"Randy. If you're in there, I need you to stop him. I know it's hard. But I need you to buy me some time." I manage, sliding to sit on my hip. My wolf had receeded, it couldn't fight him nor did it want to face the wrath of Fenrir.
But at this point, I had to do something, if two werewolves managed to get a hold of him there would be no saving him. Caspian would not hold back, not with all the anger he'd already been feeling toward the man. He was pushing my hand, I had to send them back but how would I without going with them?
I kept chanting, faster, I had to get rid of the energy building in my core. It was possible the magic was pushing the wolf down, revealing the power that I truly held. If I survived this, maybe the creature would respect me more. The gray werewolf moves to stand before me, getting between the approaching man and me.
The black attempted to crawl its way through the smashed gate, roaring behind me in a deafening battle cry. "Tick tock." Verando growls at me, the light blue ring forming around one pupil indicating to me that he was still in there. He was fighting to get to the surface.
"He wants out so badly. Too bad he can't contend with a god."
"There's where you're wrong. Verando is descended from a god, created from the mischief of your sons. You're in the body formed for Whitewind and it doesn't belong to you!" I shout, slinging my hand, coating him in ice to help stop the bleeding, and also attempting to restrain him. The werewolf lowers himself, attempting to lunge.
I freeze his feet to the ground and he wheels around to claw at me. Thankfully I'm barely out of his reach. "I'm sorry but we can't kill him." I freeze his hand to the ground, creating an ice sheet before sending the barrier flying towards Caspian's cage to help keep him in. This wouldn't hold him for long, chilled fog leaves my teeth as my body begins to cool down to accommodate the ice.
The ice encircles Verando's neck as I intended, sealing the wound caused by the werewolf. He grips at the chill, a hell beast must not appreciate the arctic blast.
"All beasts who carry this form belong to me." he snarls, yanking against his frozen feet.
I was running out of time, every moment I expect my warlord to surface, but it would seem the hold of a true god was beyond what anyone could overcome. My expectations were too high, if he could have gotten out, he would have done so before hurting our family, before killing Caspian.
The portal begins to shimmer, swirling in the pool of red. "It's ok, Randy. I'm going to get this under control." I reassure him, much as it seemed impossible given my grounded state. I couldn't go back with them, was I expected to throw two werewolves into the dragon realm and hope they ended up in the right place? I don't even have a dragon on the other side anymore.
"We're going to get through this because I need you to tell me how ridiculous I am. I need you to be disappointed in me for sleeping with your younger self. I need you to teach me how to be a better father." I press my hand to the edge of the pool as I hear the ice threatening to crack, I couldn't look up, we were surrounded on all sides by death and I was at the center of it trying to open a time portal.
"This seems like one of these instances where we don't come out of this." I chuckle at the gray creature attempting to reach me, returned to its feral state, it shouldn't surprise me that a werewolf couldn't be directed beyond initial intentions. "When I send you back, I hope you don't hate me... but I hope you run as far away from me as you possibly can."
Taking a deep breath at the realm opens, the ice shatters. I call the wind to my hand, "I'm sorry, Randy." I blast it through my arm and my fingertips, sending him sailing across the barn and into the lumber. He drops to the ground, limp, and I'm uncertain if I've killed him or simply knocked him unconscious. Swallowing hard, I take a deep breath and release the two werewolves.
With a sharp whistle, I call them to me, the gray reaching first but I must wait for the black. Gripping the tattered remains of his shirt, I can only cringe as he clutches my battered body so tightly. As the black nears me, I use the ice to wrap around his body before throwing myself back into the portal.
We fall through the realm, and for a moment I feel weightless as the panicked creatures thrash and attempt to right themselves. Shutting my fist, I seal the portal behind us, trying to follow the magical scent that still remained from our last trip here. It was as if I could still feel the essence of our desperation only this time I was propelling myself back in time through the power of my ice.
Multiple sets of suspicious eyes follow us, uncertain, and angry at our presence. A dragon roars, I push us faster, my body was brimming with magic and I had to expel it. I could feel the path, the trail that I'd pulled them from.
"Go back." The dragons hiss over and over, I feel the direction of energy flowing towards us, everyone was taking notice that we were once more changing time.
"One last time. I have to fix this." I call back to them, pushing through the pool and yanking the two werewolves with me. We'd thrown ourselves through a puddle on the street, in the pouring down rain as the sun begins to peak over the horizon.
A cart and horse trot past us, Randy coughs and sputters, and the two humans beside me were regaining their mortal forms with the rising sun.
