Ant was standing in the doorway they entered after I’d gotten dressed. He didn’t look happy. Though he had just found his soul mate and that whole thing confused me a little, but I shook my head to clear that thought, I did understand he’d have issues now.
Ant sighed, “I don’t have issues. But the two of you should really have listened to what Isabelle had to say. I can’t…”
“You’re connection is strong then?” I asked.
He nodded, “And now with everything it’s even more so.”
“With everything?” Alex asked.
Isabelle stepped out of the room looking no different than the day before except her pattern had changed. The world around her flexed and flowed like it did around Cass and Hunter. She growled at Ant, “Don’t make this about them.”
Apparently they had been fighting all night about it instead of figuring out what was going on. Isabelle continued. “I knew what I was doing, it didn’t matter. I knew.”
“But they didn’t.” Ant gestured to us.
“Actually….” I interrupted. “I suspected.”
“Wait?” Alex interrupted me with a frown, “You knew she’d get pregnant with our child and you didn’t tell me?”
I sighed, “I didn’t know anything. I suspected the magic might try. That there might be a first. I didn’t expect the magic to encompass Isabelle and involve her in this.”
“But you knew this would potentially give us a child.”
I nodded. “It was how Ant was conceived from an unnatural coupling.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Alex growled.
“Does it matter either way?” I asked. “If you knew would it have changed things? Would you not want to do it?”
Alex sighed, “Nothing was going to stop me from this.” Alex ran his fingers lightly over the tattoo on his arm, the color was only slightly less bright, but it was still wilting even as it was energized by his touch. How fucking much I wanted Alex to touch me.
It was like a dam broke. The epic need for Alex, his anger at me for not telling him. The possibility of death for Isabelle, Ant’s anger, I died, I rose from the ashes, the supernatural world was bowing at my feet and now I was tied for the rest of my life to the man I loved and I not only saw his anger I felt it coursing through my own body.
I collapsed to the ground pulling my knees to my chest and rocking myself into a comfort zone. Ant and Alex both swore at the same time and Isabelle was already crouching down beside me, “Does he do this often?” I heard her ask of the others. And they sighed.
Isabelle grabbed my chin and made me look at her, “I’m not going to die from carrying your children. I know what I’m doing.”
I stared at her and when I spoke my voice was cold and distant, “Did you know that only .01 percent of human mothers and their half venatori children both survive to birth?” I shivered. I didn’t know how to explain the vision from the woman at the fair, so I didn’t. It was hard to explain. But as I thought about that day, Alex knelt down next to me and pulled me against him. And the fine control I had was lost, I’d died. I’d carried out the prophecy set forward. I knew it without a shadow of a doubt. My life was not my own. My children’s lives were at stake and no one would believe me.
I believe you. The words pierced through my thoughts. I looked into those deep blue eyes of the light of my life and smiled. He pressed a kiss to my lips, soft and tender, We’ll deal with it one step at a time. We have time to fix this.
Alex pulled away and looked up at Ant. “He needs a place to rest.”
Ant nodded. “Isabelle isn’t ready to travel, but I could take you home now and come back for her.”
Alex shook his head. “We can wait, is their someplace quiet where he won’t get interrupted.”
Isabelle smiled. “You can stay in my room. I’ve finished packing. I just need to gather some other things.”
Alex lifted me with ease and carried me into the small room and laid me down on the bed and I curled up in a ball and I was only half paying attention as Ant told Alex he would go with Isabelle and Alec would stand guard.
There was murmured whispered between the three of them but I didn’t bother trying to listen. I just wanted the spinning to stop. My mind was spiralling into oblivion and yet I felt the world moving on around me. Heard the voices that were not my own. It was a new experience and it was freaking me the fuck out.
I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. A symbol popped into my mind. I wasn’t sure what it was. But as I focused on it the world began to right itself. My mind quieted as my breathing fell into the normal ranges. And before anyone had left me and Alex alone they were all staring at me as I sat up.
“What?” I asked.
Alec was the first to speak in a heavily French accent, “You, are just…” He waved his hands, “gone.”
“What did you do?” Ant asked.
“I thought of a symbol. I think I saw it in the book.”
Ant looked to Isabelle, “Do you have pen and paper?” But before she could answer I had made a stick and a makeshift paper with what looked like a wave of my hand, but that was all flourish as I had formed the paper and pencil as Ant asked. I knew he wanted me to draw it. So I did.
I drew a circle, a square, and a triangle in such a way that it contained, balanced and protected me from the star within which represented magic.
Isabelle gasped, “I’ve never seen that one before. We use some of the symbols.” Isabelle grabbed my wrist and untied the leather strap that held the bracelet to my wrist and flipped it over. “This keeps people out. Or rather their pathic abilities out.”
Alex laughed, “Which obviously doesn’t work since I’m in his head all the time.”
Isabelle turned to look at me as she handed the piece back to me. “No it would work if he weren’t already linked to you. Ant feels him for the same reason. Alec, now can as his Prince.”
“You haven’t tried to control him have you?” she asked Alex.
“I do it all the time,” Alex said.
She frowned at him, but he added for clarity, “It’s not like that. A nudge, to sleep, to calm down, to eat, to …”
I interrupted, “He does what I let him do. The magic knows.”
“That’s not how it’s supposed to work. It’s all or nothing.” She looked at me, not like a normal person, but as someone to study. “Mother will want to know this. You create new magic. You spin everything out of control and you don’t even know you do it. Maybe we should be the ones to lock you up instead.” She walked out of her own bedroom shaking her head.
What had I just started?
The Mind of Nox 