Breathless Magic (6 page)

Chapter Six

With Terletov gone, the battle became a practiced dance of
good versus evil.

I’d been here so many times before, it was like a routine
that I knew all the steps to. Only this time, when I fought I had more to
protect. The Crown was mine to hold onto this time, the Citadel my home that I
would fight to keep and my babies… I would do anything to protect my little
nuggets that weren’t even born yet.

I also had a deep well of Magic that extended into three
other Immortals. We were limitless in our capabilities and even more so when we
were together.

Kiran and I fought back to back, our Magic slicing through
the air like a sharp blade with the force of a thousand winds. We worked as a
seamless unit of power and grace.

Kiran’s once-gray Magic combined with my once-royal blue
energy and merged into this wispy navy blue hue that had quickly become my
favorite of all the colors. Because I was part Titan, I could see the different
colors of Magic flash around me as we fought against each other. My friends-
the good guys- had a myriad of colors that lit up the room like a color storm
of lightning. I watched Olivia’s Magic strike bright white into the air around
her and it was the first moment that I actually believed she could be the true
Immortal Terletov claimed she was. Her Magic was pure, despite Terletov’s
wicked way of turning her. An eternal creature, like Kiran and me, like Avalon
and Amelia, I wondered if she was able to grasp the concept better than the
four of us. We still struggled with the overwhelming idea. And now we wouldn’t
be alone.

I was more in favor of her relationship with Jericho than
ever.

And as he stormed into the room with impeccable timing and a
reserve of more men to fight for our cause, I realized that I didn’t have to
worry anymore if they would work out or not. Jericho and Olivia were as sealed
as they could be before the final consummation of their relationship.

Yay!

Definitely distracted, I received a blast of Magic to my
shoulder. The hit of sickly green energy knocked me off balance and I bumped
into Kiran behind me. His hand shot out and grabbed my hip to steady me.

Pay attention
.
Avalon growled inside my head.

It’s Jericho and
Olivia!
I squealed at him.
They love
each other!
 

I felt him audibly sigh as he took the Magic of an
unsuspecting henchman that had been building his energy in order to strike out
at Sebastian from behind.
Would you
focus? You can throw them a party later, but I kind of need you alive in order
to do that.

I snorted. He knew I’d be alive no matter what. What a silly
thing to say.

With the addition of Jericho and his team we were able to
take over the room easily.

Kiran saw this before I did and addressed his cousin,
“Bastian, what’s the rest of the Castle like?”

“We freed what Guards we could. They’ve taken what control
was available but the battle wages on.” And then he grinned because he was a
bit of a sadist and super excited for all the recent fighting.

Who was I kidding? Every guy in this room was enjoying the
recent break from peaceful boredom. I could see it on all of their smug faces
and the flare of drama they used to steal Magic. They were blood thirsty, the
whole lot of them.

“Behind you,” Sebastian suggested casually.

Kiran and I spun around and blasted the would-be attacker in
the chest with a steady stream of combined energy. The Magic sent him soaring
into an ancient tapestry that hung on the wall. He cracked his head hard and
slid down to his ass. I stepped toward him and with a hand stretched forward
began to pull on his rancid electricity. His back bowed with the effort to
physically restrain his life force that I would take so easily.

I looked down at him with pity. He was young, younger than
me. Just a kid really, and now his future was being stripped from him.

“What did he promise you?” I asked before I could stop
myself. Why would someone with such a long life ahead of him, give it up in
service to a monster?

“Everything,” the kid whimpered. “He promised that we could
have everything.”

“And what did I take from you that you could not have?” I
demanded. How selfish and greedy did one have to be to feel slighted in our
world?

“You kept the Magic,” he rasped out as I drained the last
ounces of the only strength he could ever know. “You promised to set it free,
but you didn’t.”

I took a step back, completely surprised by his accusation.
I stared down at him as he slumped to the side and caught his upper body with a
bent elbow on the cold ground.

