Astrid's Wish (15 page)

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The sound of the heavy footfalls coming toward them drew his attention back to the threat at hand. He made his decision.

“I wish you would go away.”

The man paused for a half a second, shook his head, and laughed.

“Nice try, half breed, but your magic won’t work on me,” he sneered as he drew closer.

“Touch him while you wish it,” Miles shouted as he held onto Astrid’s hand.

“What? Are you freaking mad?” Trevor looked at Miles as if he were insane. “That would involve letting that guy get close enough to actually touch. How do you even know that will work?”

“I just know.” Miles looked at Astrid and nodded.

The man lunged forward and clasped him by his biceps. The pinch of fingernails dug into Astrid’s flesh, causing him to flinch in pain.

Without further coaxing, he let the words fly as he gripped the other man’s forearms.

“I wish you would go away,” he shouted the words into the man’s face.

A look of horror flashed across the man’s face, and he winced as if in pain. Then he was gone. The man disappeared right before their eyes.

“Miles.” Ben came rushing into the room with Quinn and Klaus fast on his heels. Other warriors filed into the room to assess the situation.

“What the fuck happened? Are you all right?” Quinn asked as he sprinted over to Trevor.

“Jeez, we’re fine.” Trevor slapped Quinn’s hands away as he tried to search him over for injuries.

“Angel, are you okay?” Klaus wrapped his strong arms around him. Once in Klaus’s embrace, everything and everyone faded away as he soaked up the strength his mate gave him.

“What the fuck happened in here?” Quinn asked as he looked over the carnage littering the room.

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He twisted in Klaus’s arms to look at what the warriors were seeing. He gasped in horror. Blood and body parts from the two men his friends fought against were thrown around the room. Until Quinn pointed it out, he hadn’t noticed any of it.

“Well, we were in the kitchen just about to sit down to eat when we heard a large crash,” Trevor began. “We had to get to safety, so we made our way down the back hallway. As we reached the end, we got ambushed by two men. So we fought for our lives.” Trevor shrugged like it was nothing.

Klaus looked from the surrounding bloodshed to each man in turn.

“You two did that?” he asked, skepticism in his tone.

“Hell yeah we did,” Trevor gloated. “They came at us, and we just defended ourselves. That’s what those assholes get for underestimating the little guys.” Trevor pumped his fist into the air.

“But it was Astrid who saved us.” Miles turned in Ben’s arms to face them.

“How?” Klaus asked.

“He wished him away,” Trevor said. “Coolest thing I think I’ve ever seen. That dude just vanished.”

“Is that possible?” Ben looked to Klaus. “Are his powers strong enough to accomplish making a whole man disappear?”

“I don’t know.” Klaus did his best to see the answer in Astrid’s eyes.

“It didn’t work until Astrid touched him.” Miles pulled out of Ben’s hold and went to stand where the man had disappeared from.

“He didn’t wish him dead, just away. So he might come back,” Miles mumbled as he circled the spot a few times looking for any signs of the man.

“That’s it,” Klaus whispered.

“What’s it?” Ben asked Klaus.

“Astrid’s magic works differently since he’s part witch part fairy.

To be able to make the bad wishes happen he must have to be
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touching that person he’s wishing it upon. That’s the connection.”

Klaus looked toward Astrid. “How did you figure it out, angel?”

“I didn’t. Miles did.”

Everyone stared at Miles. He still gazed down at the ground where the man vanished, completely oblivious to his audience.

“Miles?” Klaus asked.

“Baby, look at me.” Ben took Miles by the arm to get his attention. “How did you know that would work?”

Miles tilted his head to look up at Ben. His friend wasn’t registering anything that Ben said to him. Astrid feared Miles might be suffering from shock.

“Baby, come back to me.” Ben brought his hands up to Miles’s face and rubbed light circles on his bloodstained cheeks. “Can you tell us how you knew that would work?”

Miles grabbed Ben’s wrist and squeezed so tight, his mate’s hands started to turn purple. “You won’t believe me.”

