Kissed by Krista Street
Chapter 17
~ AVERY ~
The sound of a crackling fire filled the air, yet the fire pit was nowhere to be seen.
I hovered in space, a spectral form in the night. A pair of dark, all-seeing eyes watched me from the distance.
I was in a small room with a lone window. But wait, where was the forest?
A woman lay below me on a bed, covered in a sheet. A machine hummed beside her, and another woman dressed in a long robe stood nearby, doing something on a tablet. Armed guards stood in each corner of the room.
My breath sucked in as I recognized the surroundings. The healing center.
Oh Gods! I’m projecting!
“Goddess Verasellee?” The healer had moved to her side, completely oblivious to me also being in the room. “Can you open your eyes?”
The goddess didn’t move, didn’t respond. Her chest rose once, then twice, but her complexion . . .
I peered closer. Something wasn’t right about her skin. She looked sickly.
A deep ominous growl rose in the distance. I whipped around, searching for the source of that sound. I didn’t see anybody, yet I knew it was him.
“She’s dying in your realm, you little fool,” Lord Godasara called out. “You can’t keep her there. You must bring her back to me, or you both shall perish.”
A bolt of terror zinged through my nerves. He knew. Lord Godasara knew where we were because all of our souls were messily linked to one another in that sick ritual he’d done thousands of years ago.
“Hurry,” he called. “You don’t have much time.”
∞ ∞ ∞
I jolted upright in bed, my soul slamming back into my body like a blast of Arctic wind. A scream crawled up my throat as I gasped and gulped for air, but I managed to swallow my scream down.
I’d projected to Verasellee, and Lord Godasara had just projected to me while I was on earth. But I thought that wasn’t possible? That he couldn’t project across realms?
But he was so much stronger than anybody else. Perhaps he could project through his sheer power, just like the goddess could.
Whatever the case, his dire warning haunted me. Verasellee couldn’t survive in this realm. She needed to return to the fae lands. We would never be safe from him.
“Oh Gods, no,” I whimpered.
Wyatt stirred beside me, as early morning light streamed into his bedroom. His hand automatically went to my lower back as his eyes looked foggy and glazed, his hair disheveled. “Avery, what’s wrong?”
Terror slid through my veins like ice water. “Lord Godasara knows we’ve returned to the SF headquarters, and he knows the goddess isn’t well. She can’t stay in this realm. She doesn’t belong here. I have to go to her.”
I scrambled off the bed, needing to see her now. Her power hummed and zapped inside me, electrifying my nerves.
Somehow, I managed to get out of bed without tumbling to the floor.
In a blink, Wyatt was standing beside me. “I don’t understand. What happened?”
His naked, gorgeous body momentarily snagged my attention. Chiseled abs, rounded shoulders, and pecs that begged for my touch were only inches away.
But I jerked my gaze to the floor and searched for my cotton pajama pants and T-shirt from the night before, because even Wyatt in all of his beautiful nakedness couldn’t lure me back to bed.
Not after what I’d learned.
“I had another dream.” I yanked my pants on, then slid my arms through the shirt. “I saw her—the goddess—and I saw him. Lord Godasara knows we’re here, and he knows that we took the goddess from the fae lands. He said that she’ll die if she stays here. And he’s right. I saw her in my dream. She’s sickly. I need to help her.”
Wyatt’s hands shot out, grasping my upper arms. His warm palms closed around me, and a fraction of my soul calmed. “Projectors can’t cross realms, and he probably knows that you and Verasellee are here because common sense says this is where we would have taken you. It’s the safest place on earth for you to be. He would know that.”
His touch soothed some of the panic that was sliding through my veins, but he was wrong about common sense being the reason. “Maybe other supernaturals with projecting abilities can’t cross realms, but that’s not the case for him. He’s so strong, Wyatt. He can project across realms. I’m sure of it. Now, I have to go. I have to see Verasellee.”
His grip tightened. “Please, let’s just take a minute. Can you tell me more about the dream, about what happened.”
“But Verasellee—”
“Is okay. We would’ve been notified if she was unwell. Now, start from the beginning and tell me what’s going on.” He guided me toward the bed until I sat down.
His calm and soothing demeanor helped quell some of the fear quaking in my chest, until I realized what he was doing. Anger exploded in me, electrifying my nerves. “You’re doing it again!”
