Descending Darkness (The Prophesized #3) (20 page)

“It was just a song.”

“It’s not the song that caused everyone to act like that. It was the girl singing it.”

“We could have totally had a High School Musical moment there, but no one joined in. Apparently everyone forgot to read their scripts,” she says as she walks toward me. She stops when she is standing in front of me.

Reaching out, I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She shivers slightly under my touch and takes another tentative step toward me. Reaching out, she places a hand on my chest, over my heart. My heart is racing from her close proximity. She smiles and leans forward, placing a small kiss on the underside of my jaw.

She laughs against my skin as she feels the small groan I was trying to contain. It drives me crazy when she does that. She wraps her arms around my waist and rests her head on my chest. “Thank you.”

I wrap my arms around her. “For what?”

“For being you. Keeping me grounded. For helping me with everything,” she whispers.

I push her back and look down into her eyes, “Ryanne, you never have to thank me for that. Ever. I’m always here.”

“Well, thank you for always being here,” she says with a sly smile. She steps out of my arms and grabs the clothes. Smiling over her shoulder at me, she walks into the bathroom to change.

I change into my training clothes and look toward the bathroom door. Ryanne is still in the bathroom, changing. She is taking longer than usual. I lightly knock on the door. “Ryanne, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Go downstairs. I’ll be down in a minute.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, go,” she shouts back. Something is up. Since I’m not going to get any answers from Ryanne, I guess I’ll have to settle for next option. I need to talk with Liam.

Entering the kitchen, I find him leaning against the counter. He doesn’t look too good. “Ryanne?” I ask him.

“I don’t know. I just feel strange. Something’s going on, but I don’t know if it’s me or her.”

“I think something is wrong, but she won’t tell me.”

Liam winces and says, “Something is definitely wrong.”

“Colton!” Emma yells.

I run out of the kitchen and into the living room. Emma is standing on the bottom of the stairs with her arms outstretched to keep Ryanne from falling. She’s a couple steps up, gripping the handrail, with a pained expression on her face. Her body is shaking. If she wasn’t holding onto the handrail, she’d probably fall down the stairs. When she starts moving down the rest of the stairs, I move through everyone and move toward her.

When she makes it to the bottom stair, she gasps and let go of the handrail. Falling to her knees, she starts panting. “Ryanne, what’s wrong?” Everyone is starting to crowd around us now.

“They’re pulling me back,” she whispers. She grunts and leans forward, falling against me. She is violently shaking now. I pick her up and carry her over to the couch.

She has a vacant look in her eyes; they seem to be glazed over. She is looking in my direction, but she’s not looking at me. “I c-c-can’t fight it. P-pull too…strong.”

“Pulling her back where?” Logan asks.

“It’s her vision. It’s happening,” Liam says. “Valdus is pulling her back.” She whimpers and stops shaking. Her head rolls back as she goes limp in my arms. “Ryanne?” I ask. No response. “Shit.” I lay her down on her back on the couch and stand up.

There has to be something I can do.
Anything
.

I rack my brain trying to think of something to help in this situation. Nothing. There is nothing I can do, but there is something Liam can do. “Liam, are you able to go to her?”

“I can try, but I won’t be able to find her unless she needs help or tries to contact me.”

“It’s worth a shot. That vision wasn’t the whole scene. It only showed part of it. More happens, and she may need help.”

The dream fields. The dream fields.
I am hoping that if I just continue to repeat this, I will end up there. I don’t want to end up in Dravin’s compound again. I’ll be so screwed if that happens.

Umph. I stop falling and land on my back on the hard ground. Oww, that could have been more graceful. Pushing through the pain, I jump up and look around. I am in the middle of the forest with tall, dark trees surrounding me. Spinning around in a circle, I don’t see anything else. Just trees. Thankfully, it’s not Dravin’s compound. I pause and wait for a moment. I’m here...so, now what? How does this benefit Dravin in any way? What am I supposed to do? Throwing up a shield around me, I start walking. I don’t know where I am, so I don’t know where to go. I just walk.

I look around for anything to determine where I am—anything out of the ordinary to help me figure out my location, but everything looks the same. I am surrounded by trees. Nothing else. Where are the field and the crazy men chasing me? I don’t understand what is going on.

“Liam?” I quietly call out. If I am in the dream world, he should be able to come here. Maybe he can help me figure everything out.

“You were supposed to bring her to the compound, not this stupid dream.” I hear someone yell nearby. Spinning in a circle, I look at my surroundings. The only place to hide is behind a tree. I run to the right and jump behind the largest tree. Pressing myself as close to it as I can get, I strengthen my shield and wait.

“She’s very strong. She was able to override a part of my magic. I could knock her into unconsciousness, but she was able to control where she went.”  I’m assuming that Valdus Hamza is the one talking.

“You promised me you could bring her to me,” Dravin yells.

“She’s here somewhere. I just don’t know where. I can’t sense her.”