Astrid watched the exchange between Miles and Ben. He was concerned for his friend. Miles looked truly afraid by whatever was going on inside his head.

“Miles, I love you. There’s nothing in this world you could say that would make me not believe in you.”

Tears trickled like raindrops down Miles’s cheeks, smearing the blood to pinkish streaks across his face. “A voice in my head told me,” Miles’s said softly.

At Mile’s confession, a chill ran down Astrid’s spine. In any world, be it human or paranormal, it wasn’t good to hear voices. He looked to Klaus, trying to read his expression, but got nothing. Klaus appeared just as baffled as the rest of the room.

“Hey, boss?” The warrior named Lawson said as he came into the room. “Before Abner ripped that poor bastard’s head off”—Lawson threw a thumb over his shoulder—“he said something about the coming. That mean anything to anyone?”

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“That’s what the guy who vanished said. That he didn’t want Astrid but another did. Something about ‘the coming,’” Trevor informed the surrounding men.

“What is this fucking ‘coming’? And what does it have to do with my mate?” Klaus grounded out through clenched teeth.

Astrid wanted to know as well. If this was his purpose for being brought into this world, he had to find a way to change his destiny. He had to keep his family safe and protect the innocent people who didn’t ask for any of this. The reasons for being created might have been to do evil, but he would rather die before he hurt another living soul.

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“How’s Miles?” Klaus asked Ben as he came into the war room where the other warriors sat discussing the day’s earlier events.

They had been sitting in this room when all hell had broken loose.

They had been discussing what they were going to tell the council.

Ben’s father had called first thing that morning, demanding answers.

Ben was able to deflect him with questions of his own. In the end, Benedict told Ben to contact him later when he had something useful to discuss.

Not more than five minutes later, they heard an explosion. They all took off out of the room like bullets leaving their chamber. As they entered the front entryway heading to the hallway that led to the kitchen where Astrid and Miles were, they were met with at least forty men, wearing all black, with soulless eyes. They sniffed the air and kept mumbling the word “fairy.” Klaus knew then that they were there specifically for Astrid.

The enemy had blown the front door clear off its hinges and emerged into the foyer. Their less-than-tactful ambush meant they hadn’t come to fight and kill all the warriors living within the house.

No, they had come to take one person and one person only then leave immediately afterward.

A battle broke out instantly, with him in the thick of it. He fought man after man, clearing a path to the kitchen. Endless amounts of soldiers flooded the house, and Klaus’s only thought was getting to Astrid.

Finally, when the enemies’ numbers started to dwindle, he, Ben, and Quinn took off toward the kitchen. A mind-numbing terror caused
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his steps to falter as they came into the seating area right off the main dining room. Blood painted the walls, and human debris covered the floor. Miles and Trevor, both new vampires, had managed to rip the heads off two fully grown paranormals. What exact species they were was still unknown. Their faces were too badly scratched up and swollen beyond any kind of recognition. He had to guess the utter fear caused them to react in such a manner because Miles and Trevor were not of the violent sort.

But what surprised him the most and was also the reason he sat around this table instead of in bed comforting his mate, was what Astrid had done. His mate had touched a man and wished him gone, and it had happened. There was no sign of a third man in the room, but Miles, Trevor, and Astrid were adamant that there had been a third.

The other odd occurrence surrounding the situation was how Miles knew that by touching the man Astrid could make the wish come true. There were so many questions and not enough answers.

“He’s resting now, but I feel like he’s hiding something from me.”

Ben took his seat. He propped up his arms on the table and rested his head in his hands.

“Give it time, Ben. He’ll talk to you when he himself can make heads or tails of it all. Once he understands, he will talk to you. You have to believe that, my friend,” Klaus reassured him.

“I know, but I just hate that he’s trying to deal with this alone.”

Ben slammed his fist down on the table. “I feel so useless when I know he’s suffering.”

“Well, I got good news, guys,” Eli said as he jogged into the room. “I reviewed the surveillance footage from the part of the house your boys were in.” He motioned to the disc in his hand. “There was a third man. And just like your mates stated, he did just disappear, but not before he mentioned the coming.”