His head snapped back.
“Stop trying to control me and prevent me from doing what I want!”
His face turned ashen, then smoldering light filled his eyes. “Shit. You’re right. I’m sorry.” He ran his hands over his cheeks, then slapped them. “You’re distraught, and my gut’s telling me to soothe you. Dammit. It’s instinct. I’m fighting instinct, and I promise that I’ll keep fighting it. I didn’t mean to try and control you.”
Desperation lined his words, and his eyes turned so pleading that my stomach flipped. Still, I didn’t have time for this. “I have to go.”
He didn’t try to stop me a second time, but he followed me to the door. The sharp emotions rolling off him were as prickly as a desert cactus, and his brow was so heavy with worry its weight filled the room.
“Can I come with you?” he asked when I paused to slam my feet into flip flops.
I grasped the door handle. Wyatt had just asked for my permission to tag along. Back at Shrouding Estate, he wouldn’t have.
His throat worked a swallow. “I’ll stay here if you’d rather go alone, but I—” Another swallow. “I’d like to come with you if you’ll let me.”
I took a deep breath, the air stuttering out of me. “Okay. Let’s go.”
∞ ∞ ∞
The healing center was only minutes away, yet neither of us spoke on my mad dash there.
Wyatt followed just behind me, his presence like a looming shadow as the early morning sky glowed overhead.
The glowing green sign for the healing center came into view, but before I reached it, Wyatt asked, “Can you tell me more about your dream? If you’re willing?”
His request was so quiet and halting. I knew my explosion back in his apartment had cut him deeply, because the great Wyatt Jamison wasn’t infallible. Even he fucked up.
But he was trying. I could admit that despite all that was going on.
I explained the dream to him in detail, telling him about how I’d been in Verasellee’s room at the healing center and how Lord Godasara had been watching. “We’re all linked because of the ritual he conducted thousands of years ago, and the prophecy the goddess set in motion. All of us must be able to project to one another.”
“Projecting takes so much magic.”
“Well, he certainly has enough.” I yanked open the door and stepped into the healing center.
As we climbed the stairs, some distant part of my brain latched onto the history of the elf lords and their immense power. A millennia ago, they’d grown extinct, not through natural selection but through genocide. They’d once ruled the fae lands with an iron fist, ruthlessly powerful and disarmingly magical.
It was only through centuries of battles that they’d been taken down one by one, until the fae realm was allowed to exist under lesser-magical but multiple rulers.
The Nolus fae ruled the land around the capital. The Silten fae governed the continent across the Adriastic sea. Solis fae ruled the frozen north, and Lochen fae controlled the vast oceans and seas.
Before, none of those fae had ruled. They’d all been slaves to the elves, the elf lords being the most powerful of them all.
But now, separate governments controlled the fae lands. Those governments stretched far and wide, across vast seas and frozen tundra.
Even though the elf lords were long dead, the fae lands wasn’t without its problems. Skirmishes still occurred. Diplomatic alliances at times were tenuous at best. But the realm hadn’t seen dark times since the reign of the elf lords.
And now one elf lord remained.
Lord Godasara, dormant for thousands of years, who was just as ruthless as his predecessors, strove to retrieve his great power, his iron fist, his wrathful rule. And with the goddess’s power he would be guaranteed complete control. The fae lands would descend into a world of death and carnage if he wasn’t stopped.
Wyatt and I reached the top of the stairs and walked toward the ward’s doors. “It’s why I’ve been having these dreams. The goddess has been projecting to me, trying to warn me. She was trying to tell me what Lord Godasara wanted to do when we were back at Shrouding Estate, but I didn’t understand at the time. Now I do. She and Lord Godasara called me to her room just now. Something’s wrong with her. I know it.”
Wyatt nodded, his moss-green eyes bright. “Okay, then we’ll fix it.”
The clock read seven in the morning when we pushed through the healing center’s doors. My eyes felt gritty even though my mind had sharpened to an arrow’s point.
We passed the witches’ station and neared the end of the hall. When we reached Verasellee’s door, the guards made room for us to enter but an older woman emerged and nearly collided with us before we could.
