I shot upright, shaking my head to clear away the sleep and the nightmare that threatened to consume me.
Raghnall had been there, leering down at me as he held the Executioner blade, but it hadn’t been aimed at me.
Kate.
He’d been about to kill Kate, and I was powerless to stop him.
Deciding I’d slept enough, I stood and stretched.
Forrest gave a quiet growl in his sleep, but remained out. Since there were no skeletal beings in here trying to kill us, I felt it safe to assume the shield held.
Grumbling, I strode around the room looking for Kate. I wanted to talk to her more. Not to apologize. She was being reckless for no reason, and it had to stop, but realizing that she might wind up dead at the end of this adventure would shake up anyone.
I scoured the room, and my heart thudded faster, as my palms tingled, realizing Kate wasn’t in the room.
I didn’t think she’d be dumb enough to go back outside by herself, but I was hurrying towards the rope when I noticed the double doors were open.
“Damn it, Kate,” I whispered and grabbing a torch, walked for the doors.
I knew she lied when I asked if she knew what was behind the doors. Why she felt the need to wander off alone only made me decide not to give her a pep talk, but tell her she wasn’t allowed out of my or Forrest’s sight, not after seeing what was on that wall. Or the tapestry.
Touching anything in this place could set her off and if she was alone when it happened…
I froze in the short corridor when I heard her voice, but it didn’t exactly sound like Kate. It sounded off, deeper, more guttural as it had when she was whispering at the tapestry.
I started walking again, slower this time, but the intensity of her words increased, and soon I found myself running through the corridor and bursting through another set of double doors.
The room was massive, and Kate stood in the center of it, torch in a death grip in her right hand, staring straight ahead of her.
“Kate?” I said as I approached. “Kate, can you hear me?”
I reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder to pull her around, and her fist connected with my nose.
I cursed, dropping the torch as she came at me again.
Her torch hit the ground, and I caught another punch to the jaw before I snagged her wrists, spun her around, and wrapped my arms securely around her.
“Kate! Snap out of it!”
She snarled, snapping her jaws as she tried to bite me.
“Kate! It’s Craig! Just stop!” I didn’t want to have to knock her out as I did before, but if she didn’t stop trying to kill me again, I’d have no choice. “Kate, come back to me. Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real.”
Finally, she stilled, and her body sagged in my arms. She shook her head, nearly clocking me in the face again. “Craig?”
“Yeah, love, it’s me.” Slowly, I released her hands, and she stepped out of my arms.
I wanted her to stay, but now was not the time.
When she turned to face me, her eyes were narrowed in confusion, and she was pale.
“Kate? What were you doing in here?”
“Why are you bleeding is the better question?” She quickly tore off part of her shirt and pressed it against my nose.
I winced, but she didn’t lessen the pressure. I hadn’t realized my nose was bleeding so much.
“You punched me a few times,” I told her, sound muffled from the fabric.
“I did?”
“What do you remember?” I took the piece of cloth from her, and she backed away, wringing her hands before she bent to pick up her torch. “You were talking when I found you in here.”
“What did I say?”
I shrugged. “No idea, but it didn’t sound like you.”
“Celandine,” she whispered.
“Who?”
Kate tilted her head and whispered the name again. “I saw her… or was her… we were here.”
She waved the torch around the space, and I glanced around, taking in the tall ceilings and the hearths lining the walls.
It was a feast hall, one that could easily hold two hundred people. The Darrahs would’ve held court here. But this Celandine, I didn’t know the name and nothing Kate was saying made sense.
I wondered if she hit her head. It was possible if she was wandering around on her own, slipped and fell, but her eyes suddenly flared bright with power and the markings glowed through her clothes.
“Kate, whatever you’re thinking just stop,” I ordered, rushing to take hold of her shoulders as her eyes slid closed. “No, stay with me! Stop listening to the damned voices and stay with me!”
Her arms twitched violently, and she growled, smoke slipping from her nose as she swung her head around, fighting an invisible enemy.
I yanked the torch out of her hand and pleaded with her to listen to my voice, but whatever had hold of her was stronger. She either couldn’t hear me, or whatever trapped her wasn’t finished with her, not yet.
When blood started to seep from her ears, and her face screwed up in pain, I did the only thing I could think of aside from knocking her over the head.
I crushed my mouth to hers, kissing her fiercely. She immediately stilled in my arms and then her lips moved against mine, and we clung to each other tightly.
