Page 43 of Is It Wrong to Escape My Fate? (Dealing With Fate #1)

I didn’t realize I was breathing heavily until my body took lungful breaths of air.

A tremble made its way out, and my knees almost buckled before someone held me at my waist to keep me up.

“He used his Unique on himself by instinct,” I explained when I regained my breath.

“I just held onto him. He couldn’t shake me off. How long did it take?”

“A minute or so,” Vincent answered for me; he was the one massaging my left hand. “He’s not immune to his own ability?”

“Apparently not,” I smiled, still a little breathless. “Do you think it compounds? Exponentially? If he can erase memories for the past ten seconds in the blink of an eye, do you think the longer he activates it, the longer the time span?”

“Woman, you were just in the presence of a psychopath,” Amos grunted as he held my waist. “How are you not more scared?”

“Because you’re all here with me?” I stated honestly. “You promised to keep me safe.”

There was a silent moment before groans of annoyance or anger or disbelief echoed everywhere. Robin and Reuben volunteered to lift Compton’s body and place it on the couch while the rest had to brace themselves against something or someone.

“ I was scared!” Claude exclaimed, leaning against Uriel against his wishes. “I had no fucking idea how that would go!”

“Is she always like this?” Theodore complained to my knights, who looked the least affected with my words.

“Oh, yes,” Robin grinned, hip against the couch where the monster lay. “You’ll never get used to it. You just accept it.”

It was comforting to know there were similarities between OG Bea and me. Although … was Robin talking about me or me ?

They were wrong though; I was scared, too. But I had to do something before this monster could make things worse, and that knowledge overruled my fear.

Samuel, who had massaged my right hand, glanced from Compton to me. “Is this how you did it? How you escaped from your kidnappers?”

“Kind of, yeah.” Let’s go with that.

Derrick cast a diagnostics spell on the creep as Elias pulled me away from the men holding me, sat down on an armchair and pulled me onto his lap.

The heat crawled up from my chest as he wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face in the crook of my neck and shoulder.

He was quite literally hoarding me like a dragon.

“Wow, dude,” Claude yelled, glaring at Elias. “Selfish much?”

“She almost died. I think I’m allowed this much,” Eli retorted. My gentle, sweet-tempered man was snarking back? He must have been really nervous about the entire ordeal.

“I didn’t almost die,” I laughed. I couldn’t help defying him a little. He shushed me and went back to snuggling me.

“He’s still very alive, just knocked out,” Derrick proclaimed when his spell ended. “If his Unique was used on him extensively, that might mean his mind is scrambled. We’ll know the effect when he wakes up.”

“Demand to see him in court,” Winston commanded, staring a little too hard at me sitting on Eli’s lap. “You promised, princess.”

“If he still remembers me.” I smiled. “Actually, we should all probably leave the room now that we’re sure he’s still alive. Except maybe Winston, because Compton should know who the Prince is.”

To emphasize my point, I pulled myself away from Eli, much to his disapproval, and stood up. Claude immediately grabbed me by the waist and positioned me next to him, as if I was going to leave without them.

Looking over my shoulder at the rest of them, I grinned. “Let’s go, babes.”

As we walked out of the room as a unit, Samuel’s quiet voice broke through the silence. “Skies, she has us wrapped around her little fingers, doesn’t she?”

The silence continued as we reentered the observation room. While the men returned to their seats, I opted to stand and wait by the illusory wall, like Theodore, because I didn’t want to start another argument about seating arrangements.

We didn’t have to wait long when the Lord bastard regained consciousness.

Winston sat on his seat previously as if no time had passed since the last time they talked.

Once Compton opened his eyes and found Winston, they widened in recognition.

He opened his mouth to speak, but only garbled sounds came out.

Oh, no.

Did his Unique affect him too much?

“He can’t remember anything,” Uriel announced, surprising the rest of the men. He must be reading the monster’s mind. “The last major thing he remembers was attending a ball. Last year. He lost a year’s worth of memories.”

“Why can’t he talk?” Robin asked what I wanted to know, too.

“The extreme mental condition he experienced is probably messing with his mind right now,” Derrick explained. “Psychic-related magic is already tricky by itself. But with healing magic and enough rest, I assume he’ll be back to normal. Minus the memories.”

Vincent tapped a hand on his chin. “Even if a spell existed to make lost memories return, the fact that it was a Unique that erased them would make it impossible. Unique triumphs over magic.”

So memory-related spells were nonexistent or very rare. Good info to know. And the fact Uniques were considered more powerful than magic was another useful info.

Although if that was the case, then couldn’t they question how my mind blocked Uriel’s Telepathy Unique? They assumed it was a Psychic magic block, and if Unique triumphed over magic, then —

I avoided Uriel’s gaze, or he might get the idea.

“In the end, he still got away with it,” Amos sighed, glancing at me as if he figured me out. “Can’t accuse a technically ‘innocent’ man.”

“I like to think of it as his redemption. Will he make the same choices when he recovers? That’s when we’ll know he can be redeemed.” And I needed him gone from the academy without dying because of me, because I didn’t think OG Bea could handle causing another human’s death.

As expected, and really, the only logical move, Winston informed Compton that he had been attending school for two weeks when he collapsed and lost consciousness mysteriously.

He would need to be rushed back to his estate so he could rest and be examined by physicians, with the assistance of the Prince’s employees.

I suspected Compton couldn’t comprehend everything right now, but Winston would make sure to update someone in his household about their Lord’s condition.

Take as much time as you need away from me, Julian Compton.

Winston’s guards and staff prepared to transport Compton safely while we watched from inside the spelled room. While he couldn’t move his body because his condition affected his motor control, he could very well move his head a bit, and his eyes found mine again through the illusory wall.

He could still sense me and my distinct, unique flavor, but he had no idea who I was to him.

“What if he becomes obsessed with a different girl?” Elias wondered as Compton was safely deposited on a stretcher.

“I sincerely doubt it,” I answered back, because in the entire journey he was being carted off — away from us — his eyes never left mine despite not seeing what he was looking at.

He’d definitely be back to finish the rest of his education. I would be long gone by then along with my weird mind aura, or whatever the hell he called it. That was the plan anyway.