“She can surround herself with a shield, blocking her magic. You won’t be able to find her if she has a shield up,” Natasha says.

“I need her magic. She’s too much of a threat right now,” Dravin says, “I’m done playing nice.” When did he ever play nice?

“You’re just going to take her magic, right? Nothing else?” Valdus Hamza asks.

“If she happens to die afterwards…well, it was accidental.” I can hear the smile in Dravin’s voice. I really hate that guy.

“You promised me you wouldn’t kill her. You’d just take her magic,” Valdus Hamza shouts.

“You really shouldn’t trust a Gadramick. I won’t intentionally kill the girl. But even without her magic, she could still be a threat to me.” At least he’s finally admitting that I’m a threat.

“I don’t like this,” Valdus says.

“I don’t care if you like it. Just help me find her,” Dravin demands. I press myself farther into the base of the tree. Their footsteps recede into the distance as they walk away from my general vicinity. Holding my breath, I wait until I can’t hear anyone anymore. It sounds like Valdus doesn’t want to be helping Dravin, so why is he?

I peer around the tree. The coast is clear. I look in the direction that Dravin has gone and decide to go the opposite way. I have no idea how to get out of here, so better be safe than sorry. The previous times I’d been here, I was either injured or woken up. I don’t really want to get injured, and I have no idea how to wake myself up. I don’t even know how long I’ve been here.

I hear the snap of a twig right before I hear his thoughts. Freezing where I am, I listen.
Ahh, there she is.
The man behind me is literally the last person I expected to be here. “Phillip?”

“So you do remember me,” he says as he takes a step toward me. My first instinct is to turn around and run, but I stand my ground.

“What are you doing here?” He helped us before, but something is sketchy right now. I glance over my shoulder. No one is behind me.

“Oh you know, just taking a stroll through the forest.”
Wait until Dravin finds out I was the one that caught her.

“Is James with you?” I ask. I don’t like James in the least bit, but right now I think I’d rather deal with James than Phillip. I don’t know anything about him. When he came to the house to help before the battle, he was silent. James did all the talking.

Of course. They always want to know about James.
“No, James decided that there was something special about you; that you were the winning side. I’ve never seen anything to confirm his belief,” he growls at me. I start backing up further. Phillip just admitted to working for the Gadramicks.

“So what’s your plan now?” He is taking larger strides to get close to me. I push my legs further until I’m practically jogging backward.

He could easily reach forward and grab me if it wasn’t for my shield. Right now, we are playing a game of cat and mouse.

“Well, since we’re in this lovely predicament, I thought I’d have some fun. You’re alone. None of your little posse is here to help save you. Dravin wants you, but he didn’t specify the condition you had to be in.”

“Why are you doing this? You helped us…”

“I was dragged along. I didn’t do anything in that battle. I don’t see anything special in you. You weren’t even born a mage. How can you be the one to stop all this? Huh?”

I continue moving backward. I’m not sure if Phillip has a power, but I know that I don’t want to find out. He takes a couple steps toward me. I have to do something, but I don’t want to drop my shield. So, I do the only logical thing. I turn around and start running. Brilliant plan, Ryanne. Run away from the bad guy. That’ll get you far.

Stupid girl.

I pick up my speed. I know that I can run long distances, but if this is the same scene from my vision, I need to keep my energy. I glance behind me and see Phillip still chasing after me. Keeping my shield up, I call my magic to me. I can feel the magic building up in my core, coming to the surface. I push myself to run further. I need to create a greater distance between us.

When there’s a couple feet between us, I stop running and turn around. Dropping my shield, I thrust my magic out. Time stops as I watch it cascade through the air for a couple seconds before hitting Phillip. His eyes widen as my magic connects with him. His forward motion is reversed, and he flies backward through the air—limbs flailing in every direction. He lands on his back on the trail and stays down. I turn around and start to run again.

Is he dead? I stop running. I slowly turn back around. He is still lying in the center of the trail. I take tentative steps toward him. Why am I worried about Phillip? He just tried to attack me. Standing a foot away from him, I crouch down next to his body. I don’t want to get too close. I stare at his chest until I see its rise and fall from breathing.

He’s alive.

With that confirmed, I spin around and run back in the direction I was heading in before. I slow to a steady jog and look around me. I can hear sounds of things moving through the forest, but I don’t know what they are specifically.

Footsteps.

I pick up my pace again. I’m going to be discovered soon anyway. “I found her!” someone yells. Shoot. I look back and see a large group of men chasing after me. This is my vision. This is what I had to get to. I open my mind and try to read their thoughts, but there are too many of them. My steps falter as I try to get control of them. I can’t concentrate on anything.

Pushing their thoughts back, I lock them away and continue running. I enter the clearing and stop. Though I know where I am this time, it still shocks me that I am here. This was where I’ve been attacked by gorgoths before, and now I am about to get attacked by something real. Gadramicks. Valdus intentionally brought all these people into the dream world to search for me when I foiled his attempt to bring me back to the compound.

