Visions (Dragon Reign Book 7)

by Kit Bladegrave

  I had no idea what he meant. I couldn’t control it, and it pulsed in time with my racing heart.

  “Sabella.”

  I threw a glance at the door behind me and saw him lunge forward out of the corner of my eye.

  I yelled, and the light shot out at him like a whip, slashing down his body. He growled in agony and hit the ground, holding one hand to his scorched chest.

  I blinked, and the light disappeared. I fell backward as if punched in the gut as my memories flooded back.

  “Tristan,” I whispered, horrified at what I’d done. “No, oh my god. What did I do?”

  “Sabella,” he mumbled, reaching for me as I went to him.

  Tears fell down my cheeks. I carefully pulled back his burnt shirt, dumbfounded by the burn stretching down his body. “I’m… I’m so sorry,” I uttered. “Tristan… I didn’t… I couldn’t remember and the light it just…” My mouth kept moving, but there were no more words to try and explain. I hurt him. What if it’d been worse? What if I killed him?

  I got to my feet, backing away.

  “Sabella, wait,” he pleaded.

  All I could see was this ending worse.

  “Don’t.”

  But I had to get away. I was dangerous and as I ran past the others gathered, while Tristan called my name, I saw fear on some of their faces. Fear of me and what I’d done to Tristan. It wasn’t safe for me to be around them anymore. Baladon, he’d gotten in my head. I’d forgotten who I was, who everyone else was and instead of protecting, I’d hurt the only person I’d ever really cared for.

  I slammed my door shut and locked it, doing the same to the adjoining door, too. I stood in the center of my room, flinching when Tristan knocked loudly, barely a minute later.

  “Sabella, open this door,” he ordered.

  “No, just go away.”

  “I’m fine, alright? Swear it. Open the door.”

  “No, you were right. You can’t trust me, and I can’t trust myself, just… just leave me alone.”

  “No, I wasn’t. Please, open the door.”

  I shook my head and felt the voices creeping back in, just like they had in the old days before coming here, before meeting Tristan. I was on the floor, tucking my head against my chest, pleading for them to go away. But they only got louder, and soon they drowned Tristan out.

  “Leave me alone,” I yelled, unable to take it any longer.

  “Fine,” Tristan shot back. “But this is not over, Sabella. The second I get back, you and are having a very long talk, so don’t you dare give up on us. You are not going to just lock yourself away forever.”

  Then he was gone, and I was alone with the madness.

  Being alone forever sounded like the safest place for me to be now. I hurt him, could’ve hurt Craig or Kate. I could’ve killed any of them so easily. There was no coming back from that.

  I stayed curled up in a ball as the vision I had came back to me bit by bit. We were all going to die, all of us. I’d seen my own death. That in itself was enough to push me closer to the edge of an insanity I wouldn’t come back from.

  I was going to die before this war was over. The second Tristan heard those words, I would lose the last bit of freedom I did have. He’d worry about me nonstop, and it would get in the way of his thinking clearly about his people, about his warriors.

  I would not be the reason he got anyone killed, or himself.

  There was only one choice left to me, and I knew there’d be no coming back.

  5

  Tristan

  I winced as Lucy applied a salve to the burn. “Can you try again?”

  “To what end?” Lucy asked. “If she doesn’t want to see you, then she doesn’t want to see you.”

  “She’s blaming herself for this,” I growled.

  “She could’ve seriously hurt you, or someone else,” she pointed out. “How would you feel?”

  “I wouldn’t lock myself away.” I shrugged into a fresh shirt Boris had brought me, rose to my feet, and started for the door.

  “Where are you going now?” Boris asked, hurrying to keep up as I left the infirmary.

  “I’m going to break down that damned door, that’s what,” I seethed. “What do you think she’s doing in her room right now, huh? She’s going to drag herself down and make it worse than it is. I have to talk to her.”

  Boris said nothing, but I sensed his unease.