Unbidden tears pricked at my eyes and I knelt down in front
of him. My hands shook with fury, so I tightened them into balls in my lap. I
leaned forward and met his dead-eyed stare. He met my steady gaze with a
confidence I knew was misplaced and built on lies.

“I didn’t keep the Magic,” I told him. My voice trembled
with frustrated conviction. “If he told you that then he lied to you. The Magic
is free. The Magic has
been free
.”

He shook his head but fear lit his expression and he
struggled to sit up. “No,” he argued. “You have it.”

“I’ve never had it,” I spat out. “Never. The Magic has been
free since Lucan died. And as long as I rule it will
always
be free.” He grimaced at my words; I could see the
indecision war in his head. So I proved my point. “Where’s the death? Where’s
the King’s Curse? It’s all gone. All of it. You took my friend and you tortured
her, you
broke
her. You did
everything you could to murder her. But why couldn’t Terletov end her? Why is
she here today?
Alive
?” His eyes
flickered to Lilly who was still cradled in Talbott’s arms. His sword stayed
ready in his free hand but he would not engage and risk hurting Lilly.
Thankfully, he didn’t need to. We had this. I returned my attention back to the
fallen soldier in front of me. “I released the Magic years ago. And my Kingdom
will reap the benefits of all the power and authority that belongs to them. But
you won’t. You believed the wrong man and now you will pay the price of your
foolishness. You can wander this world mortal and powerless. You can live a
life without the Magic that belongs to you. And you can die a painful but
deserved death. I’ve taken what belongs to you because you tried to take what
belongs to me. But I won’t kill you. Instead, you can have the death you
accused me of bringing to my Kingdom.” I stood up and looked down at his
stricken face with pity. “You can decide the difference for yourself.”

“Eden,” Kiran called to me. “We need to go.”

I left the man wallowing in his own tragedy and joined my
husband. I had been called the next Oracle most of my teenage years, but the
entire time I had almost failed to understand what that meant.

In my adult life there had been little use of the Oracle
talent. The peace we’d enjoyed over the last few years had allowed me to shelve
most of my stronger Immortal skills because they were unnecessary.

A few times over the years, something had happened or I had
said something with such absolute certainty that I knew, without a doubt, that
the Oracle I was prophesied to be was manifesting itself in that moment.

This was one of those times.

I felt the Magic pump through my body as an entity of power
all its own. Indivisible from my blood, but potent, consuming and stronger than
any other thing I’d encountered before.

The Magic was free.

And while we’d speculated this over the past couple years, I
could now say without a doubt that it was. My people could enjoy the promise of
our heritage and the hope of a brilliant future.

But we had to stop killing each other first. Because
Immortality was not a concrete concept. Immortals still died, lives still
ended. We knew that better than anyone with the recent deaths of our dear
friends.

We needed to end this civil war and find a peace and
strength that could last us forever.

“Are you alright?” Kiran asked as his eyes took in my
appearance.

I patted my hair that hung all around my shoulders. I could
only imagine how crazy I looked right now. My black, curly hair was wild and
untamed, my skin felt as though it were glowing from the use of so much Magic;
my clothes were disheveled, my bottom lip swollen from a blast of Magic I
hadn’t prepared for. The Magic popped and cracked inside my veins with a
ferocity that shocked my nerves with each beat of my heart. I could feel it
slide and hover over my skin and in the air around me as if my body was not
enough to contain the vivid power and strength that had manifested with the
Oracle. I was wired. I was more than a little bit unstable. I was a hot mess.

“I’m fine,” I told Kiran instead.

He shook his head, indicating he didn’t believe me. “You
look… brighter,” he murmured and then captured my mouth with his.

My hands dropped to my side, useless and weak. He devoured
me in that moment, while the battle raged and screamed around us. Kiran took my
mouth hungrily, claiming me… possessing me in the heat of so much destruction
and uncertainty. And I was helpless to stop him. I let him consume me, drinking
in the fiery electrons that sizzled and snapped with the current of my high
voltage electricity. I was a live wire, and Kiran was the only conductor that
could ground me.

