Page 54 of The Fated and the Damned
I sighed in relief, glad to have outwitted the cultists as the man, still smiling, fell to his knees. Fucking creepy cultists. I took a step … and stumbled. Confused, I looked to my stomach, my hand drifting up to find a dagger implanted there, blood sluicing over my fingers as I touched the wound.
How …?
I stumbled again, bumping into other nobles as I scanned the room. The fire witches restored light to the hall as they cast more fireballs, and that’s when shit really went sideways.
One scream, shrill and piercing, rang through the hall. Then another in an entirely different corner. Another scream followed, another, until shouts rang out from all around me, nobles pushing and shoving and bumping shoulders so hard that guests fell to the floor, nearly crushed beneath the heels and boots of panicked people.
I stepped slowly through the crowd, my vision hazy as I flung my arms out uselessly, knocked back again and again. Pain flared in my side each time and I gasped, clutching my side. Where was Dante? I’d almost given up hope on finding my friends when I saw a flash of dark, reddish-brown hair, followed by the ring of steel.
“Dante,” I croaked, but the din was too loud, the chaos of moving bodies silencing my cries for help.He’s okay, I told myself.He’s fighting, which must mean he’s okay.I turned my attention towards searching for Margit. She was the one I needed now. The only one I trusted to change fate.
I burst out from the crowd, and my heart stopped in my chest. András lay with his back against the wall, his breathing ragged, his hands clutched against a wound in his chest. I crumpled at his side, wincing from the movement as I pressed my own hands next to his, trying to stop the blood seeping out. “No, no, no.”
“Quite the … plot twist … eh?” he said with a choked laugh.
“Be still,” I hushed, forbidding the hysteria from bubbling out of my throat. “I refuse to let you leave me.”
He looked pointedly at my own injury, placing one bloodied hand over my own. “If you don’t do something about your own wound soon, I might not want for company.”
I glanced down at the blood pooling at my stomach. I didn’t think any vital organs had been punctured, but then again, my mind was becoming more muddled by the minute. I had been looking for someone …
“Margit,” I rasped. “Where?”
“I’m here.” Her skirts billowed around her as she dropped to her knees, wincing as she did.
“Are you hurt?”
“A flesh wound. Dante saved me.” She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. “In my visions there was always so much blood. I’d thought it spelled our death. I’d thought only one of us would be affected. How could I have been so wrong? I never realised—”
“Stop,” I whispered. “You had the same dream sequence every time. I would have thought the same. But none of that matters anymore. What’s important is that we fix this.” I blinked, trying to hold onto my fading energy. “Where’s Eszter?”
She shook her head helplessly, and I felt a new wave of panic spread through me. “Eszter,” I yelled, but I hadn’t the strength to bolster the word. “Where’s my sister?”
“Here,” Dante called, and I swivelled too quickly, sending another spurt of blood dribbling from my stomach. My heart skipped a beat as I looked at them both. She was white as snow and her eyes were glazed, but otherwise unharmed, thank the gods. Dante had a slice to his arm but was fine.
He sank beside me, his eyes cataloguing my wounds and András’s with a commander’s gaze. The gold in his eyes flashed, and by Hadur, his power darkened the already dim room, lit only by sparks of fire as witches battled intruders throughout.
“Where are they?” Dante’s tone was the promise of nightmares, the low rumble from his chest both haunting and dangerous. “I will cut off their heads and send them back to Sylvie.”
“They’re already dead,” I wheezed, jerking my head behind me. The movement was too much, and I sagged, my eyes rolling back in my head.
“Both of you, stay with me. Don’t you dare fucking leave me.” He pulled a dagger from his belt, rolled his sleeve back, and sliced without hesitation. Blood welled, snaking down his arm in streams, forming pathways like roots of a great tree.
He nodded to Margit and she did the same without hesitation, pulling her own blade out to keep the cuts clean. My vision began to darken, and the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes was András’s deathly pale face, his lips blue, his breathing so, so shallow.
It dawned on me then, what they were planning to do, and gods, it just might work. But the last time it had happened … “No,” I rasped. “I could—” I tried to speak, but the words lodged in my throat, my reflexes slow, my body beginning to fail me.
I wanted to scream, but all I could do was lie there, wait, and pray. My body was jostled, and I felt myself being lifted into Dante’s arms. “Pull from me, Freckles. Pull me from me, if not for you, then for András. Save him.”
My eyelashes fluttered as I tried to open my eyes. Darkness was calling me, or perhaps it was Death, taunting me, whispering sweet silken words to join him somewhere I was not ready to tread.
Well, the fucker could keep waiting. I had to save András. Had to save them all, only now I knew I didn’t have to do it alone. My friends, my family, they believed in me. I would not let them down.
Dante’s power bumped against my barriers, stroking a soft whisper of black against my mind. I let him in and his power surged down into the bottom-most layers of my mind, funnelling deeper than even I had imagined he could go.
I lapped it up greedily, feeling my strength return, the beast howling in delight as it unfurled inside of me and lifted its head, as if it recognised its companion—something altogether similar in mind and shape.
Our magic met in the middle, seeming to click inside me as the beast fed on that darkness, quivering with a deep-seated need. It felt so intimate this time, like a key had been unlocked and only now were the gears shifting into place. I had to suppress a moan as I writhed, feeling my body light up in every possible place.