  Seeing Sabella like that had scared many of the pack and unnerved more of them, me included, though I wasn’t going to admit it aloud. When she’d fallen into that vision, she kept muttering over and over again about death and Baladon, whispering his name and shivering like she was freezing to death. Nothing coherent came through, but when she’d opened her eyes, it was like I was staring at a stranger. Sabella had been gone, torn from her own mind. I was pissed at myself for getting into an argument that ended with her falling into another vision and then coming out of it not herself.

  I told myself over and over I trusted her, that she was wrong, but when she’d accused me of it, all I’d done was stand there.

  I reached her door just in time to find Kate and Craig standing there, talking quietly.

  “Just leave her be,” Kate told me sternly.

  “Why, has she said anything?” I demanded.

  Kate hesitated, but Craig nudged her. “She doesn’t want to see you, or anybody. She’s afraid she’ll hurt someone again.”

  “I’m fine,” I insisted.

  Kate shook her head.

  “What?”

  “She said specifically she did not want to see you. I’m sorry, Tristan. She needs time.”

  “Time to do what?” I feared the more time she had alone, she’d talk herself into believing we couldn’t be together. “I have to see her. I’m leaving in the morning.”

  “She’s not in a good place right now and you going in there is only going to make it worse.”

  “What do you mean? What’s going on with her? Kate, for the love of the gods, tell me,” I roared, my heart ready to beat right out of my chest. Craig took a half-step forward as if to shove me back, but Kate placed a hand on his arm, and he stilled.

  “She’s hearing voices again,” she whispered. “She’s not exactly all there right now.”

  My hand was on the door a second later, but it was locked. I banged my fist on it, calling for Sabella, but there was no reply. I rested my forehead against it, needing to see her, feeling her desperation, her fear, but I couldn’t get to her unless I busted through this door. Half of me said to do it, but the other half knew Kate was right and Sabella needed time to sort through her emotions.

  “Did she say what her vision was?” I asked quietly, not moving from the door.

  “No, but as soon as she’s ready to talk about it, I’ll send word, Tristan, I swear it.”

  This wasn’t happening, it couldn’t be. I’d found Sabella, and our lives were supposed to come together in a way that made sense. We were supposed to be happy with one another, not tearing each other’s heads off every other sentence, and lashing out, then hiding away our true emotions.

  I ran my hands through my hair and backed away from the door, telling Boris to get me when it was time to head out. I disappeared into my chambers, locking the door behind me, and went to the adjoining one. I knew it’d be locked but tried anyway.

  When it didn’t budge, I pressed my back against it and slid to the floor. She was so close, but wouldn’t let me get near. What if that was the last time I ever got to hold her? Or talk to her? And all I’d done was make her think I didn’t trust her, or that I didn’t want her in my life. I stayed by that door until I fell asleep.

  “You sure about this?” Craig asked the next morning, if it even was morning anymore.

  The darkness made it impossible to tell, and I hadn’t exactly slept. My back was stiff from being propped up against the door, and when I saw Kate as I headed out to the stables, she shook her head. Sabella hadn’t left her room yet.

&nbs
p; “Yeah, we’ll go, see what we can find, and get back in a hurry.”

  “And if there’s a trap? Of if he’s still there? We don’t exactly have an army with us.”

  “Recon only,” I stated. “I’m not going there looking for a fight, not now.”

  “You sure about that? The angry snarl you’ve got going on says otherwise,” he said. “You’re too emotional right now to think straight, let alone fight.”

  “I’m not sending my men out and staying behind. I’m the alpha. This is my duty.”

  “And your duty to Sabella?” he asked, climbing up on his horse beside me. “What about that?”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked after I was in my saddle.

  “It means exactly how it sounds. I know the pack is important to you, and so does she, but she’s not a shifter, Tristan, and instead of working to find a way to make your lives work together, you keep forcing it on her. You’re saying you can’t trust her because, at the end of the day, she’ll do what her instincts tell her is right instead of following your orders?”

