Dragons Against Them (Kingdoms of Fire and Ice #2)(66)

“I warned you this night would come,” he growled. “That lies would be spoken and your trust tested. And yet you choose to believe your murderous, lying sister over me?”

He snapped his fingers and the modern world around them vanished. The endless sea of wildflowers was now a drab, sparsely furnished room barely large enough to hold their two groups. Behind Giselle’s warriors, a door shattered, offering them a view of the battle raging outside.

“Your traitorous heart leaves me but one choice.” Berinon’s demonic gaze shifted from Helena to Rosalind. “To ensure only one set of children remains.”

Both wizards vanished as the room took on a crackling greenish glow. Chaos ensued as Brom yelled for everyone to take cover. Zayne pulled Addie to the ground, and Quinn charged forward, diving toward Rosalind and Giselle. Their shouts and cries of panic were obliterated as the walls around them exploded.





Chapter 39





Rosalind could hear nothing for a long moment, not even her own screams. She found herself on the ground along with the others, tossed about like rag dolls as the explosion scattered them throughout the room. Splintered wood and stone fragments rained down, burying them all in a pile of rubble.

And yet, even in the midst of the hell that had descended upon them, Rosalind’s thoughts centered not upon her well-being or pains but on that of Quinn. Quinn, who had come all this way believing she needed rescue. Quinn, who had been her earliest childhood friend and then her first lover.

Quinn, who she knew now was indeed her one true mate.

From the moment Jaxon had slipped away at the urging of Giselle, whatever spell had been cast between him and Rosalind had broken. She’d watched him go as if waking from a dream, left to grapple with the reality that she had been tricked into giving herself freely to him in the river. Her stomach soured at the thought, at the violation.

What a fool she had been! Would Quinn be able to forgive her for her weakness? For falling prey to a master of trickery?

A strong, frosty gale arose, casting the debris free from their bodies. She sat up and met the gaze of a massive silver dragon, crouched a short distance off in what had formerly been the village square.

“Tristan,” she breathed, relief washing over her.

Rosalind stood, her hearing slowly beginning to return, and was surprised to see her brother’s gleaming talons clenched around the neck of another dragon. The captured beast was black as pitch, its stormy eyes ringed with silver shifted toward her.

“Father?”

He issued a weary snort in response, so unlike his usual authoritative self, and she found herself dumbstruck.

What had she done? The hatred for a half sister she knew not had ultimately put in danger the very people she loved most. Rosalind turned, her gaze scanning the scattered, groaning bodies around her, until it locked upon a familiar head of short dark hair nearby.

“Quinn!”

She scrambled to close the space between them, then froze upon reaching him. Quinn lay on his back, hands gripping a thick, jagged piece of splintered wood which had impaled him just below the rib cage. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and a growing pool of blood spilled beneath him onto the floor.

“NO!”

Rosalind dropped to her knees as a wail of remorse ripped from her lungs. All her fault. All this was her fault.

His eyelids parted, and a smile of recognition tugged at his pale lips. “My princess.”

“Oh, Quinn.”

She reached for him and stopped, hands fluttering above him, unsure of what to do. His eyes slid shut once again, and she knew his time was short. The unfairness of it all came crashing down on her in that moment. Rosalind arched back and shouted to the heavens, “Why? Oh God, why?”

A weak hand brushed against her leg, and she looked down, vision blurred with thick tears.

“You are safe now. Both of you. That…is all that matters.”

Both? Rosalind shook her head. He was delusional with pain.

“My beloved Quinn.” She shifted and drew his head into her lap. Sobs rattled her chest as she stroked his hair. “Do not leave me.”

“But leave you I must.” He coughed, blood bubbling from his lips.

Panic flashed within Rosalind anew. She looked to the crowd, squinting through her tears as she searched for the wizards, for Giselle, for Ella. Surely someone here possessed the power to heal. “Please! Someone, help him!”

The witch queen stepped forward, her battle-dirtied countenance weary. “Come, child. There is nothing that can be done for your friend.”

Quinn mumbled something unintelligible, tearing Rosalind’s heart further in two.

“Please,” she begged the witch. “You must help him. I cannot go on if he dies.”

Giselle studied her for a moment, then knelt beside Quinn, made a sign of the cross above his chest, and began a low, melodic chant.

His last rites.

Rosalind bowed from the pain of a breaking heart, her tears dampening Quinn’s ashen cheeks and smearing the blood and soot that coated his face. She stroked his hair with the gentlest of touches, hoping, praying for a miracle. He had to live—she would be lost without him.

Lost.

His eyes opened once more, and he stared up at her, an uncharacteristic smile on his face. “I always knew there lay within you a gentler side.”

A fresh sob shook Rosalind. “Oh, my dearest Quinn Blackstone. What have I done?”