She knew what she had to do, and she’d do it at all cost. She leaned forward, ramming one attacker with her shoulder, and spun, twisting away from another to move through the crowd. Westley had fallen, but he was up again, and he ran with me, both of us following in her wake, close behind as she reached her target.
Morgan had scrambled back, was getting to his feet, and Aern sprang at him, bashing his knee into the other man’s face. But Morgan was strong, too. Of all of us, he’d had the most training, and he rolled, tossing Aern as he worked to get a grip on his brother’s skin ... to turn him. Shots rang out again, and Emily swayed, but her steps didn’t falter. She was on him, feet and elbows flying as the two of them struggled to pin Morgan down. His crisp white shirt was suddenly open, the skin of his chest bare, and Emily’s palms pressed flat against him with a force that pushed him back, seemed to sear through him.
There was a scream. An utter roar.
And it was Morgan.
The room stilled again, the fighting staggering and breaking as his shriek splintered the air, and his men stopped to stare at the body below my sister’s palms. Aern sat back, panting, as Wesley’s boots came to rest beside him. I stood, staring down at Morgan’s face, all of us knowing that Emily had done it, she’d taken his fate, torn his power away.
The anger hadn’t left him, but Morgan was irrelevant now. Empty. Everything that had made him important, powerful, frightening, was gone, drained from him, and I realized that he had never been vital to the prophecy at all. He didn’t mean anything. We’d simply needed him to get here, to break ourselves free.
This had all been to force our hand. Because the prophecy was bigger, far more significant than any of this.
Morgan’s chest heaved as he stared at me, his eyes suddenly dull, void of anything other. He wanted me to die, and yet, it made no difference anymore. He was immaterial.
“Leave him,” I told Emily. “He’s nothing more than a commonblood now.” She let out a breath, satisfied by my words, and stood as Wesley and two others gathered him into their custody.
I scanned the room, hundreds of men who were loyal to Morgan because of his sway watching us from the wreckage, waiting for it to make sense. To decide.
We couldn’t make them “unthink” their thoughts, couldn’t reverse what had been shoved into their minds by Morgan, but as my eyes connected with Aern’s, I knew there was something we could do, a way to give them new thoughts. To convince them Morgan was no longer their leader.
I wet my lips, kneeling down before Aern to take his hand. He was a dragon. He had the most powerful sway of anyone, aside from Morgan, and I could give him the gift he needed, the power to turn his own kind. Because I trusted him. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, fully aware of what it would cost him, of what I was setting into motion.
Aern sighed. “Let me guess,” he said, not certain what I planned to do, but understanding by my expression that he wasn’t going to like it, “It’s the only way.”
I laughed despite myself, and my fingers trembled as the power moved through my palms. It took the last of my strength, but I could see that it would be enough. That he could turn them.
“Tell them,” I whispered, “show them it doesn’t matter.”
Emily caught me, her arms wrapping around me as I gave everything that was left, and I focused on the scent of her strawberry shampoo, not the blood that caked her shirt, not the wound from a bullet that had grazed my shoulder. The fire was gone. We had done it. Strong arms came around me, and I was lifted, carried away beneath the flickering light of half-seen visions and surgical lights.
When it was finally over, I woke, arm tender beneath a patch of tape and gauze, swathed in a clean white blanket in my bed.
Logan’s arms were around me. “Hi,” I croaked, shifting to see him better, and he inched away, careful of my injury.
His hand moved gingerly to my waist, rested there as the corner of his mouth came up in greeting. “Hi.”
“Are you all right?” I asked, seeing that he was fully dressed, new jeans over the thigh that had taken a hit, and he nodded, moving closer to prop his head on an elbow. The room was dim, soft light from the washroom throwing shadows across the canopy overhead. The halls were silent, empty. It felt slightly hollow, as if something were missing, but that something should never have been there.
That something had accompanied me my whole life. It was the sense of impending disaster, the looming feeling of dread.
Logan leaned forward, nose brushing my cheek as he whispered, “You did it.”
He drew back to look at me, and I exhaled, knowing it was finally over; Morgan was no longer a threat. Emily was not going to be taken, the urgency of saving her gone. I’d found the key, released our powers.
And then I smiled, remembering. The cold fire hissing through my palms, the feel of the power, the air as it moved around me. The satisfaction of seeing Morgan’s face. “It was pretty impressive, wasn’t it?”
He stared at me, stock-still. Logan was suddenly straight-faced, tone solemn, when he said, “That was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.”
I laughed, kissing him earnest, and asked, “Does this mean we finally get those three days?”
“Take as long as you want,” Logan offered. And then he pursed his lips, considering the men and women of the Seven Lines that were expecting their prophet, their savior, to make an appearance. “But I’m pretty sure they’ll be downstairs waiting for you the entire time.”
I groaned as I buried my face into his arm. But when I drew back, the spark in Logan’s eyes freed me from every other concern. That otherworldly glow was there; he wasn’t just a man now. He was more, so much more.
“Let them wait,” I said as I moved to him.
I pressed a kiss to his pulse, and he lowered his head, gripping my waist tighter as he brought his mouth over mine. It was the closest I’d ever been to security. To home. Sure, there was other stuff, but it was vague, far away. This was now. Emily and I were safe. We would live.
And I had every intention of doing so.
###
Look for Book Three in the Descendants Series
Coming 2014
Also From Melissa Wright
The Frey Saga
Frey, Pieces of Eight, Rise of the Seven
Visit her on the web at
www.melissa-wright.com
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Shifting Fate Page 15