Destiny (The Chosen One Trilogy:Book Three) Read online

  I heard a grunt to my right and looked up in time to see Roger fall under two wolves. My swords were drawn before I was fully standing. One of the wolves heard me coming and turned to face me. I stopped and stared into the cold green eyes. It bared its teeth at me and my heart jumped into my throat. I took a few deep breaths and smiled.

  Whatever the wolf had been expecting, this wasn’t it. If it had thought to scare me and make me run, it had another thing coming. This wasn’t my first battle and it wouldn’t be my last. Being born the Chosen One had guaranteed for me that life would be hazardous. Thankfully, I had good teachers when it came to self-defense. I was, after all, fated to one of the best captains on Queen Melana’s guard.

  The wolf shifted into a tall dark haired man. His green eyes narrowed. “You?”

  It took everything I had not to laugh. “Hey, there.”

  “You’re really her?”

  I shrugged. “Some people seem to think so.” There was no point in denying it. My healer’s tattoo and magic wielder’s amulet gave me away. So far as anyone knew, I was the only one capable of doing both healing and sorcery.

  He grunted. “You don’t look like much.”

  “Yeah. I get that a lot.” Whatever it was the people of Quelondain had imagined the Chosen One was supposed to look like, I didn’t seem to fit the bill. We were circling so that Roger and his opponent were behind me. I glanced back quickly and was glad to see the jaguar situated on top of the black wolf, its jaws clamped around the other’s neck. That left my opponent standing far from anyone else. I sheathed my swords. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to just run away and not come back?”

  He grinned. “Not likely. When I get you back to Braw, I’ll get a hero’s welcome.”

  It was my turn to grunt. I had been Braw’s prisoner once before and I wasn’t willing to let it happen again. I let the silver waves flow in front of my face and quickly grabbed the light colored one. “Just so you know, I’m sorry about this.” I threw the wave at him and the bolt of energy sent him flying backwards. I crouched down and tried to swallow the lump in my throat. I hadn’t lied with my apology. I hated killing.

  “Hayden!” Jasper’s worried voice made its way to me from in the direction in which I had previously been hiding.

  “I’m here, Hun.” I stood so he could see me.

  He wiped his dagger on his pant leg, sheathed it, and stalked over to me. His arms crushed me to his chest. “I told you to stay.”

  I held him tightly and took a few deep breaths. “I’m ok. Roger was under two of them. He killed one. I got the other.” I took a step back and looked him over. “Are you ok?”

  He nodded. “Colton got a nasty bite on his leg and Luke took a knife in his side, but other than that, everything went well.” He smiled. “You’ll never guess who the three Majs are.”

  “I’ll take a long shot and say one of them is Rainen. As for the other two, I have no idea.” We started walking to where the rest of our pack was standing around. “Are they hurt?”

  “No. Nothing serious. Just some bumps to the head.”

  “So who are the other two?”

  “The blond man’s name is Harold. The brunette is Gina. They’re a mated pair. They’re also Rainen’s personal body guards.”

  “What about the guy in the clearing?”

  “I’m not sure. They’re not talking.”

  I found my brother-in-law sitting with his back against a tree, his eyes closed. Tara was kneeling by his side, trying to stop the bleeding with her hand. I squatted beside them.

  “Well, now. Why would you let someone stick a knife in you? Don’t you know it hurts?” Luke’s dark brown eyes opened just a slit and he managed a half grin at my joke. I let the green waves run over his body and picked the light green one, or as most healers liked to call it, the safe one. This wave simply used a being’s own energy and concentrated it to the area that needed to be healed. Luke sucked in his breath and let it out in a hiss through his teeth as the wound healed itself. He inhaled deeply a few times.

  “Thank you.” He leaned forward and kissed my forehead.

  I smiled and patted his cheek. “No problem. Just don’t do it again. Mel would kill me if I didn’t get you home.” I looked up and took Jasper’s hand.

  “Colton is worse than I thought.” His eyes were narrowed as he pulled me up. He hesitated. “I don’t…”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t what?”

