Destiny (The Chosen One Trilogy:Book Three) (26 page)

Jasper stood with me cradled in
his arms. “I may not be a winged horse, Shlova, but I can still
carry you. I might as well be good for something.” He turned to
Luke. “Why don’t you guys go ahead and inform everyone of what just
happened. We’ll be along shortly.”

I heard the three of them lope
off toward Sageden. Jasper was quiet for a while and I relaxed
against him, enjoying the feel of his arms around me. I breathed in
his smell. I always loved how he smelled after a fight; all of the
sweat, dirt, and yes, even the blood.

“Oh! You were hurt! Let me see.”
I opened my eyes and was surprised to see him frowning.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded and I closed my eyes.
I looked up again. “He got you on the back.” I reached an arm
around and I struggled to get my feet on the ground. “Jasper, put
me down!”

He tightened his hold on me and
my temper flared. “You stubborn, hard headed…”

He grunted.

“Put me down! Now!” I elbowed
him in the chest and his hold loosened enough that I wiggled to the
ground. “Jesus! What the hell is the matter with you?” I looked at
my hand which was covered in blood.

Without a word, Jasper turned
away from me, sat cross legged on the ground, and lifted his blood
soaked tunic over his head. A sob caught in my throat and I had to
swallow a few times before I could even think to breathe. The claw
marks on his back started up at his left shoulder blade and angled
down to his right hip. The skin was ragged along the edges of the
scratches and the blood was flowing freely.

“
Oh, god, Jasper.” It was
just a whisper. I knelt behind him and pulled a safe green from the
air. I pressed my hands to his back, cringing at the way he jumped
away from the touch. He sucked in a breath as the marks healed.
Ignoring the blood, I wrapped my arms around him from behind and
lay my cheek against his back. He tensed.

“Are you hurt elsewhere?”

He shook his head and reached an
arm back so that I wouldn’t move. “I’d almost managed to forget.”
His voice was so quiet I could barely hear him. “Would you have
gone with him had you killed me by accident?”

I frowned. “No. But it would
never have come to that. There’s no way he could ever make a
perfect image of you. I never would have picked him.”

“But supposing it had happened;
when a man can make you feel like that…” He let the comment hang in
the air.

“But he’s not a man. And he
didn’t make me feel like that, magic did.” I kissed the back of his
neck softly. “Jasper, there is not enough magic in the world to
replace how you make me feel.”

I felt him take a deep
breath.

“You felt it the first time,
when it happened in the Northern Regions, didn’t you?”

He nodded.

“Why didn’t you say
something?”

He shrugged.

“And what was that little
comment about you might as well be good for something?”

He shrugged again. I pushed past
his arm and made my way so that we were facing each other. I sat
cross legged so that our knees touched and looked up at him. My
chest tightened at the sadness in his eyes.

“Jasper, talk to me.”

“It’s just… by the moons,
Hayden, you may as well have gone with him. At least he’d be able
to keep you safe. What in the world have I ever done right? It
doesn’t matter who makes up their mind to do it, they all manage to
take you from right in front of me. When I finally do get you back
you’re bruised and battered. It’s a bloody miracle you haven’t been
raped yet…” He took a deep breath. “Though I suppose what just
happened to you might qualify…” He growled low in this throat. “You
should never have been fated to me. You need someone like Damian,
or Teean. Someone who can shield you, or displace you, or…” He
shook his head. “Someone who might actually be able to help when we
get close enough to Braw to do something about the staff.”

I put my hand up to his face and
he closed his eyes.

“Are you almost done?”

His eyes flew opened and he
frowned at my smile. “I wasn’t joking, Hayden.”