She drew up short, her eyebrows pinched together. “Oh my, I didn’t see you there.” She gave us a once-over, her gaze lingering on my pajamas and flip flops. “Good morning, Ms. Meyers and Major Jamison.” The woman dipped her head, her jowls jiggling. The nameplate on her robe read Cora.
“Morning, Cora.” Wyatt gave a curt nod. “How is the goddess doing?”
Cora’s brow creased together so tightly I could have popped off a bottle top on it. “We were just discussing her. A few of her numbers have changed. We were going to call in Farrah and Douglas so they could do an assessment on her—”
My stomach seized, and I dashed into the goddess’s room.
The interior guards came to attention when I raced inside, but I ignored them. The goddess’s power hummed and swirled inside me when I ground to a halt at her side. My stomach twisted as I gazed down at her unconscious form. She looked sickly.
My dream was right!
“We need to go back to the fae lands!” I whirled around to face Wyatt and Cora. Gods. What if we’re too late? I pointed at Verasellee’s exposed upper arm. “Look at her skin. She’s paler. And look at her complexion. She looks sick. She needs to return to her realm.”
Nervous energy clouded around Cora, and a frown creased Wyatt’s expression.
I knew I was acting like a bit of a lunatic, but they didn’t have an inner connection to the goddess. They didn’t feel what I felt.
Something about the goddess felt off, like an oily substance had coated her essence.
To the marrow of my bones I knew that if I didn’t act soon, she would die.
“I don’t know if Wes will allow that.” Cora twisted her hands.
“It doesn’t matter if he will or won’t. I’m taking her back.” Because even though Lord Godasara was an evil elf, his warning in my dream had been right. He hadn’t been trying to trick me, although I knew when we returned to the fae lands that would change. I was under no illusion that he’d simply leave us alone.
He wanted Verasellee, and he wanted me, and despite me taking out his sacred circle I knew that he wasn’t going to stop.
“Don’t you feel it?” I gestured toward the goddess. “She’s dying.”
Cora gave Wyatt an apprehensive glance.
But instead of giving me a pacifying comment, Wyatt crossed his arms and leveled me with a solid stare. “You can feel that she’s deteriorating?”
“Yes. I know that she is.”
“Speaking of being affected by our return to earth, how are you feeling?”
His question took me by surprise. “Fine. Why?”
“We’ve been concerned about how your health would fare here on earth.”
I waved my hand in annoyance. “Well, you shouldn’t be. I’m from this realm. I’m totally fine.”
Cora still grabbed some probes and slapped them under my shirt before scanning me as I stood there. “She’s right. Her magic and life force are strong.”
I crossed my arms, irritation making me as prickly as a hungry grizzly bear rising from a long hibernation. “Like I said, I’m fine. Now, can we concentrate on the goddess? She’s who matters.”
Wyatt nodded curtly, while Cora continued to look frazzled.
“I’m not understanding,” the healing witch said. “How can you know how she’s doing? You don’t have any scanning devices and you’re not a healing witch with natural-born assessment skills.”
“Their souls are linked,” Wyatt explained to the healing witch. “Avery can sense things from Verasellee that none of us can.” Wyatt whipped out his tablet. “I’ll let Wes know. We’ll see what he says about returning to the fae lands.”
I lifted Verasellee’s sheets and threaded my fingers through hers. Her skin felt cool, smooth, and different. There was something about her that quite simply felt otherworldly.
Her power inside me hummed and flowed, some of the panic in my chest easing. “I know you’re not doing well. I’ll get you out of here,” I whispered to her.
She didn’t respond, not one twitch or flutter of movement, but I could have sworn that the power inside me responded for the barest moment, an electric spark coursing through me.
Twenty minutes later, I was still holding her hand when Wes and Bavar walked through the door.
The SF general wore the same uniform as the rest of the squad members. Despite his age, he looked trim and fit. “Ms. Meyers,” he said by way of greeting. “Major Jamison has told me you’re concerned about Goddess Verasellee.”
Behind him, Bavar hung near the door. He casually crossed his arms as the dagger strapped to his waist flashed in the morning sunlight.
I nodded a hello to him, then turned to General McCloy.
“I had a dream about her,” I said simply, knowing that going into details would take too long. “She and I are linked, our souls are connected. I can feel that she’s dying, and Lord Godasara warned me of the same thing in my dream. He said that if I don’t get her out of earth’s realm and back to the fae lands soon, that she would die.”
