Page 137 of Legendary

Her dark eyebrows raised in curiosity. “I’m all ears.”

I glanced over at Xander, not really knowing if what I was about to divulge was something he could hear. She followed my gaze and shook her head. “He pledged his loyalty to me a long time ago. If that loyalty is mistreated in any way, there are consequences.” It was always ominous the way she spoke, but I let her leave it at that.

“I took the advice you gave me. I put my power into the dagger and I…” Bringing up what happened made my mind numb and I couldn’t finish.

She nodded in understanding. “And she was no longer of this realm.”

“Yes, um, she was gone. Right in my arms and then she wasn’t.”

“What do you mean, she wasn’t?”

I scrubbed a hand down my face. “As in she wasn’t strong enough to fight things off herself, so she died, Natalia. She died right in front of me, and then she…she…”

“She came back to life. That shit was fucking insane,” Reese interjected.

Xander wiped his hands on a towel. “You resurrected her?”

I pressed my lips together. “I mean, I didn’t say that—”

“But you were going to.”

Natalia waved him off. “Xander, hush. Did you do that, Nicholas?”

I bit my lower lip, tasting blood from where I had pulled at a piece of skin too hard. “I think so.”

Her honey-colored eyes went to the side, as if she was in deep thought. “Strange. As an angel, you have the power of an Enchanter, and your parents are both angels.”

I nodded. “I may not know a lot about my mother, but I know she was an angel. I’m pretty certain Enchanter doesn’t run through my veins. It’s not in my DNA.”

“Could someone in your family maybe be some sort of Enchanter hybrid, skipping generations until you,” Reese offered, making my brain work overtime with his theories.

Xander cut in. “Most necromancers or resurrectors, whatever they want to be called, never really fucked around outside of their own kind. That kind of power was coveted so much that they wanted to keep it purely among Enchanters, well I mean, at least that’s what I thought.”

“I did as well. Hmm, there is another way itcouldhappen. Not many people do it, but it does exist.” The High Priestess looked at me, squinting as if she almost couldn’t believe what she was about to say. “How much do you know about transference, Nicholas?”

“Nothing,” I admitted. Xander came up next to Natalia, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

“It’s exactly how it sounds. It’s the transferring of power. Any power can be willingly moved to another host. It’s not the most pleasant experience and most definitely something you wouldn’t forget,” she explained, watching me to make sure I was still with her.

“Why would that matter in Nick’s case?” Reese asked, hopping from one foot to the other, relieving the pressure from his wounded leg.

“She thinks that’s what’s going on. That would probably be the only explanation,” Xander answered, getting a look from Natalia to, in the politest way, shut up.

I thought this over. “You just said it’s not a fun experience and that I would likely remember it if it happened. How does that make any sense then?”

Natalia's eyes widened, as if she was having an epiphany, and then she shut her eyes in the same moment, let out a short breath, shaking her head. “It’s so obvious now.” She was speaking more to herself than to us. I brought my hands to her arms, bringing her attention back to the people in the room.

“What’s obvious?”

She tapped a gold painted fingernail against my skull. “Your missing pieces.”

“Wait, is she talking about when you basically time traveled, and she found a gaping hole in your mind?” Reese had an odd way of summing upthe things I said to him, and I found that I wanted to laugh, but my mind was elsewhere in this conversation.

Natalia gave him a soft smile. “Yes, that’s one way to put it. I could be wrong, but if transference is the culprit, then I don’t think it happened in your adulthood. Your friend Garrett is almost the last of his kind and there is maybe only one I know of in Oculus currently, so there wouldn’t have been one around to make it happen. Plus, just because you have a power you want to give away doesn’t mean you have the power to make it happen.

“The act of transference has to be done by someone skilled enough to make sure both parties aren’t harmed and that it sticks. It’s painful. It’s essentially someone placing a foreign entity into your very being.”

Reese hopped over to the bed, resting against it. “Well, if not in the last few years, then when?”

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