“Neither am I. First of all,
Damian is too old. Second, Teean is too young. Third, well, Ternach
isn’t even remotely close to human and I’d hate to wake up next to
a dragon or whatever little rock man he fancied at the time.
Fourth, Damian or Teean and I don’t even think Ternach will be able
to do much to help if Braw’s staff gets too close to me. You saw
how he reacted today, and that was just the little bit of the
energy I have in me. And fifth…” I brought up my other hand and
held his face gently. “I don’t want to be fated to anyone else. I
love you, Jasper. I knew I would love you the moment I looked into
those perfect blue eyes when you were at the top of the hill
crossing. I went home that day and all I could think about was you.
When I saw you again the next day it took all of the will power I
had to leave.” I ran my thumb over the line of his cheek bone. I
could barely see the scar he had gotten defending me from Dave when
we’d crossed over. “By the third day, well, I think I already loved
you. Why else would I have followed you here? Any sane person would
have run away screaming when you shifted the first time. And when
you told me you could talk to Dodge…” I smiled at the memory. “So
you see, Jasper, it doesn’t matter if we were fated or not; I knew
I loved you before I kissed you and I will keep loving you. You are
my mate.” I knelt in front of him so that we were eye to eye. “You
are my husband.” My hands found his and I ran my thumb over the
gold band on his finger. I dropped my shield and let him feel
exactly how much I loved him. “You will forever be the one I want
to hold at night; the only one I want to wake up with.” I leaned
forward and kissed him softly. “You are the only one I would ever
want to try having children with again.”

He blinked. “Really?”

I nodded. “Of course, you’ll
probably have to endure feeling like you’re dying for another year
so you can knock me up.” I grinned. I wrapped my arms around his
neck, suddenly sure that this was definitely something I wanted to
try for again.

“I can definitely handle that.”
His lips brushed over mine lightly and both of us shivered. “And
afterwards?” His breath whispered against my neck as his strong
arms wrapped around me and pulled me to his chest.

“Afterwards, we’ll come back
here to our new cabin in our perfect meadow and we’ll live quietly
and boringly together.” I kissed him and pulled back to look at
him. “Don’t ever doubt yourself, Hun. You’re the reason I’m still
here, in more ways than one. Everything will be alright. Sa laug sa
nos ist emsan.”

He smiled and returned the kiss.
“As long as we’re together,” he agreed. Jasper hugged me close,
stood, and picked me up again before starting off toward Sageden.
“A shlova yan,” he whispered as he tightened his arms around
me.

“A shlova yan jer,” I managed to
mumble before I fell asleep.

*****

“Hayden, we have to quit meeting
like this.”

I smiled and pushed through the
last of the healing sleep I was in. Jasper put a glass of water to
my lips and kissed my forehead. I took a few swallows and turned to
look at the voice that had woken me up.

“Rainen. How are you
feeling?”

“Exhausted. I think we were
lucky we had so many magic wielders in our packs. We lost six but
with his nudge spread out over such a large area, he wasn’t able to
take us all out.” She smiled. “I hear you had your own little
encounter with him. I hope you threw something extra hard at him
for me.”

I nodded. “I think I sent him
right back to the Northern Regions.”

She laughed and her midnight
blue eyes squinted with her smile. “Jasper told me what happened.
Pity you didn’t have more of that energy in you.”

I grunted. “Thanks but no
thanks. I’ve been lucky so far and have been able to dispense it in
a way that didn’t harm anyone that I loved, but who knows what will
happen next time.” I sat up and looked around our room at Tara’s. I
rubbed my hands over my face. “How long was I out?” I asked
Jasper.

“About four hours.”

“Shit. Let’s get down to the
courtyard. How many healers were we able to round up?”

“Fifteen. Six who can use the
waves; that includes Danny, Fillian, and yourself.”

“Wow! That’s great!” I swung my
legs over the edge of the bed and ran a green wave over Rainen who
was lying on a cot. “Get some more sleep. We’ll go handle this. You
should be fine by tomorrow morning.”

The elder sorceress placed a
hand over mine. “Before you go down…” She looked at me with a
shrug. “I was just wondering if William made the crossing
unharmed.”

“He did.”

She nodded. “Was he happy?”

“I think so. He was nervous and
excited. He’d been here about ten years, you know. I’m sure it will
be a bit of a shock going back to living the style of life they are
used to in that world. He was a bit concerned about trying to
explain where he’d been these past years. I think he decided to go
with amnesia due to a head injury.”

She smiled. “Alright. That’s all
I needed to know.” She gave a wave as we left.

“How many are in the courtyard?”
I asked Jasper.

