Page 81 of The Heart of the Dragon

"It’s going to sound a little weird but hear me out. When I gave Rose the choice of staying here and losing her magic forever, or leaving with you to the fae realm and never being able to return to your time, she made a sacrifice. When she chose to help you and fight through danger to learn her truth, I felt the change in my magic, but at the time I had no idea it had anything to do with the portal."

"Is that why the timeline got pushed up?"

"Now you're getting it. Your decision tapped into my power, and that woke up a lot of magic. Which is how I think the king is closer than ever to getting through."

I looked over the cliff again as if on second glance I would magically see a powerful fae vortex down there beckoning us to jump through.

"Hold up. Do you know all of this for fact, or are you theorizing? Because there's a huge difference between the two."

"I may not know it as fact, but I wouldn't expect either of you to make that leap of faith if I didn't feel the rightness of it."

"Oh boy," Rose said. "I feel like I’m back to square one again. With square one being my parents trying to convince me that it was okay to believe in magicandscience. But this is probably the biggest leap of faith I've been asked to make to date."

"No. Forget it. This is not how this is happening."

"It is not your choice," Rose said quietly.

"To hell it's not. It's my job to keep you safe." I grabbed her hand and dragged her to me. I had to feel her body pressed to mine and hear her heartbeat in tandem with mine. "You are not a sacrifice. Do you hear me? I'm not letting them take this kind of chance with you. Trust me, you are not the first to face this and it’s simply too risky."

She placed her small hand on my chest, and I felt the burn of connection through the clothes I wore, my skin, and even the dragon scales that made me impervious to fire. Her touch had effectively stripped me bare.

"Then we make this leap together. If I'm not meant to be the sacrifice, then it sounds like we are both in this equally. I admit I've given you hell about the mate thing, as well as the whole omega idea, but damned if I don't feel you under my skin anyways. I must have kidnapped you for a reason...."

"Because you didn't want to go to jail," I said, frowning.

She laughed, and I felt that precious sound down to my marrow. Right now I would give anything to hear that for the rest of my life. Everything but her.

"There is some truth to that for sure. It's not every day I think I've killed someone. But I think I understand there is more to it now. You and I met for a reason."

"Ms. Scientist ready to admit there might actually be something to all this magic nonsense?"

"I never said there wasn't. I might have felt a lot out of my control, and I had a hard time believing, even after seeing the impossible. But I think I've handled this pretty well, so we might as well keep going."

I was about to tell her how important she was to me, and that we could absolutely get through this if we stuck together, when I felt a hard shove.

I went careening over the edge too fast to stop myself. In a panic, I tried to disentangle myself from Rose before she went with me. But I wasn't fast enough, and gravity had taken over.

I called on my magic to transform, but even that wasn't quick enough to keep her from falling. By the time the dragon had fully taken control, Rose had slipped from my grasp and was plummeting to the rocks below.

Isaac

"Isaac! What the hell?"Kitra screamed at me as I peered over the edge. I could just make out Magnus's dragon, and I had to admit I was impressed at how quickly he'd made the change.

"Someone had to do something. At the rate they were going, they were going to talk all day about their feelings. It was nauseating."

She slapped at my shoulder. "You are a bully. Are they okay? Did they go through the portal?" she asked as she too looked over the edge.

"Well, I don't see any bodies on the rocks."

"That's a plus," she deadpanned. "But did they go through the portal?"

"Had to have. They've vanished into thin air."

Kitra exhaled. "I sure hope this works. Although I still feel bad for manipulating Rose into all of this."

"What choice did we have? All these months of hunting Magnus and trying to get his head on straight couldn't be for nothing. If the king gets through that portal, the human realm as it's known will be destroyed. We had no other choice. You said yourself that the king's death had to be at his hand."

"I know what I said," she snapped. "But Rose is innocent in all this. When she realizes that she has no accessible magic..."

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