  Craig flicked the reins of his horse and was out the gate before I had a chance to respond. I stared back at the castle, searching for Sabella before I rode out of this courtyard for what could very well be the last time. But she wasn’t there.

  The rest of my guard rode out the gate, as did Lucy, until I was the only one remaining behind.

  Craig’s words were harsh, but they were damned true.

  I tugged on the reins, nearly jumping from my saddle to go track her down and not leave us damaged like this. But the alpha in me was stronger and rebelled. The pack was the only thing that mattered. Nothing came before it, nothing could. Otherwise, the pack was weak.

  I spotted Kate and Hank by the doors, nodded my head at them to watch over Sabella until I returned, then kicked my heels into my horse’s sides and took off to catch up with the rest of our small army.

  The ride back to where the seam resided would take a full day if we rode hard. The warriors were quiet, and I kept myself a fair distance from Craig, not in the mood to hear more about how I was screwing up my relationship with Sabella. I had a fight to prepare for. With any luck, Baladon would be there, and we could end this horrible darkness.

  I missed the sun and looking up at night and seeing the inky darkness filled with bright stars and a full moon. The darkness wore on everyone, this oppressing night. Worse was the sensation of not knowing what else waited for us out there, hunting from the shadows, ready to devour us whole.

  Or not whole.

  I sniffed the air, breathing in deep, and turned my head sharply to the right the same time I raised my hand for a halt. I stared back down the line, searching for Boris as I tilted my head to the right. He nodded and signaled for four to slip from their saddles and shift, hurrying into the fields of tall grass. He motioned for two more of our warriors to flank Lucy and guide her back down the way we’d come and wait there.

  Whatever was about to attack, I did not want to watch Lucy get killed. Kate would kill us if we returned without her.

  Craig waved an arm over his head, and his demon guards continued further down the road, taking it slow to see if we could draw out whatever new monstrosity was stalking us. He drew the Executioner blade from his hip a few inches, his head on a swivel as the urge to shift had me gripping the reins tightly in my fists.

  After a few minutes of nothing but the wind blowing through the dry grass, and the horses whinnying as they waited impatiently to move forward, I thought the stench of decay had been nothing more than mushrooms or mold, but then a wolf’s cry shattered the calm. I was off my horse and shifting a second later, sniffing the air as another cry had me digging my claws into the mud, ready to take off.

  Boris had shifted and stood shoulder to shoulder with me. My ears flicked forward, and I listened to what sounded like slithering coming toward us.

  Snakes, please let it not be snakes.

  Boris shook out his head, and I growled, pawing at the ground.

  I hated snakes and whatever was coming toward us sounded like a rather large snake. And here I’d thought this day couldn’t get any better.

  Keep your eyes open. There might be more than one, I told my pack and had another of my wolves shift back to inform Craig.

  I heard his grunt of annoyance as he told his men to leave the horses on the road and fan out, but not to go in the grass. Going in there was suicide, and I doubted the two wolves I heard cry out were still alive. Their deaths would be simply added to the number that already weighed on my shoulders, as the alpha that sent them to their ends.

  The slithering was coming closer, and I lowered my head, attempting to make out the large, dark shape moving through the grass.

  A demon yelled, and Craig ordered the attack.

  I whirled around.

  A giant snake’s head, far too large to be deemed anything but a nightmare snatched the demon around his torso. Another demon grabbed hold of the captured demon’s hands as Craig drove the Executioner blade into the beast’s head.

  It screeched and let go of the demon as its body thudded to the ground, tail whipping around aimlessly.

  Craig yanked his blade free and checked the man that had been bitten, who was shuddering from whatever venom the snake held in its fangs. One snake. Every other one of Baladon’s “pets” that attacked us worked in groups. There was never just one.

  Keep alert, I warned the wolves. There’s more out there.

  I barely thought the words when a massive dark shape shot across the road, taking out a horse and disappeared back into the grass with it. The horse screamed until the wound was cut off sharply. The others reared and bucked, trying to get away.