  “You might have to use the other wave.”

  “Jasper! If it’s that bad, then why the hell are we standing around talking? Where is he?”

  My mate led the way without saying another word. Colton lay under a bush not far from where Rainen and the other two Majs were sitting with their hands still tied behind them. Matthew was straddled across the fox’s chest trying to keep him from moving. Alex and Ben were pushing on his right hind leg which was wrapped in a blanket. Even in the dark I could tell that the beige blanket was soaked in blood.

  Matthew looked up, his face grim. “There were two of them. Both of them grabbed the leg and started pulling.”

  I knelt beside Colton and put a hand on his head. “It’s ok. I’ll have you fixed up in no time.” I uncovered the leg and had to take a few deep breaths. Most of the thigh bone was exposed as well as half of the shin bone. The muscle and skin were simply hanging on by fibers. “Shit. Ok. Matthew, don’t let him move.” I ran a light green wave over him without much hope that it would work. I was right. He had lost too much blood to help repair the damage himself.

  I looked into Jasper’s sky blue eyes. “I have to try. I can’t just leave him like this.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  I picked the second darkest green wave and spread it over Colton’s leg. I pushed my own energy into him, giving him the strength he needed to heal the worst of his injuries. He whined and tried to move under Matthew’s weight. I switched waves and finished the healing with the safe green. I watched the muscles reform around the bone, the tissues and fat covered those, and finally the skin closed. I ran my hand over the red fur.

  “There you are.”

  Matthew got off of the fox who promptly jumped up and shook himself. Colton shifted and nodded to me.

  “Thank you.”

  I smiled up at him and started to stand. A wave of dizziness hit me, black spots filled my vision and I was forced to sit down. Jasper was kneeling in front of me in a flash.

  “Are you alright?”

  I felt him take my hands. “Yeah. You know I always get dizzy after I give someone energy.”

  “I know. I just didn’t think you had given him that much.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to keep the world from spinning. “I didn’t.”

  “Can you take it back?” Colton’s voice came from my left. He had knelt beside me.

  I shook my head and waited a few minutes. I opened one eye to test my vision and looked directly into Jasper’s worried face. I smiled. “I’m fine.”

  He glanced down and I nodded. “Him, too.” I could still feel the little glow of energy sitting in my womb.

  Jasper pulled me up.

  “Ok. Let’s go talk to Rainen.” I led the way to where the three Majs were sitting. By Jasper’s descriptions, Harold and Gina were sitting on either side of Rainen. They stood as I approached. I wanted to laugh. The only form I had ever seen Rainen in was her wolf form. As a wolf, she was the size of my horse. As a person, she was an inch shorter than my five feet four inches. Harold and Gina on the other hand, were extremely tall, the former standing at least six and a half feet and the latter at a good six feet even.

  Rainen’s hair was black as the night and fell in tight ringlets down to the middle of her back. It was tied loosely at the nape of her neck with a leather string. She looked to be about forty. Her midnight blue eyes met mine.

  “Rainen.”

  “Hayden.”

  “I see you managed to get yourself in a bit of a jam.”

>   She sneered at me. “Turning my people against me will be your undoing.”

  I let the surprise I felt show on my face. “Your people? Those weren’t your people. Those were humans.”

  “I’m a few years older than you are my dear. I didn’t live to be this old by being gullible.”

  I grunted. “Untie their hands.” My pack looked at me with doubt and surprise.

  “Are you sure?” Tara glanced back to Rainen and her guards.

  “They’re not our prisoners. We came here to free them.”

  Rainen’s eyes narrowed. “Free us from your own pack?”

  I felt my impatience trying to surface. I was tired, exhausted even. It had been a long day and an even longer night, not to mention that I was now low on energy and needed to sleep to restore it back to its normal levels. I pulled my dagger from my belt, stalked behind them and cut the ropes that bound their arms behind their backs.

  “Go check them. They’re humans. They won’t have marks behind their ears to identify them as shifters.”

