Visions of Skyfire

Chapter 3

He hated letting her go alone, but if he refused, he risked her safety anyway. When a choice is not a choice, all that is left is fate.

Trusting in fate was not something that came easily to Rune. Through the centuries he had chafed at the years of atonement that had followed the coven’s disastrous actions. His witch and her coven had sentenced themselves to centuries of separation from their magic. The Eternals had been condemned to remain on the fringes of the lives of the women they had been created to protect—and to love.

Now that the long wait was over and their time was finally here, he trusted only himself to keep Teresa safe.

He looked out the window, scowling at the driving rain, and experienced for the first time a sense of helplessness that nearly crushed him. He wasn’t accustomed to encountering any situation he couldn’t muscle his way through. Now, his woman was out on the streets while he was forced to wait.

But as he waited, nothing was keeping him from attempting to heal himself. Dropping to his knees, he leaned forward, bracing his arms on the floor as he concentrated on the shards of metal embedded in his back.

The poisonous sensation of the white gold felt as though it was moving, tracing through the veins of his body like acid. He hissed in a breath, closed his eyes and gathered his waning strength, focusing it on just one of those shards.

His mind arrowed in on the bullet, which had flattened upon impact with his body. The magic pooled inside him and narrowed into a thin ribbon that pushed against that invading shard.

With his eyes closed against the dragging pain and the pull on his magic, Rune groaned as the bullet slowly inched free of his flesh. Every movement was agony. Every twist of the metal tore at him. The drain on his powers was staggering, making him feel no better than a useless mortal.

Rune dragged in a ragged breath as the first of the white-gold shards fell from him to clatter onto the floor. His gaze dropped to the tiny piece of metal and a fierce fury rose up inside him. If he hadn’t been there to prevent it, those bullets would have cut Teresa down. The human world would have succeeded in ending its only hope for survival. Fools, he thought as he braced himself for another try at ridding his body of the damaging bullets.

Without the Awakened witches to undo what they had begun so long ago, this earth the mortals fought so viciously to defend against witchcraft would end as no more than a burned cinder floating in space.

Fools. All of them.

Suddenly Rune felt a rush of protective instincts jangle through him and he lifted his head, listening. The sibilant sound of the rain muffled the barely discernible footsteps slogging relentlessly through the downpour. Gritting his teeth, he staggered to his feet and crossed to the nearest window.

Outside, two MPs, their black uniforms sodden, walked slowly down the middle of the street. It was clear they were searching for someone. Teresa.

Though the dark zone muted the trace of magic, it didn’t make him or his witch invisible. If the feds were to begin a house-to-house search, he and Teresa would be discovered. Unless Rune regained his strength in time to prevent it.

Dropping to his knees again, he shook his head and fought past the pain whispering through him. He wouldn’t be stopped. Not by white gold. Not by humans with guns. Not by anything. Gathering his waning strength, using what little of his dampened magic was available to him, he focused on another of the bullets lodged in his body.

With one last mighty surge of effort, he pushed one more bullet free of his skin before collapsing onto the floor of the empty house.

And in the silence, his huge body lay still as death.