Chapter 154 Just One Path pt 2
Duncan
Her brow furrowed. “Bad?”
I nodded, hugging her to me again. “We…we lost, Seren. We fought, and we lost. Mikhail had Gideon in chains, you on your knees in front of him. Our friends, our family, were dead or dying. And he…” my voice broke. I inhaled her scent, knowing I needed to get the rest out. “He destroyed you, right in front of us.”
She rubbed circles on my back, soothing me with her presence alone, as she thought over what I had said. “And Conn? What does he say?”
“That it’s just one path.” I shuddered. “My visions of the past are one thing. They just…are. But this? Seeing possible futures? How is that supposed to help?”
“The Goddess wouldn’t give you this part of her if it didn’t help, love. You know that.”
I pressed my forehead against hers. The tremors were finally calming down. “So, how do we use it?”
“We take what we know and go from there. Why don’t we call Gideon in? Since he was the only other person you saw alive besides me.”
“Okay.”
Seren got up and arranged for Gideon to join us while I took a shower to wash some of the nightmare sweat away. By the time I exited the bedroom, she and Gideon were already seated in the living area, coffee in hand. I sat, and she handed me a mug, too.
“All right, he’s here. Now, what’s going on? You weren’t very forthcoming, sis.”
I took him through it, from losing the moon to losing Seren, all in one go. When I was finished, he sat back, then looked between me and Seren for a moment.
“And Conn said this is just one scenario? That it could change?”
“That’s the impression he gave, yes.”
He inhaled and held it for a beat before blowing his breath back out again. “Okay. So we take what we know.”
I laughed, and he shot me a look. “What?”
“Your sister said the exact same thing.” I shook my head.
He grinned and winked at Seren. “Well, yeah, because she’s brilliant. Like me. Anyway…” He took a drink of his coffee. “We look at the facts, and we make adjustments. You saw a battlefield strewn with warriors. What about women, children?”
“No. No, I don’t remember seeing any, other than women who were obviously warriors, anyway.”
He nodded. “Good. That means the evacuation worked. Fact one. Now, you saw me in chains and Seren still fighting, but weakened, drained. Where were you?”
“What?”
“Where were you? Where was your body, or where were you chained?”
“I don’t know. I guess I sort of thought that I was me in the future. If that makes sense. Seren looked at me directly during the vision.”
She reached over and took my hand, giving it a squeeze. “So we know you weren’t with me and Gideon, then.”
“Which means we change that. During the tournament, the three of us don’t separate. And that means we need to start training together—all three of us—over the next few weeks leading up to the tournament. Seren and I have been joint training for weeks, so you’ll need to catch up.” Gideon pointed at me. “If we’re fighting together, I don’t want to accidentally hit you with a boulder or something, so we need to get used to that.”
He shifted, leaning his head back against the sofa as he was thinking. I could see where he was going with this, though.
“You think they could get to Seren, get you in chains, because we were all separated.”
He picked his head back up and nodded at me. “I do. Given the way my bond with Seren works, she should have been able to pull from me. That they had me wrapped in silver chains? It tells me they’re trying to cut that bond. It also tells me they know more about it than we realized. And without you there, she didn’t have the mate bond to pull from. So, we need to stay close to keep our bonds at peak.”
“That means changing our strategy, our evac plans, even how the dais is set up. It means putting Seren front and center during all of this.” I looked at her. “Not that you can’t hold your own, little wolf. But sending you with the evacuees was a two-fold plan. It ensures the continuity of the royals if both your brother and father fall, and it gave the innocents the best protection we could as well as a strong leader.”
“I know, love, but that’s clearly not the way. Those who need to evacuate will be fine—you saw that. And for us to be the strongest we can be, we need to stay together.”
‘They’re right. We need to change our approach,’ Conn chimed in. ‘We can’t let mate go off alone. Must protect mate.’
I closed my eyes. This may be the right choice, but once again. I was fighting my own instincts. I wanted Seren as far from this fight as she could get. ‘Mate is strong. She stands beside us, not behind us,’ Conn huffed.
Opening my eyes, I met Seren’s gaze. She gave me a small smile. “We’re strongest together.”
“I know, little wolf. And I agree. The three of us will act as one unit.”
Whatever future awaited us, it would face all three of us at once.