  Harold nodded to Gina who walked to one of the fallen humans. She rolled him onto his stomach and pulled his ear forward. Her eyes widened.

  “There’s no mark.” She moved on to another and then another. “None of them do.”

  “That’s not possible.” Rainen went to check one of the bodies. She frowned.

  I went to stand by her. “It’s the stone.” I searched the dead man’s pockets until I found what I was looking for. I handed the small stone to Rainen. “It lets them shift. When Braw separates a Maj or a Namael he can catch the animal in a stone. They’ve been using these to get close to you and Melana.”

  I moved to another of the bodies and found his stone. “Tara.” I tossed the stone to her. I had tried showing Melana’s court the shifting stones and had been accused of already being able to shift. I wasn’t making the same mistake twice. Wedelves couldn’t shift and everyone knew it. Tara took the stone, closed her eyes, and drew in one deep breath. Her form wavered and turned into a coyote. Her caramel colored eyes blinked. She sat back on her haunches and looked at me, her head tilted in question.

  I smiled. “That’s good, I think.”

  Tara shifted back into a Wedelve and handed the stone to Jasper. “Ugh. That is the oddest feeling. You can feel your bones shift and everything!”

  Rainen’s attention turned to me and I saw Jasper tense. She ignored him and chewed on her bottom lip. “How did you know where to find me? You said you came to save us.”

  “Damian.”

  Her eyes widened. “Damian hasn’t left his room for years.”

  “But he can project himself. At least he could. The last time we saw him he told us he could only project himself to me and Jasper. He said he would displace us to one of the crossings and that we were to stay in the other world for a year. He let us know when we should cross back so that we would find you. He said to be ready to fight.” I looked into her eyes. “Is he still alive?”

  She nodded. “Barely.”

  I turned to the dead humans and took a deep breath. “Let’s find their stones.”

  Rainen watched as we picked the dead men’s pockets. “What do you do with them?”

  “Keep them, for now. I’m hoping I can find a way to release them so they can rejoin their other halves.”

  When all of them were found they were placed in the bag that already held almost thirty stones. My fingers fumbled with the draw strings and dropped the bag. Jasper managed to catch it before it spilled its contents onto the ground.

  “You need to sleep, Shlova.” His blue eyes bore into mine.

  I nodded.

  He turned to the rest of the group. “Let’s get to the waterfall and set up camp.”

  “Tomorrow, we’ll head to Howel.”

  His gaze came back to me. “Why Howel? We already found Rainen. We can talk to her here and head straight home.”

  “I want to see Damian. Maybe there’s something I can do.”

  Rainen grunted. “I’ve tried everything. I’ve brought in the best healers, I’ve tried every spell that I know. Nothing works. Something is sucking the energy right out of him.”

  “It won’t hurt for me to try.”

  Her dark blue eyes narrowed. “Why do you care what happens to him?”

  I pictured the leader of the Maj with his graying dark hair and his strange grey eyes. “He’s been helping Jasper and I for the past few years now. It’s the least I can do to try and repay him.” I could see the hatred and mistrust in her eyes. I couldn’t blame her, but I was hoping we would be able to get past all of our past encounters and work together in the near future. More black spots floated into sight and I closed my eyes to keep from falling.

  “Shlova!” Jasper’s arms caught me and he cradled me against his chest. “Alright. Let’s move it. We’ll be staying at the waterfall for as long as it takes Hayden to wake up.” I felt him turn. “You might want to stick with us. Running into another pack of humans disguised as Majs might not work out as favorably as it did this time.”

  I heard Rainen grunt. I felt a nudge of magic touch me. It was tentative at first then became a little stronger. I pushed my own nudge at it as hard as I could. Rainen cried out with surprise and I heard her fall to the ground before scrambling up to stand again. I smiled, still unable to open my eyes.

  “Are you alright?” Jasper’s voice was full of concern. I squeezed his arm in answer. I heard his anger as he turned to Rainen and could imagine the look on his face. “If it even looks like you’ll try anything stupid like that again you won’t make it back to Howel, is that understood?”

