Page 61 of Fractured Souls
“And just to clarify the part I play in this,” I said. “I’m supposed to destroy the actual dark ones so they don’t move on after Earth?A forbidden child, whose origins are of cosmic beginnings, will destroy the dark cosmic ones and protect the pulse of magic.”
“Damn, no pressure,” Nova drew out, arching a brow. “You good to kill some cosmic beings?”
I smirked. “Are you good to find the center ofallmagic and release it?”
“I could use a cup of coffee first,” Nova said, causing me to take a sip of my own.
Bayton interrupted our stream of sarcasm like we hadn’t said anything. “We don’t have long. We don’t have long at all. In the time that you’re here, Nova, assuming you leave within a day, nearly two months will have passed—”
Wait…what?!Twomonths? I looked to Dean with wide eyes before snapping my gaze back to Bayton. Was this bastard serious?
“What?” Nova demanded. “What did you just say?”
With all the calm in the world, Bayton responded, “Your span of twenty-four hours here is about two months on Earth.”
Oh…oh my fucking Maker. A cynical half laugh left me in shock. “Are you fucking joking?” If that were true, it meant I’d broken my promise.
Bayton looked beyond confused. “What? I’m confused about what the issue is?”
“The issue,” Nova hissed, standing up, “is that two months is a massive amount of time! I get it isn’t for you, but we missed Christmas, and our plant babies could be dead! You think we arranged for two months’ worth of plant sitters? If I’d known I would lose two months—”
Christmas. Holidays. Broken fucking promises. My eyes almost pricked with tears of frustration thinking about Maggie and my brother…
I let out a slow exhale, trying to calm myself.
“What would you have done?” Bayton demanded. “Your Earth realm holidays won’t matter if we don’t fix this.”
I understood what he was saying, but I was still pissed.
“No.” Nova shook her head. “Absolutely not. This was supposed to be my first Christmas with my boys, so you can fuck off while I process that I just lost that.”
Looking at Dean, I saw the disappointment in his gaze, frustration at Bayton on his face. “What about Maggie, Dean? She’s going to be so disappointed. We were supposed to go skiing.”
Dean pressed a kiss to my forehead, my gaze moving to my other men who looked equally as upset. The holidays had come and gone, and we’d given no word to Maggie or Cormac. What if they were worried about us? What if they thought the worst?
We would have to do something to rectify this. Plan something fun. Although now we were going to have even less time before having to handle the dark ones, so we wouldn’t have time for anything like that any time soon…
Was it so much to ask for a little normalcy?
“Is this an important discussion to be had right now?” Bayton interjected.
“Hey!” Nova growled. “You’re asking a lot of us right now. We are still women who love their boyfriends and want to celebrate Christmas, so give us a moment to compartmentalize this bullshit, okay?”
Honestly, she could not have put it better.
“Okay!” Bayton put up his hands, clearly giving up on us.
I held Nova’s gaze, and she offered me a sympathetic look. “Lorcan. I’m sorry you missed Christmas with Maggie. I’m not positive who that is, but I’m still sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I smiled sadly and shrugged. “It is what it is. I’m sorry you missed Christmas, but maybe you can go extra big next year?”
“Oh good, so you two have decided we’re defeating the dark ones? I assume so if there is anextyear?”
I narrowed my gaze on Bayton because how annoying—like, we were having a friendship moment here, and he was being an impatient ass.
Nova shot him an incredulous look. “Of course we are. When was that ever in question?” I nearly laughed at the way she was fucking with him.
“I’m drastically unprepared for this,” Bayton admitted, sitting down in a huff as the lights came back on. “Well, it seems we’re all on the same page, sort of—Nova, you need to find the center of all magic, and Lorcan, you need to find a way to defeat the dark ones. The answers may be here, they may not, but I would at least try to find them.”
