Page 30

Chapter thirty

Roisin

I ce crunched under footsteps. How? I thought I’d frozen everything.

“Well, you certainly have some Rage Demon in you,” Tay said.

I turned around and found her standing with the Demon King and the Beast. I suppose my family had arrived to help me, but no one could bring a human back from the dead.

And Brandon was dead.

I realized in the depths of my heart.

“Your parents won’t stay frozen long,” the Demon King said.

“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now he’s gone.”

The Beast smiled. A strange thing to do in this situation.

“Demons have fated mates too,” he said.

“So,” I said shrugging. I couldn’t care less about whoever the fates sent me now. I only wanted Brandon and his cocky attitude. His teasing smile. The way he looked at me like I was the only woman alive in all the realms.

A laugh cackled through the silent world, and then a woman in a cloak materialized in a smokey swirl of magic.

“Saltine,” the Beast said, “what do we owe you for now?”

“You don’t owe me anything.” She drew the hood back from her head. “Everything is as it should be.”

I lurched to my feet. “Everything is as it should be!” I blasted her with a jolt of ice straight to her chest.

The blow didn’t even move her. Her emerald eyes glittered.

“Watch it, young one, or I won’t help your mate.”

“Mate?”

“You marked him as yours when you threw your little tantrum.” She waved her hand around the iciness of Earth.

“Marked?” I shook my head. I didn’t remember putting my mark on his chest. Surely I’d remember that… but if I did…

“Did I kill Brandon?” I gasped. Had the spring water helped him, but I’d killed him?

“He’s not quite dead, yet.”

“What? How?”

“You fed him water from the spring. It protected him against your powers. Stopped them from killing him.”

“So, he’ll wake? He’ll live?”

“Live, yes, wake, that’s a matter of you undoing this freeze. ”

“I’m not sure how I did it.”

“You’re powerful. All you Fae are.”

“Hey,” the Beast said.

“Demons are different.” She flicked him a narrowed glance. “But yes, powerful too. Did that satisfy your ego, Beast?”

The Beast shrugged.

“So, if I figure out how to unfreeze everything, I’ll have Brandon back? And as my mate, no less?”

Had all my dreams come true?

Her eyes rolled back into her head and the whites flickered back and forth from side to side.

“What’s happening?”

“She’s having a vision,” the Demon King said.

“Wait!” Her eyes snapped into place. “No.” She glanced to the left, then the right.

A burst of thunder cracked the air. Smoke billowed around her body.

“Saltine, don’t you dare move!” came a thundering voice from the sky.

A second later, a tall man appeared before us dressed in an immaculate pin-striped suit and top hat, an ornate cane graced his long fingers.

“Father.” She bowed to the ground.

“Rise, child.” He tutted. “What mischief have you been up to?”

“I’m helping where you would not,” she said, rising.

I glanced over at the demons, but they called on a portal and vanished .

“Helping?” He tapped his cane on the ice, cracking it with each tiny blow.

“You would have let all your creations die. I was ensuring they lived and lived happily.”

“You have too much of your witch mother in you.” He clicked his tongue. “She always wanted to help anyone.”

“You’re just angry she didn’t want to stay in the Heavens with you.”

“Dia?” I muttered in awe.

“Yes, child?” The man faced me.

I dropped to the ground in a curtsy. Our God was in front of us. And Saltine called him father? Wait… Pepper, Lorcan’s mate, was related to Saltine. That meant Pepper was related to God. No wonder she’d survived Lorcan’s mating mark when we’d all thought she was a mortal witch. We’d assumed it was her wolf shifter heritage that had kept her alive, but this new revelation made more sense. My gaze darted to Brandon. Was he related to God too?

“No, child, this young man is human alone,” he said as though reading my thoughts.

“But Saltine said I could save him.”

“Doubtful. He’s too far gone from this world to save.”

“Please, Dia, I can’t lose him.”

“And what would you offer to save him?”

“Anything.”

Dia glanced around at all the frozen people. “Would you kill them all to save one?”

I gasped. “No, that’s not right.”

“So let him go then. ”

“No.” I rose to my feet. “He did nothing wrong but fall in love with a Fae Princess. He shouldn’t die because of me. Take me instead.”

“Take me instead she says as if it was that easy to swap lives.”

Saltine slowly backed away while we were talking.

“I suppose my daughter has worked hard to save so many, it would be a shame to see her efforts go to waste now after all these years.” His gaze snapped to Saltine. “Daughter, what do you suppose I should do?”

“You’ll do whatever you want, Father.”

“That’s right, and what I want is for you to come home to the Heavens and fulfill your destiny.”

Saltine shook her head. “My destiny is here in these realms just as Mother’s was.”

A puff of smoke exploded around her, and then she vanished.

“That child of mine.” He sighed. “I have a perfectly suitable God picked out for her and what does she do? Play matchmaker in these realms.” He walked over to Brandon and kneeled next to him. “And he is her latest with you.”

“I…” My mind whirled with all that had happened. Dia was here. Saltine was his daughter. “I love him, and he loves me even though we aren’t fated mates.”

“Who do you suppose makes fated mates?” He smirked.

My breath puffed out into the cold air.

“You can make him mine? ”

“He was always meant to be yours.” He tore open Brandon’s shirt. “You already marked him as yours.”

“But he’s still dying.”

“This was how it was supposed to be. Saltine foresaw him as your fated mate for a reason. And that reason is me. I make your fated mates. I make Fae.” He placed the handle of his cane on Brandon’s forehead. “You and your family will fix this mess you made of Earth. I’m quite fond of this realm. I have to say I’ve been very disappointed in the way you abandoned it.”

“We’ll fix it. We’ll stay and never abandon Earth again.”

“Very well.” The cane on Brandon’s forehead glowed a bright red with the godly power of Dia rolling into him. Mending him and letting him live.

The magic circled his head in a radiant red glow. Round and round it fluctuated and then slowly ebbed back into Dia’s cane. I gasped. On Brandon’s head was a crown of thorns. A Fae royal crown.

“There you go.” Dia stood and stretched his arms over his head, lifting the cane, too. Another crack of thunder exploded in the sky even though there had been no lightning. “He is your fated mate.”

“And Fae royalty.”

“The crown was all your doing when you marked him.”

“Female Fae don’t have the power to give our mates crowns.”

“You do if you want to, and your mate wants it. You both must have wanted it. ”

“I did.” I’d longed for Brandon to not be human. To be my fated mate.

“Well, let me fix one more thing first.” He lifted the cane into the air and sent a red flare into the sky. It exploded like a star and sent tiny drops back down to Earth. I was the only one around to see this. Would anyone believe me?

“What else did you fix?”

“Humans believe in Fae again. They’ll treat you with respect and we’ll have none of that nonsense the Trappers tried, I promise you that. You’ll live in peace and harmony as I first intended.”

He vanished as quickly as he’d arrived, leaving me standing in a sea of frozen people. I forced my power into the ice, wanting to undo the damage I’d caused in my emotional state, but nothing happened. Except the ice fell away from Brandon. My fated mate. Brandon sat up and looked around.

“What the hell happened now?”