“Fifty seven. All of the magic
wielders have been housed by whoever had room so they could sleep
and restore their energy. There were twenty of them when they left
Howel but six weren’t strong enough to fight Ternach. The humans
also took out almost every healer they could get their hands on.
The ones that weren’t killed are in horrible shape from trying to
deal with all of the wounded.” He glanced down at me and I knew
there was something he didn’t want to tell me.

“What’s wrong?”

We walked along the path to the
courtyard. He took my hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Once all of the magic wielders
had dropped the human packs attacked. It’s no big surprise that
Rainen was one of their main targets. Gina and Harold managed to
keep her safe.”

By the way he frowned I knew
there was a big ‘but’ coming. I looked up as the six and a half
foot tall Harold walked around a corner a bit farther ahead of us.
His blond hair was shaggy and sticking out at wild angles, his dark
grey eyes were barely focused on the ground as he kicked at a stone
in his path. It took me a few seconds to realize what Jasper’s
‘but’ was going to be. Gina was never more than a few feet away
from her mate. Today, she was nowhere in sight.

“Oh, god, please tell me she’s
just hurt in the courtyard.”

The wind carried my voice over
to Harold and he looked up. His eyes were rimmed with red and had a
devastated, hopeless look to them. He nodded to us and managed a
pitiful attempt at a smile. I let go of Jasper’s hand and ran to
give our friend a hug.

“What happened? Where’s
Gina?”

Harold started to speak but
stopped abruptly. He hugged me tightly and I felt him shake his
head.

“They took prisoners,” Jasper
said quietly from behind me.

My heart dropped. I couldn’t
decide if I should be scared, sad, or pissed right off. All three
feelings settled in the pit of my stomach.

“Is she still alive? Can you
tell?”

“She is. It’s not like with you
and Jasper. I can’t tell what she’s feeling. I can just tell that
she’s still there.”

I stepped back and waited for
him to look at me. The sadness and misery I saw in his eyes when he
did caused my throat to tighten. I swallowed and cleared my
throat.

“We’ll get her out. I promise
you. We’ll bring her home.”

He nodded and wiped his arm
across his face as a tear streaked over his cheek. He cleared his
own throat. “I just need a few minutes. I’ll meet you back at the
courtyard.” He shifted into his bear and shuffled down the
path.

I looked up at Jasper. “How many
did they get?”

He growled. “Seven.” He stopped
looking after Harold and closed his eyes. “Gina was the only one we
knew. By the moons, Hayden, what’s he doing?”

I tried to get away from the
mentality of Quelondain, where battles were fought and everyone
took their wounded home. Prisoners were only taken if a shifter
from the opposite side was found deep in your own territory. No one
went out looking to take prisoners, well, unless it was me. “He’s
taking hostages.”

He frowned.

“He’s going to use them to get
me to do what he wants. He’ll promise to give us the hostages if I
give myself up to him.”

“But that doesn’t make sense.
Whether he does it or you do it, they’ll be dead anyway.”

“Jasper, he doesn’t think like
that. He thinks he’s saving you. To him, it’s a fair trade; me for
them and if they are pure enough then they’ll survive being
liberated.”

“Oh, good! Hayden!” Danny was
jogging toward us from in the direction of the courtyard. “We need
you in there. There are a few who aren’t responding to the safe
green.” He waited for us to catch up to him and we all jogged back
to the courtyard.

Nothing could have prepared me
for scene that awaited me. I stopped short and gawked. Tarps had
been hung to cover the injured should it rain. The ground was
covered with bloodied blankets and wounded Majs, some of them
shifted and some of them in human form.

“We’ve been doing a bit at a
time. The ones who aren’t too seriously hurt are being mended by
the herbal healers. The rest of us have been doing our best to heal
the worst cases but with just the five of us, well, six now that
you’re here, we can’t completely heal all of them or we’ll all be
useless by the time we get a quarter of them fixed up.” He looked
at me and frowned. “There are ten of them who need the darker green
wave.”

I nodded. “Take me to those ones
first.”

“Hayden…”

I shook my head to stop Jasper
from saying what I knew he was thinking. I had never given more
than one being my own energy.