  I felt her anger fill the air and got ready to shield Jasper should she decide to throw any magic at him. The atmosphere thinned and I relaxed.

  “I wasn’t going to do anything to her. I was just seeing how strong she was.”

  “And?”

  “And if she can catch me by surprise and knock me flat when she’s unconscious, then I don’t plan on trying anything on her while she’s awake.” I heard her turn and walk away.

  “Not bad, Shlova,” Jasper whispered in my ear. “You managed to scare the strongest sorceress in Quelondain.”

  I took a deep breath and snuggled into his chest, hoping that Rainen had meant what she had just said. The darkness I had been keeping at bay closed in and sleep carried me away.

  Chapter Two

  “What’s wrong, Jasper?”

  I heard my mate shush whoever was talking. It was funny how he could feel my dreams coming even before I knew I was having them. When I was dreaming I was unable to control the projection of my feelings which caused Jasper to feel every emotion the dream gave me full force.

  “Jas…”

  “Shush. She’s dreaming.” Had I been able to, I would have laughed as everyone took one deep breath and held it. I relaxed and let the dream take me.

  Great, I thought to myself. I was sitting under some bushes near a river. My hands and feet were bound. My head was pounding. I wonder who abducts you this time! There were six men in front of me. None of them looked familiar.

  One of them was looking around nervously. “I still think we need to get farther away.”

  “We’ve been going for two days with no break. If I’m tired then they’re tired. It will have taken a while for them to find the other girl that was with her.”

  His friend grunted and their conversation turned to regular events such as the weather and what they were hoping to have for supper when they finally made it home. A seventh man made his way through the woods and came to stand beside the rest.

  “It’s all clear so far.” He glanced toward me and my heart jumped into my throat.

  “Brice!” My voice was a hoarse whisper. His eyes narrowed and I took a closer look. He had the same straight dark blond hair and blue green eyes. He was even the right height. I noticed that his shoulders were broader, his build thicker, and though his facial features looked familiar, there was a marked difference. A l
ump formed in my throat as I realized I had been wrong. My friend hadn’t returned from the dead. The man turned his attention back to his friends.

  “Craig is going to keep a look out. I’ll keep first watch in camp. You guys get some sleep. We’ll wake you in two hours.” Two of the men nodded and moved toward me. A gust of wind blew through the trees and I shivered.

  “Alright, girl. Lay down.”

  “Wh…” My voice caught in my throat. I scooted backward closer to the tree behind me. Another shiver ran through me, this one caused more by fear than cold. The shiver intensified and turned into a tremor that ran through my entire body. I recognized the feeling immediately. I was pulling energy from somewhere and if I didn’t find a way to get rid of it, it would engulf me. I remembered how Dave had looked after I had pushed all of the excess energy into him. Could I do it again? Could I cause someone that much pain willingly? Yes. I was a bit shocked at how quickly the answer came to me. I hated fighting. I avoided killing at all cost. And yet somewhere deep inside of me, I was starting to feel a bit numb to these ideas. I had learned that fighting was necessary if I were to live in Quelondain. I had also come to accept that if I were to survive I would have to kill.

  The blond man pushed me onto my back. “I said lay down.”

  Another tremor ran through me and all of my muscles clenched. I tried to hold in a groan.

  “What do you think?” The brown haired man looked over at his friend.

  “We were told to get her back. I didn’t hear any specifics on what we could or could not do with her on the way there.”

  I felt the energy building inside of me. I held it in, waiting for my chance to release it. The blond man straddled me, his weight crushing my hands under me. The pain broke my concentration and I felt power break out. I heard the rustling of the woods to my left and decided this was as good a time as any. I pushed the energy outward as hard as I could and watched the men in front of me blow over backwards, their eyes wide, their mouths open in soundless screams. I looked to the left to see what the eighth man looked like and cried out. Jasper’s eyes widened as the energy wave hit him and he flew back into a tree.