no hint of fire in his eyes, only darkness. And his dark magic still surrounded us.

“You saved me.”

“Obviously.”

Still looking down at me, he hoisted me up more securely, and I looped my arms around his neck. The tension between us was so taut, it felt like it could snap at any moment. I was breathing so shallowly, I felt lightheaded.

He smirked, then lifted his eyes to continue walking, breaking the tension between us in an instant.

We reached the clearing beyond the forest. I could see the car still parked in the middle of the road, headlights illuminating the fallen tree. I saw Elena kneeling on the ground, and Crispin standing over her, their eyes on something else.

“Where is Gabriel?”

“He fell to a fairy blade. I believe some manner of poison was involved. I could not wait around to learn more, considering you required my immediate attention.”

A spike of ice stabbed through my chest. Gabriel, he… I fought against Sebastian until he let me down. Though my legs were still trembling, they carried me across the grass. One moment I had my eyes on Elena and Crispin, then I was standing right beside them. Ringo was there too, his little blue paws on one of Gabriel’s limp hands.

Elena gasped at my sudden appearance, then her expression fell. “Eva, I’m—”

“Move.” I sank to my knees, looking down at Gabriel. He lay on his back, unmoving. Elena had been holding Crispin’s shirt over the wound, for what good it would do.

I reapplied pressure, then reached my other hand toward his neck, feeling for a pulse.

My heart screamed as I waited. He couldn’t die because of me. He couldn’t die period .

Relief washed through me as I felt his heart beat, but just barely. And his pulse was far too slow.

“He does not have long,” Crispin said softly.

“Like hell he doesn’t,” I cried. I didn’t know what I was doing. All I knew was that he couldn’t die here in this field. All I knew was that if anyone could help, it was Mistral.

And so I clung to Gabriel, and I thought of Mistral. I thought of the Bogs, a place that was oddly starting to feel like home.

I hung my head and I cried as stars exploded all around us.

“Eva,” Mistral said at my back. “What happened?”

I opened my eyes, looking down at Gabriel. His skin was sallow, almost gray in the moonlight. I gasped, inhaling the balmy air of the Bogs. It had worked. We had made it.

And Gabriel was still dying.

“A poisoned fairy blade, I think.” I couldn’t even remember who had told me that. The entire event seemed like a blur.

Mistral knelt beside me, bringing with him the scent of rain and warm vanilla. The scent relaxed me. He was here, with us. If anyone would know what to do, it was Mistral.

With nimble fingers he pulled the bloody shirt away from the wound, lifting Gabriel’s tattered shirt further to give himself a clear view. There was enough moonlight for me to see the wound’s jagged edges. At first I thought it was more blood, then I realized the edges had turned black.

I glanced around us, desperate to find something, anything to help. But I didn’t recognize this place. We knelt in green grass, and around us were aspen trees, their leaves quaking in the invisible breeze.

“This is where my mother is buried,” Mistral said, shocking me. “Beyond the trees over there.” He nodded in that direction, then turned his gaze back down to Gabriel. “It is definitely poison, though not one I recognize. It is likely laced with magic rather than actual toxins, knowing the fae.”

My throat felt so tight it was difficult to speak. “How do we help him?”

“He is a goblin, and he is now in his lands. Either the magic of our people will help him, or it will not.”

I gripped his arm. “That’s not good enough.”

“That is all we have.”

A cold feeling trickled down my spine like icy water. It wasn’t good enough. We both knew it. Gabriel was going to die.

“We have to do something.”

Mistral looked at me, showing me the full weight of the pain in his eyes. Gabriel was his closest friend—I had no idea how long they had been together, but I sensed it was a very long time.

“We have to do something,” I repeated. “If it is the land that must heal him, then we will make it heal him. We controlled it before.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Eva.”

He was probably right. He surely knew much more about it than anyone else. But… I had felt it. When we controlled the vines, I had felt his connection to the land. And I knew I could take part of it, if I wanted. The Bogs had far more magic than either of us. We just had to figure out how to use it.

I took Mistral’s hand, then placed his palm against the earth, laying my hand over his. I met his gray eyes solidly. “We’re going to try.”

“You care that much if he lives or dies?” He seemed almost shocked by the notion.

“He’s not going to die. Now call up that wild magic. I know you’re connected to it.”

He continued watching me. “We barely controlled it before. If it overwhelms us, I will die, and you may end up coming with me.”

