Page 2 of The Magic of Revenge
“Let’s go see your gran, okay?” I gripped her arm and started to direct her away, back toward the cottage.
“No,” she protested, which just made me walk faster. “NO!” she screamed, ripping her arm from my grasp and taking off through the fog and smoke like an apparition.
“Goldie! Goldie, baby, no!” I shouted, running after her. “Grab her, Khol!”
When I burst through the clearing, she was approaching Khol where he was kneeling on the ground. “Saige, please. Don’t,” I begged her, sweat trickling down my spine.
Her head swiveled around, taking in the scene as she approached her father. The tears on his cheeks were visible from where I was standing and I heard Goldie suck in a breath at the sight.
“Khol, what’s wrong? What’s happening? Someone had better start fucking—”
This was it. She saw. Fuck. I moved quickly, needing to be closer. Needing to be there for her.
“F-Fischer? FISCHER!” she screamed so loudly it echoed through the forest. I saw her hands shaking as she hovered over him, as though she was unsure of where to touch him.
“Saige,” I said.
She didn’t respond. When her hands came to rest on his face, she sucked in a wild breath.
“Saige, baby, please,” I begged. I’d never felt so fucking useless in my life.
“Fischer, wake up.”
Oh stars. This was hell.
“Where does it hurt, Guppy? Tell me where it hurts so I can fix it.” She ran her hands up and down his chest, searching, seeking some imaginary wound to heal. I couldn’t take it anymore. Squatting down, I wrapped my arms around her waist, trying to hold her, comfort her, protect her from this. Goldie fought me like a wild animal though.
“Put me down, help him! Can’t you see he’s hurt? Why aren’t you fucking helping him?!” she screamed at me and it felt like a knife was being jammed right into my heart.Oh princess, I tried. I tried so fucking hard.
Khol knelt in front of us now, putting his face level with his daughter’s.
“Saige. I’m so, so sorry.” His voice cracked, but was firm. This was real. The unimaginable had happened.
“No. No. No. NO! NO! Help him, Bram!” she cried and screamed. Not knowing what else to do, I wrapped my arms around her and tugged her away from Fischer’s body. If I could just hold her for a moment, maybe the love I felt for her could somehow seep through my body into hers and just give her something,anything. My eyes squeezed shut as she squirmed in my arms, the noises she was making like a knife to my fucking heart.
“Let her go, Bram,” Khol commanded and I released her, hesitantly. She tore away from me, stumbling back to Fischer. Tilting my head up to the dark sky that peeked between the vacant spots in the canopy of leaves, I begged the stars, the moon,the motherfucking sun, to let me take this pain for her. Goldie didn’t deserve to hurt like this.
“Fischer, Guppy, no. Please, I can’t, let me help you, baby. This isn’t real. This isn’t happening.”
I’d lived a long time, I’d seen a lot of atrocities and horrors. I’d seen men cut down and women assaulted. Absolutely nothing compared to watching the woman I loved being unequivocally decimated by the loss of a man she loved. I watched as she cried, begged, screamed, wailed, and sobbed. My hands clenched into fists as she threw herself on top of his still form, those horrible sounds piercing the air like gunshots.
Khol dropped down on a knee beside her. “Honey, he’s gone. I’m so fucking sorry. He was a great man, a legend,” he told her.
“He’s not gone. He’s right here, he’s with me. We belong together. I love him!” she shrieked, her hair sticking out in all directions, her makeup from earlier smudged all over her pretty face. “How fucking DARE she? I’m going to kill her. I’m going to hunt her down and fucking destroy her,” she vowed, still pressed against Fischer.
Suddenly, green and gold wisps of magic began surrounding her body, twisting and swirling around her and Fischer. As her sobs grew louder, the magic grew larger. A deafening crack exploded into the night, the crashing of trees hitting the forest floor making me jump. Khol’s gaze darted to mine just as Goldie’s power took over. The glittering colors swirled into a massive cyclone, blocking us from her.
I'd never before felt the magnitude of power that was blasting through the air. So forceful, it pushed Khol and I back at least fifteen feet before we both stumbled over a fallen branch and landed on our asses. Goldie's blood-curdling screams exploded through the night, each one increasing in volume and despair. A cracking noise broke my focus from her, my eyes flicking to the canopy above us just as a huge tree came crashing toward the ground.
"Fuck!" I shouted, grabbing Khol's arm and scrambling out of the way mere seconds before we would’ve been crushed. The whirling air around us was picking up to an alarming speed and more booms and loud snaps echoed as more trees met the same fate.
Maven was howling and barking like a lunatic, trying to get to Saige. But his tiny body was no match for the air currents and he was pushed back relentlessly.
“Saige!” Khol bellowed and I joined him. It didn’t do any good. She either couldn’t hear us or didn’t care. A huge surge of power lit up the sky with golden light, blasting us back several feet before we scrambled to our feet once again. The wind was howling, with more and more branches and trees being destroyed.
“This is the most powerful display of magic I have seen in a very long time!” Khol shouted over the noise. And he wasn’t wrong. It was impressive as hell, but incredibly fucking dangerous. She was untrained. This magic was being fueled by grief, anger, and denial. A recipe for disaster.
The breath was knocked out of my body when I hit the ground yet again, Khol on top of me. Another tree shook the earth as it connected with the ground right where we’d been standing seconds prior. Fucking hell, we were all going to be dead if this didn't stop soon.
