Page 127 of The Heart of the Dragon

I blinked several times until my vision cleared and I found Magnus standing next to me, not in the butter suede pants and tunic he'd worn to the village and me no longer in the flowing gown. We were as we'd been before, him wrapped waist down in a towel and me standing in a robe together. I looked around, a lightheadedness making me a little woozy.

We were back in his bedroom...

"Rose, what's wrong?" Magnus gripped me by the arms and pulled me close. "Are you ill? Is it the baby?"

My hand went to my stomach, a little more heat still centered there. "Maybe."

"Are you okay to make the trip to the village or should we postpone?"

I shook my head. "It happened again."

His forehead wrinkled in concern. "What did?"

"It! Time. We were just there. Already dressed in those clothes," I pointed to the outfits hanging from the wardrobe doors. "There was a little boy..."

"What the hell?" His muscled tensed, ready to spring into action. "Were we attacked? Did I die again?"

"No. No. Nothing like that. You just triggered..." I didn't finish the sentence because my entire body turned flush from the images that had gone through my head. "It doesn't matter."

"Everything matters when it comes to you. You are everything." My stomach dropped at his words. I was never going to get tired of hearing things like that from him. The big mean dragon had such a soft heart. Not that he would admit to that if I said those thoughts out loud.

"I think Ensley was right." I pressed my right hand to my stomach.

"What?" He stroked his hands up and down my arms. "Right about what? You aren't making a lot of sense."

"I know. But when you were fighting for your life, she was talking to the rest of us about our baby and how the magic that is allowing me to change time might be coming from the baby instead of me. Which makes sense, considering it didn't start until after..." I didn't need to finish that thought. We both knew when I got pregnant.

"That's too fast. Dragons develop quickly, but not that quickly."

I shrugged. "I guess you would know better than I would. But it sure feels like something new is happening to me. And if the magic is coming from the baby, then I won't have that powerforever. We'd only have a short-ish window to go back and get everything done."

"Babe." He shook his head. "You're talking in riddles again. We have the rest of our lives to figure this out. And if this magic does belong to our son, then we will spend his childhood teaching him and molding that power. It's surprising, of course, but I'm pretty sure we can get through this."

"No. No. No. That's not what I mean." That was all I could get out before a commotion of noise sounded in the hallway.

"What the hell?" Magnus growled, his skin beginning to glow with magic and his scales coming to the surface.

I took several steps back. "Shit. Is there enough room for that in here?" I rasped, imagining him busting through this house exactly as he'd done mine.

"It was built to accommodate, barely," he growled the words as more magic built.

"It's just us," Kitra yelled from the hall a second before she and Isaac burst through the door.

"Stand down," Isaac roared. "We've come to help."

"Help with what? Why is everyone talking in fucking nonsense? What do we need help from?" Magnus asked, his voice barely back to human as his magic seemed to hover over his skin.

"Kitra said you needed us. That the time magic erupted again."

"It did." That was one way of putting it. "Now I know why." I curled my hand around my stomach as if I needed to protect my child from what I would say next.

"If someone doesn't tell me what's going on right fucking now, I'm going to destroy a lot of shit."

We all turned to Magnus, his beautiful body aglow with his dragon magic and a warrior's expression stamped across his face. He was ready to defend me from his own family if he thought it necessary. Goddess, I loved him.

"We're going to go back. As soon as we can." I said quietly. "We'll use the time magic and we'll fix everything. We must."

Kitra and Isaac turned to me slack jawed as Magnus continued to glare.

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