The kiss was more intense than the first time, and I never wanted it to stop. I lifted her off her feet and set her on the table behind us, reminding myself not to completely lose control, but she was intoxicating.
When we came up for air, I smoothed her loose hair from her face, cupping her cheeks. “Kate?”
She licked her lips, but her eyes were back to their normal, soft green and the markings on her body ceased their glowing. She was breathing hard, and her cheeks were bright red. “That was… that was nice.”
I smiled in relief and hung my head. “You have to stop scaring the shit out of me.”
“I’m not meaning to.”
I lifted my head and kissed her forehead, holding her close as she rested her head against my chest. “What’s going on here? What are you hearing?”
“Not hearing,” she whispered so quiet, I almost couldn’t hear her. “Seeing.”
I forced her to sit up and stared deep into her eyes. “Say that again?”
“I’m not sure I should. You’re just going to give me another damned lecture.”
She was damned right I wanted to, but there was something else on her face aside from her annoyance at me. Fear… and knowing. Whatever she saw was important, and my hope of keeping her from over exerting herself was gone.
“I won’t, swear it,” I stated, but she cocked an eyebrow at me. “What?”
“You suck at lying.”
“You’re the one bleeding out of your ears again.”
She lifted her hand to her ear and lifted her lip in annoyance at the blood on her fingertips. “Too much at one time maybe? I don’t know, but I have to keep listening to them, Craig. I think they’re trying to show me what happened here.”
“We know what happened. Forrest told us.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head as she hopped off the table and picked up her torch. “Before the Darrahs lost power, long before. Back when the shield was stolen.”
That was not what I expected her to say.
My jaw dropped, and it took a few minutes before I could think clearly to ask what she saw exactly.
But instead of rushing to tell me, she shifted on her feet nervously, and turned her back to me.
“Kate? Is this about what just happened, with us?” I asked.
It was stupid of me to kiss her like that, what with us fighting to find the shield and dealing with the plague, but I’d be lying if I said it was merely to pull her back to the present. I was drawn to her in ways I couldn’t explain.
“Are demons and dragons related?”
“Beg pardon?” I muttered, unable to think of anything else to say.
“Are they related? Meaning did demons come from dragons?”
I rubbed the back of my neck, not sure what prompted this line of questioning. “I’ve never heard of such a thing, ever. I’m not really sure what you’re even asking me.”
“I’m not either, not really.”
“Just tell me what you saw. And who’s Celandine?”
Her grip tightened visibly on the torch, and her shoulders stiffened.
I worried she was slipping away again, but when she faced me, her eyes were clear, though her skin was deathly pale.
She gulped so loud I heard it and chills raced down my spine. What had she seen?
“Forrest should hear it, too,” she told me quietly.
Forrest.
Of course.
For a few wonderful minutes, I’d managed to forget about my rival in the other room, sleeping soundly away. Dragging his ass in here was the last thing I wanted to do, but she was right. If she found out something important, it’d be a waste of breath for her to tell it twice.
I nodded and said I’d go get him.
She rushed up behind me and grabbed my hand before I reached the door.
I opened my mouth to ask her what was wrong when she kissed me, not long enough, but enough to tell me what was happening between us was not one-sided.
“I don’t understand this, any of it,” she whispered, gripping my hand hard enough to break bone if she wasn’t careful. “You and Forrest and me. All three of us are connected to this somehow. I just… I don’t know how to… navigate this, at all.”
I cupped her cheek again and smiled, even as a white-hot spike of jealousy stabbed me in the chest. “Believe it or not, it’s new to me, too.”
“Doubt it.”
“No, it’s true. No demons wanted to be with the half-breed,” I explained. “Though I did have my fair share of human dates. Those were interesting.”
I wanted to see her smile and was rewarded with one as she rolled her eyes and gave me a shove towards the door.
“I’ll be back and try not to go back into that trance state of yours? Though, I won’t exactly mind pulling you out of it again.” I winked.
She handed me her torch to find my way back to the dragon in the other room.
Kate’s words stayed with me and pulled me away from wallowing over my growing attraction for her.
Why would she ask if demons and dragons were related? The races didn’t come from one being, they all had their origin stories, and demons certainly were nothing like the dragons.
The urge to know what she’d seen spurred me on faster, and I ran the rest of the way to fetch Forrest and figure out how much worse this situation was becoming.