I caught sight of Ryder smiling at me as I danced between Adrian and Adam. He shook his head, but something beyond his shoulder caught my eye and it left me breathless, in a bad way. Danu was behind him, her eyes on me as she nodded her head and looked around the room.
Sinjinn and Silas were making their way toward Ryder with urgency marked in their stride. I looked around and back at the direction they had come from. Nothing. Danu walked in my direction as I came to a standstill.
“Time to choose,” she whispered with a crooked smile on her full red lips, before she moved to stand behind Adrian.
No one else seemed to notice her presence. Ryder shouted out orders in that language that I still couldn’t understand, and as I turned to look in his direction—everything happened at once.
Adrian and Adam were both thrown across the room as if someone had just picked them up and tossed them away. Screams erupted as Ristan grabbed hold of me, and began moving swiftly toward Ryder as he shouted out urgent orders to those around us in the same language Ryder had just used.
I knew it was useless.
They couldn’t stop what was coming.
Ristan was still shouting directions as he moved when he slammed into an invisible barrier that knocked us both back.
“Fuck, they blocked us,” Ristan growled as his eyes searched and found Ryder’s. They were doing their little mind to mind thing when Ristan’s eyes flashed and swirled red. Before I could process what was happening, he crushed me against himself as he wrapped his body around mine.
Something sounded like it exploded, or had inside the invisible bubble we were in. Ristan’s body shook, and he gasped out a curse of pain as his body absorbed the impact. I felt something pull against my skin, like something was trying to bite it. Ristan lifted my chin; his hand tugged at Ryder’s necklace and pulled it free. “Flower,” he whispered.
“It’s going to be okay, Ristan,” I whispered back through hot tears.
It wasn’t okay.
Everything was moving fast, but I felt as if it was in slow motion. I could see Zahruk battling Fae that wore the colors of the Blood Kingdom with a long sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. Dristan, Sinjinn, and the rest of the guard were also engaging Fae in similar colors. Across the hall, I could see Vlad and Adrian fighting with swords and their fangs were out, mouth bloody as they fought.
Ryder, had gone into full Horde King form, and was battling to get to me. I saw him pick up one of the Blood Fae with his magic and literally ripped the male apart. There was something else there other than the Blood Fae combatants that the men were seeking.
Even now, I could see the men shifting, turning to beast. Zahruk had become a hound, the same one who had nipped at my heels at the hunt. Other’s turned easily, including Silas who had become a growling wolf with blood red eyes.
There had to be Mages outside of the bubble that held Ristan and me that must have been wearing some sort of camouflage or invisibility glamour, and the men were fighting against them to get to us. I could hear no sound. The only noise was my heart pounding in my ears, and Ristan’s against mine as he used his body to save me from something I couldn’t see.
I felt tears in my eyes as something wet and sticky spread across my stomach. No! Not the babies. Danu, now! Nothing happened. Ristan made a sound of pain, and pushed me toward the invisible barrier with a force that shocked me.
His black armor was dripping with blood from thousands of cuts to it. I thought nothing could get through that armor. My lips quivered with an idea of what had happened. I looked down, and none of it was my blood. “No!” I screamed. Something was here, inside the bubble with us, and we couldn’t see it.
Ristan looked like he was being stabbed. His body was jerked one way, and then another. I moved closer, but he held up his hand and shouted. “Stay back, Syn, spell,” he growled as he was being slashed, stabbed, and torn with whatever spell the Mages were using.
As quickly as the attack began, it stopped. Ristan coughed, and blood exploded from his mouth as he went to the ground—hard. I went down to the floor with him. I was on my hands and knees, slipping in blood from the wounds he’d endured. His body was mutilated with cuts, and he was choking on his own blood from the wound that had gone straight through his back to his chest. I tried to pull my magic around me and like my last attempts since coming here, nothing happened. “Ristan, get up! Get up, Demon. Now! Don’t do this to me. Don’t you fucking do this to me, please!” I begged on a broken sob.
“Get up!” No, this wasn’t happening, not again! “Danu!”
The bubble darkened and I looked up at Ryder, wings spread wide as he pushed on the shield, trying to find a weak point or how to remove it safely. Some would explode into a glass like material when broken by anyone other than the person who cast it; others could be crushed by these types of shields.