He took the excess Magic through the kiss, drawing it into
his body with every stuttering breath, every hot connection of our tongues,
every sweet press of our lips. He balanced me out and made the Magic manageable
again. We shared the
 
crushing power
then, equalized it between us.

He pulled back and I could see exactly what he meant by
“brighter.” His turquoise eyes glittered in the hazy room, his already tanned
skin glowed golden and perfect. His Magic shimmered in a glaze of navy blue
aura all around his body and his lips were bright red from our recent kiss.

God, I wanted this man.

“What is this?” Kiran asked me in a rasping voice.

“The Oracle,” I smiled sweetly at him.

“You prophesied?” he demanded, some of the awe and wonder
replaced with concern.

“I did.”

Kiran glanced around the room, assessed what was left of the
battle and when his eyes came back to mine they were decidedly mischievous.
“I’m going to get you alone by tonight.”

“And why’s that?” My smile wobbled and my stomach tumbled
upside down.

“I have a question about the future,” he told me with a playful
frown. “I’m very uncertain about something and I’ll need your expert opinion.”

“Is that so?” I laughed.

“Very.” He leaned down and kissed the top of my head and
then grabbed my hand so he could lead me from the room.

It was time to escape.

“Titus?” I asked once we neared the door.

Kiran looked around the room but we were the last ones left
and not every enemy remaining here was defeated. He pushed me into the hall and
locked the double brass doors behind us with Magic. The men on the other side
started banging on it immediately, but they were effectively locked in for now.

“We’ll have to grab him,” Kiran decided. Sebastian and
Avalon disappeared around the corner. “Let your brother know.”

I was just about to send Avalon the message when the
corridor flooded with more of Terletov’s men, including the man himself. They
all held handguns with bullets that I knew from experience would knock even us
out. We wouldn’t stay permanently unconscious like other Immortals but we would
be out long enough for them to have a serious advantage.

And I couldn’t risk that with the babies.

Kiran felt the same way, I could sense the frustrated
resolve in his Magic. We both put our hands in the air with the universal sign
of surrender and kept our backs to the doors behind us.

“Were you just leaving?” Terletov asked purposefully
ignorant, his Russian accent thick and heavy over his consonants. His breath
came out in short pants and he swiped at spittle along his bottom lip. He did
not look well. His face was flushed at the same time it seemed to tighten
across his face. He seemed more skeletal than man in this light and I pictured
him as a distorted version of the Grim Reaper with a scythe and hood.

“We were,” Kiran answered politely.

“But won’t you stay awhile,” Terletov pressed. He stepped to
the side and waved his hands for us to walk.

Without another prompt we moved forward. Kiran and I stayed
close together, letting our shoulders bump and knock with every step. I was
glad he was with me. We would get out of this mess easily as long as we had
each other.

Terletov’s men stayed on either side of us in military-like
rows. They marched just like an army as well, with their bodies stiff and at
attention, their eyes straight forward and their weapons at the ready.

We knew he’d been building an army all this time, but I
hadn’t realized until this moment that it was an
actual
army. I had believed he controlled a band of deserters,
brutish men with vendettas to fulfill and no real training or discipline.

I had been wrong.

And being wrong had cost me my home and my Kingdom.

I would never underestimate this man again.

I just hoped it wasn’t too late, now.

Where are you?
Avalon
demanded internally.

We got held up.

What do you mean you
got held up?
His telepathic voice was a harsh snarl and I could sense his
building panic.

By Terletov.
I
answered calmly.
Don’t worry. I don’t
expect this to last long. We’ll catch up.

Eden.

Do you have Titus?
I demanded, tired of his older-brother over-protectiveness. We were equally in
danger and I had Kiran to protect me now. He could give up the whole
totalitarian-family-member thing now.