Page 6 of Fates Fulfilled
He shot her a grin, and Lex blinked. Good Lord, even the assistant was hot.
Compared to these men, Lex was homely as hell. If there was any truth to her being part Fae, she hadn’t gotten the good-looking genes.
“We will be on strict rations while traveling.” Garrin nodded at her food. “You must eat now. Our kind can survive long stretches without nourishment, but not yours.”
It had to have been hours since Garrin and his men kidnapped her from her dorm, given where they were. Dawson was located on a river delta, miles from mountains and caves. No one was going to find her here. No one was going to rescue her before they took her away for good.
“You don’t understand,” Lex said, her mouth tacky and dry. “I have…problems. If you think my panic attack earlier was bad, just wait until you put me near snow.”
Garrin set his food down. “What is this panic attack you speak of?”
“Fear—irrational fear. I can’t control it. The one time I saw snow, my heart raced so fast I passed out. Other times, I feel like I’m having a heart attack with all the signs and symptoms.”
Garrin looked to Zirel, who nodded.
“We will heal you,” Garrin said.
Lex shook her head. “My body, maybe, but not my mind. I won’t pass out if Zirel does his”—she waved vaguely at the redhead, because what in the hellhadhe done?—“but inside, my mind will be a wreck. Please.” She reached over and touched Garrin’s shoulder. And immediately retracted it as though she’d been burned. A spark of heat radiated up her arm, and she rubbed it. “Please, don’t do this.”
Garrin’s eyes were bluer than she’d ever seen them, nearly illuminated in the dim light set by the fire. “It is my duty. I must.”
“Doesn’t what I want matter?” Lex had never mattered to anyone except her mother, and now Jas, but it was worth a shot.
“No,” he said.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked back and forth. Garrin didn’t realize it yet, but he was on a fool’s mission. Because she wouldn’t survive the Land of Ice long enough to help him.
* * *
Lex was a strange female,fearful of the unknown when the known could be so much more deadly.
Garrin and Zirel had barely escaped the Land of Ice with their immortal lives. Hope had sprung when Amund, with his portal-creating powers, joined them after they reached New Kingdom, but not for long. Garrin had believed Lex would have command of her abilities, given her age. Only it seemed not.
Without Lex’s powers, there was no way to remove the magic-blocking barriers that prevented his people from safely coming and going. No way to create a megaportal to other realms and lands. Amund didn’t possess such magic. No one did.
Portal makers were capable of taking short jumps within a kingdom with a couple of people on board, not flights across tens of thousands of miles. Travel across the Land of Ice took months and was cold and dangerous.
And that worried Garrin. If Fae perished in the Land of Ice, how would a Halven with no abilities survive?
Amund swiveled his head to the side. “They are here,” he said sharply.
“Who?” Lex paused from nibbling the food Garrin had finally convinced her to eat.
Garrin sighed harshly. The Fae soldiers on Earth shouldn’t have found them for days. And now Garrin, his men, and Lex must leave before they’d properly prepared, and before the girl had sufficiently eaten. If the cold and snow she so feared didn’t kill her, lack of nutrition would. But he had no choice. “Create the portal.”
Amund raised his hand to the cave wall, moving it in a circular motion just above the surface. But before he could finish, four soldiers stormed inside.
“Lex!” one of the men shouted.
“Jasper?” Lex stood and moved toward the male—a Fae like Garrin, though Lex couldn’t know that. She hadn’t known Garrin and his men were Fae when she first encountered them.
“Stay back,” the man Lex called Jasper said. He was dressed in black, along with the rest of the Fae soldiers, who were quickly brandishing swords, including a black-haired female with eyes like Garrin’s.
Shimmers of light from Amund’s portal bounced off the walls of the cave.
“Now, Amund.” Garrin unsheathed his sword. “Take the girl.”
“No!” Lex shouted, and scurried away from Amund.