  Another body launched from the grass, jaws abnormally wide as it went for a wolf, but I was faster and slammed into him, sending us both rolling further down the road.

  Boris latched himself onto the snake’s back, but his claws scrambled against the hard scales, not getting purchase.

  I shifted back and yelled for the others to do the same, drawing my sword and dagger.

  “Watch its fangs,” I yelled in warning as the one Boris struggled to hold onto whipped its head toward me.

  Those fangs were a foot long at least and dripped with venom.

  I bared my teeth right back at it, bouncing on the balls of my feet. As soon as it reared its head, I dove to the side, and it barely missed snatching my leg. Yelling, I spun around and drove my dagger into the beast’s eye. Its body coiled in on itself as it thrashed its head, tearing the wound open even more and spilling blood all over the road. And me.

  I yelped as the blood hit bare skin, sizzling on my flesh.

  I waited to see if it was poisonous, but aside from the burning where it created a wound, I felt fine. No time to stop now. The snake was far from dead, and though I blinded it in one eye, the other functioned well enough, and it threw itself at me.

  I leapt over its head, rolling across its twisting body before I fell to the ground.

  “Taking a break at a time like this,” Craig muttered as he yanked me back up.

  “You know me,” I replied, searching for my dagger. “How many you think are out there?”

  “Three is all I’ve seen so far, but I could be wrong.”

  The road that had been peaceful moments before was in total chaos. Two remained that we were sure of, but as Craig turned around, he cursed.

  “Do I want to know what’s behind us?” I asked roughly.

  “Do you want nightmares for the rest of your life?” he replied.

  “How bad?” I heard the massive body rustling the grass and a sharp hissing that drowned out the fighting around us.

  “You ever wonder what Forrest would look like utterly pissed off and without wings?”

  I hung my head. “Come on.”

  “How you want to go after it?”

  “Depends, what’s it doing?”

  He tilted his head. “Right now, eyeing us both lik
e we taste damned good.”

  We could barely kill the ones that were normal size… not that these monsters were normal.

  I heard Boris yelling as they brought down the one I’d blinded and saw the demons tag-teaming the last one, but who knew what else that grass hid. What I wouldn’t give for a dragon right now to set the whole field on fire.

  “Craig, got a match?” I asked.

  He frowned then slowly reached into his pocket. “Actually, I have something better.” He dug around, his eyes never leaving the monstrosity behind us, and when he revealed a glowing, red vial.

  I frowned.

  “Courtesy of Lucy. I was saving it in case we ran into Baladon, but think this calls for extreme measures. How you ever got by without magic is beyond me.”

  Now was not the time to complain about the packs’ mistrust of magic.

  Carefully, I turned around as Boris and the rest of our small army faced the largest damned snake I’d ever seen in my life and hoped it would be the last.

  It towered over us, its body coiled, just waiting.

  “What is it doing?” I asked quietly.

  “No idea…” Craig blinked confused and turned to me. “Hear that?”

  The grass rustled once again, but this wasn’t just one or two snakes. There had to be a small army coming toward us. We needed to clear the road, but there was no time.

  “Throw it,” I told Craig. “Do it, now.”

  He drew his arm back at the same time the giant snake decided to launch its attack.

  The fiery vial lit up the darkness.

  We yelled for everyone to get down as we waited for the fire, but the snake swallowed the vial whole and kept on coming.

  Shit.

  The grasses were practically lying flat in the field, and I yelled for a retreat, thinking at least Sabella was not here to die with the rest of us, when the massive snake suddenly reared back and shrieked.

  A second later, the creature exploded, sending a rolling wave of fire through the grass.

  We hit the ground, covering our heads as those flames boiled and destroyed everything in their path. Chunks of burnt snake landed on and around us, splattering to the ground with sickening crunches and squishes that would make it hard for me to eat well-cooked meat for a very long time.