I start running again but stop dead in my tracks when I see the man standing in front of me. I take a couple steps back and look to my right: another man. Left? Another. I’m surrounded. I spin in a circle. Yep, definitely surrounded. These don’t look like the same men, but this is the same situation.

Nine to one. Not fair.

The man directly across from me starts walking toward me, smiling with each step. Wow, he is cocky. The men in the circle spread out to cover the open area. I take a couple steps backward, but I know that I can’t go too far.

As he jumps into the air, I throw up my shield. He slams into my magic and stumbles backward. Now it is my turn to be cocky. I take a step toward him and smile. “Did you think I’d go easily? Have you guys not learned anything?” I watch as he picks himself up and narrows his eyes at me. Saying he is mad would be an understatement.

I run toward him and drop the shield. Doing an aerial cartwheel, I call my magic to my limbs and stop in front of him. Since he is stunned, I easily reach out and kick him in the jaw, knocking him unconscious. He falls limply to the ground. Stepping over him, I spin around and look at each of the guys, arms outstretched. “Who’s next?”

Instead of individually attacking me, they decide to make it a collaborative effort. As all the guys start running for me, I call my magic to me and push it underneath my body.
I’m as light as air, let me fly.
When the wind picks up, I jump in the air and fly above everyone. I hover about ten feet in the air and watch as all the men slam into each other, grunting in pain as they realize what I’ve done. I flip a couple times in the air before landing in the grass behind them, crouched down in a defensive position. All the men, minus the unconscious one, push through the pain and get up to face me.

“Oops.” I smile at them and look down at my nails, feigning boredom. “You really should pay more attention to where you’re going.”

Barring their teeth, they all growl in annoyance at me. Am I surrounded by werewolves or something? Do werewolves exist? I’ll have to ask Colton that question sometime.

They all start running for me again. I throw up another shield. Shields are becoming second nature to me. I don’t really have to think about them anymore. When I need one, it appears. As they run into the shield, they cry out and fall back to the ground again. I walk toward them slowly. I am getting pretty good at annoying incredibly large, bad men. Can I put that on a résumé as a skill?

I walk toward them and stop in front of the largest guy. When he stands up, he growls again. In my mind, I watch as he transforms into a werewolf, hair sprouting out of every part of his body and crawling on all fours, howling at the moon.

I make sure it is obvious when I look at him thoroughly, my eyes traveling down to his dark clothing. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Black is definitely not your color. You should try warm colors. They’d compliment your skin tone more.” He grunts and punches my shield. It doesn’t budge.

I walk along the edge of the shield and stop in front of a different man. “You’d think after all this time Dravin would have trained his men a little better or, here’s an idea, come after me himself. I mean really? Is he that scared of me?” I stare at him. “Do I look scary to you?”

He doesn’t say anything, but that’s fine. I already knew how he’d react.

Taking a couple steps backward, I drop the shield. Throwing my arms out, I say, “I’m getting really tired of these pointless confrontations. Come one, boys. Do your best.”

Two men charge at me. I wait until they get close before I react. The first man swings his arm back to try to punch me. I duck, and he ends up punching the man behind me. He grabs his nose as blood starts to gush. I laugh and stand back up.

I lean back and kick my leg out, connecting with his chest. Since I am calling my magic to me, the man stumbles backward. I flip around and punch the other man in the gut. When he doubles over, I swing up and kick him in the jaw, knocking him out. I turn around to fight the other man when a fist connects with my shoulder.

Ouch, that hurt. This only succeeds in making me mad.

I stop toying with him and jump into the air, flying a couple feet up. I lean down and whack my elbow into the side of his neck. His eyes roll back into his head, and he slumps down. I turn around and face the other men. They are still standing in a line. I quickly count them.

There are six left.

Pointing my finger at the short guy on the end, I motion him forward. He looks to the guy on his left for guidance. When the man shrugs his shoulders, he takes a hesitant step toward me. I walk the rest of the way toward him and push my magic back. “Ok, I’ll fight fair now.”

He runs forward, and I stand my ground until he is right in front of me. I take a step to the right, and he runs past me. Stopping, he turns around and moves in my direction again. I can hear footsteps behind me, but I decide to play dumb. I duck to avoid being punched and step backward, letting the other man grab me. Oh, these guys are dumb.

“Gotcha,” he whispers in my ear.

“Oooh, the big bad guy caught the wittle girl. I’m shaking in my boots,” I retort. He starts pulling me back. Does he really think I’ll just let him cart me off like this? Where does Dravin get these guys? “Oh wait, I’m not wearing boots.”

I lift my right foot and back kick him in the shins. He hisses in pain and loosens his grip on me. I swing my head back and hit him in the face, causing him to throw me to the ground. Catching myself, I jump back up and thrust my magic at him. When my magic connects with his body, he flies backward and slams into a large tree.