I felt a flash of fear but I shoved it back down. The cut across my throat still stung. I had already faced death once this night—had barely evaded it. I looked down at Gabriel, his chest hardly rising and falling with breath. “Do it.”

Mistral’s hand flexed beneath mine, then I felt it, like a massive feral beast rising up beneath us. The magic of the land came to his call, wild, uncontrollable, and hungry .

I kissed him, and some of that magic jumped to me, searing through my veins like molten metal. With one hand still on the earth, he slid the other behind my neck, pulling my lips against his almost painfully. He fed at my mouth, passing the magic between us, making it unfurl inside my gut like a blooming rose.

Not knowing what I was doing, I gripped Gabriel’s limp hand, his skin far too cold.

Mistral pulled back slightly, our lips still almost touching. Magic thrummed in my throat like a second heartbeat. “We must direct it. Before, we were only trying to contain it, to shove it back down.”

My breathing grew ragged as the magic quickly overwhelmed me. What had I been thinking? Why did I think I could control this? Sweat beaded across my brow, stinging my eyes. “Tell me what to do,” I rasped.

He kissed me again, more lightly this time, though I could tell he was teetering on the brink. The land’s magic was entirely overwhelming, and I was only feeling a portion of it. He broke the kiss to say, “Close your eyes.”

It was difficult to obey. I felt like if I closed them, everything was going to disappear. Him, Gabriel, and the ground beneath us. If I closed my eyes, that dark, hungry thing swarming upward would swallow me whole.

I squeezed Gabriel’s limp hand and closed my eyes.

“If you fight it, it will destroy you.”

His words were far too close to my thoughts. I needed to pull away. I needed to run. I—

Gabriel’s hand spasmed in mine. That big, strong hand. He had protected me. He barely even knew me, not really. And yet, he had been willing to give his life tonight to keep the fae from chasing after me. He had wanted me to run, to leave him behind.

And that simply wasn’t an option.

I took a deep breath, stilled my thoughts, pushed down my fears, and I let the magic take over. I opened myself to it—because that’s what it really wanted. An outlet. It was wild magic, and it had been kept under control for too long.

“Gabriel is a part of this land, Eva. Will the magic into him. Show it how to save him.”

I shook my head in sharp, jerky movements. I could barely keep my thoughts straight, let alone control something so powerful. “Why can’t you do it?” My words were so soft I wasn’t sure he heard me.

Then, he answered, “I am a servant of this land, bound to it, but not its master. I maintain balance, nothing more. But you—you’re celestial. You can shift the very stars. The fates themselves. Shift his fate, Eva.”

Tears dripped down my hot cheeks. I felt something slithering over my leg, and fought every instinct I had to not pull away. I knew it was a vine. We couldn’t hold the magic forever. We were going to lose control.

I had never hated my mom more than I did in that moment, for leaving me to figure things out on my own. For never teaching me. I had only known other night runners, most with less celestial blood than me. None of them could have prepared me for this. I cried as more vines started swarming over us.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to fight it, let alone control it. The magic choked me, filled me up to bursting.

I could feel Mistral’s resignation. He knew it wasn’t going to work.

I finally opened my eyes, taking in the same resignation in his expression that I had already sensed. I looked down at Gabriel, who had gone far too still. I remembered him impossibly strong, pulling me up onto his horse, keeping me steady. I remembered our kiss, and how I had slunk away, embarrassed. But he never gave me a hard time over it.

I owed it to him to try.

Not knowing what I was doing, I pushed away the vines trying to crawl up my body. I leaned over Gabriel, pressing my lips against his.

He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe.

I opened myself further, letting every drop of wild magic flow through me. The vines snaked up my body faster. I kissed Gabriel, and I pushed all of that magic into him.

My mind became nothing but the pounding rhythm of the earth. To control such things, there was a price. There was always a price.

Then I felt Mistral’s hands on my back, his touch returning me to myself, at least enough for me to think again. Enough for me to realize Gabriel’s hands had lifted to my waist. He pulled me against him, deepening our kiss.

I was so relieved, more tears streamed from my closed eyes, but the magic was still there, wrapping around us. It had given us the gift of healing, and now we had to pay the price.

And I didn’t know if it was the magic wrapped tightly around us, or just too many near death experiences in one day.

But it was a price I was willing to pay.