Wes raised an eyebrow. “Lord Godasara?”
“We’re all linked,” I said in a hurry. “Like I told you yesterday. It’s why the elf lord can’t die while that link still remains. It’s hard to explain, but he did come to warn me, and yes, I know we can’t trust him, but I also know that without Verasellee alive nothing he’s planned can come true. He needs me and her for whatever ritual he tried to do.”
“You don’t think this is merely a trick? That he’s trying to lure you back to the fae lands?”
“It’s not a trick. He’s right. She’s dying. But I understand your concern. If I couldn’t feel her, I probably would think it’s a trap, but I can feel her, so I know he’s right. Verasellee’s not well. I think it’s because she doesn’t belong in this universe. She’s not one of our gods. She needs to return to where she belongs—the fae lands realm.”
“Speaking of the link you all share . . .” Wes placed his hands on his hips. “I’ve spoken with my sorcerers, and with help from Nicholas and the Bulgarian library gargoyles, I think they might have a spell that will work to unlink all of you.”
My eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yes, but I don’t know for sure yet. They’re still looking into it.”
Wyatt stepped forward. “I can take Avery and the goddess back to the fae lands.”
A flash of gratitude jolted through me. I knew how hard that declaration must have been for him. Lord Godasara was waiting for me there. No doubt, Wyatt’s instincts were begging him to keep me here.
But he wasn’t going to act on them. He was going to do what I’d asked.
I remembered what he’d said last night, about promising to no longer exert his dominance over me and being willing to listen to me when he slipped and fucked up.
He’d fucked up this morning but had been quick to acknowledge and remedy it.
He’s really trying to change. And in that moment, I knew that he would. It didn’t mean he’d never fuck up again. Of course, he would, but the most important aspect was that he was now accepting there was a problem and working to correct it.
Just as he had now. He knew how important protecting the goddess was to me, and despite the dangers of returning to the fae lands, he wasn’t demanding that I stay here at the SF where I was safe from Lord Godasara.
Wes’s fingers tapped against his hip bones. “That will be fine, although you can’t take her back quite yet. We’re not prepared for that. We’ll need several squads ready to go so we can finish this once and for all. It’ll take some time to arrange that.”
I shook my head. “She doesn’t have time to wait. I can feel her dying. She needs to go back. Now.”
Wes opened his mouth, and I knew he was going to argue, but Bavar pushed against the door and trailed to Wyatt’s side. “My squad’s ready to go. I know it’s not ideal since we took a big hit, but we’re all rested, and quite frankly Bishop, Heidi, Terry, and Charlotte are looking for blood. We have a fallen member to avenge. Squad Three can accompany Wyatt, Avery, and the goddess to the fae lands this morning. I’ll need an hour to alert my team and mobilize them.”
“Fallen squad member?” I asked.
Bavar’s face clouded. “Lex died at the battle at Shrouding Estate.”
I gasped. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”
Bavar dipped his head again. “Thank you. We look forward to avenging his death.”
Wes looked between the three of us, his brow pinching together. “I don’t like it, but if you’re confident that you can keep this assignment under control, I’ll allow it. I know how much a fallen member can impact a squad, and sometimes getting back into the fight right away is the best course of action. You’re still down a man and woman though,” he said tersely, his expression souring when he referred to Marnee. “So I’ll arrange for a few other squad members to join you. And I’ll have additional squads mobilize and meet you all later today in the fae lands. Until those additional squads arrive, you’re to lay low. Understood?”
Wyatt and Bavar both nodded curtly.
“Now, where do you plan on going?” Wes asked.
Bavar rested his palm on his dagger’s hilt. “I’ll touch base with the king and queen. There are a number of family homes that would offer reasonable protection until we can work out a plan which ensures we capture Lord Godasara. We’ll just need to stay well away from any homes surrounded by forest.”
Wes nodded. “Assuming I can have your replacements fulfilled quickly, you can all plan on leaving this morning.”
I knew my eyes flashed violet when the goddess’s power rumbled inside me. “Perhaps we can do the unlinking process while we’re waiting in the fae lands for the other squads to arrive?”
Wes nodded briskly. “I’ll speak with the sorcerers again. With any luck, we can begin the unlinking process today as well.”