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Ben looked to Klaus. “Can Astrid still not remember anything about someone mentioning that while he lived under Malcolm’s roof?”

“No, but he’s worked himself up into hysterics thinking he’s some sort of evil bomb going to blow any minute, killing us all.” He brought his hand up to pinch the bridge of his noise. A headache the size of Texas pounded in his brain. His hands were tied. He didn’t know what to do to reassure his mate, because from all that they had learned, Astrid was, in fact, created for evil purposes. But whoever had thought of this grand scheme didn’t count on his mate having a heart and lacking the ability to hurt a living soul.

“Okay, so this ‘coming’ is something we need to be concerned about.” Quinn looked over to Ben. “And your mate’s hearing voices.”

Ben narrowed his eyes at Quinn, but he ignored the glare and continued on. “But the main concern we all should be focused on right now is who were those guys, and who sent them? How did they know where we lived, and how did they know Astrid was a fairy?

That information didn’t come to light until yesterday.”

His attention snapped to Quinn. He had been too caught up in his own pain of almost losing his mate that he never considered how this all came about. According to Benedict, no one else knew about Astrid, so that left only one person who would want him. Lucian.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath. This couldn’t be happening.

“What?” Ben asked.

He turned sullen eyes up at Ben. “There is only one person I could possibly think of who would want Astrid.”

“You can’t possibly think he stayed around here, do you?”

“Anything’s possible. Lucian could be just biding his time until he gets Astrid back.” He didn’t want to think about what Lucian would do to Astrid if he were to ever get him back.

“Damn,” Eli sang the word out, drawing Klaus’s attention his way.

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“What?”

Eli pointed his finger at that monitor displaying the surveillance footage. “Did you see what Miles and Trevor did to those morons?”

“Eli, we all saw it firsthand,” Quinn stated with a tinge of annoyance in his tone.

“No, you saw the aftereffects, but you didn’t see those newbies in action.” Surprise and awe were written all over Eli’s face. “Here, look for yourselves.” Eli gestured to the monitor and hit the play button.

Miles was first on the screen. He fought toe-to-toe with a large male. The man kept trying to grab him around the waist and squeeze him in a bear hug, but the wiry little guy proved to be too fast. Just as another came into view, Trevor came rushing around the corner, fighting with the zest of a boxer seeking a knockout. Punch after punch landed with precise precision. Klaus couldn’t believe his eyes.

“That little fucker actually was paying attention during our sessions together.”

Pride was clear on Quinn’s face, and if Klaus’s wasn’t mistaken, the glow of affection radiated off him as well. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something simmered beneath the surface between the warrior and the loudmouthed, overreacting Trevor.

Looking back at the video, he watched as Trevor and Miles fought back-to-back like well-seasoned warriors. They anticipated each other’s movements and worked together to fend off the enemy. Miles stepped one way and Trevor the other, and they fought in complete synchronicity. The method in which they fought and moved together was a style that could not be taught. It was ingrained into their DNA, and being related had to be the reasoning for the way they moved so well together. Complete and utter trust in each other was a tool they used to fight off their attackers.

When Astrid came into frame, his heart skidded to a dead stop.

His mate scurried across the screen, trying to escape out the far hallway but was stopped by a man blocking his path. Even in the video he could see the blind terror on his angel’s face. His anger
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spiked as the man kept advancing on his mate. He fisted each hand so tight his knuckles cracked under the pressure.

“Hey, man, he’s okay.” Quinn offered words of comfort. “Your boy already took out the fucker. Be proud, and don’t linger on the what-ifs. It’ll just drive you crazy.”

The video came to an end, and Ben turned to face them all. “Hate to say it, but I think I need to call my father and let him know what happened here today. We may need his help.”

“Hang on a minute. Let’s think about this.” Quinn leaned forward and began to tap his fingers on the desk. “Lucian took off after the battle at Malcolm’s home. There have been sightings of him on the West Coast.”