I cry out, holding onto my shattered leg as I start to freeze it before Cas grabs my hand.
"Don't you dare." He glances up, turning my eyes towards a shopkeeper who was watching us. "No magic or they will take you away."
"My leg is shattered."
Randy coughs up a mouth full of blood, I hear the clank of a bullet hitting the ground. "We're all pretty fucked up." He manages, shaking his head in disbelief, before lifting his shirt to reveal the nearly healed wounds. "Doesn't make it hurt any less. We need to set your leg before it heals."
Standing, he bends to pick me up, I scream as I clutch my knee, trying to stabilize my lower leg as Cas floats his hands in an attempt to appear like he might do something if he could figure out where to touch me. Another carriage goes by, screaming at us to get out of the road, Randy carries me in a steady jog as Cas follows behind him. Trying to keep me stable, each movement makes me wish for death.
My head, my shoulder, my back, my leg, my body felt like it'd been dismembered.
We burst into the shabby house, I remember it from the dream I'd entered. Rugs and small bits of furniture. Children still sleeping in various places, Caspian clears the table as Randy sets me on it. "Conseguir mamá," He demands of the sleepy-eyed teen who we'd disturbed.
Her long tangled gray hair was pulled into a messy bun that allowed various strands to pool around her shoulders and back, she grumbles as she disappears into the darkness, and Caspian lights a lantern.
What I wouldn't give for modern-day painkillers, they were going to set my leg without any morphine. "I'm assuming you don't have any whiskey," I grumble, flinching as he shoves me back into a more reclined position.
"Not with these heathens." Cas spits. "Even the toddlers are alcoholics."
"Que paso?" The older woman rubs her eyes, still in her nightgown, as she appears with the teenager following behind her. She freezes, staring at him wide-eyed before clutching his face. "Aye, Randy! Que demonios?!"
"Mama." He corrects her, putting his hands on her arms, "My friend needs you."
Gasping, she covers her mouth with her hand as she takes me in. "Did.. you do this?" she murmurs, her English was rough and broken, and her accent was so heavy I hardly understood her.
Reluctantly he nods, she grabs a wooden spoon and cracks him over the head with it as he curses and rubs the spot with a snarl. She smacks him again, pointing the spoon at him with a glower as he backs away from her. "What did I tell you? Again and again! Do not look at me that way, Verando Xaiver. Quieres morir?!" Shaking her head, she turns her attention to me, the hard hands jut forward to touch me. She looked to be in her late forties or early fifties. Older by the standards of our time, but aged beyond her years with stress.
I flinch as the boney fingers poke and prod, she smacks my hand away as I attempt to stop her. "No. Don't move." her fingers prod over my collar bone and I flinch, gritting my teeth. With a sharp smack of her hand, she makes an adjustment and I can hardly keep from screaming yet it does feel considerably better.
"I wish Adriam was here." Cas sighs.
Mama spits on the ground, rolling her eyes heavily before turning her attention back to me. "Tempy. Brace." The gray haired girl disappears and she rips my pants with her skilled hands, though she appears suspicious as she feels the material. Glancing towards Verando and Caspian, she glances them up and down then looks back at me
"Did you take this man?" she demands of the two. "Hair. Clothes. This is not a peasant."
The two glance back and forth, and I shake my head. "No. I came with them. It was an accident."
She gasps. "Romanian." Then wheels around to stare at the two wildly, "You bring a gypsy here? Are you out of your mind?" Her voice becomes shrill, grabbing the spoon she smacks them both with it, they argue back and forth in Spanish and I flop back onto the table to try and think about anything other than my leg.
Tempy comes to my side, setting the splints on either side of my leg. "I'm training with Adriam, I can fix this." She sighs, I note them to be the support slats from under a mattress, I wonder whose bed I broke. "Are you really Romanian? Are you going to steal from us?"
"Not if you help me," I mutter sarcastically before cursing at myself. "No. I'm not."
"I like your hair." She mumbles, pushing heavy, self-cut bangs out of her eyes. Her freckled cheeks make me smile, she reminds me a lot of her brother. "I'm sorry my brother attacked you." Her eyes flick up to my shoulder, before looking back at my leg and then ripping strips of bed sheets. "I want to be a doctor so I'm practicing my manners. How'm I doing?"
"Women can't be doctors, idiot." One of the children peers up over the table, watching me with large wide eyes. "Are you living with us now? I'm hungry. Can you get off the table?"
"He's bleeding." A little girl points out with a yawn. "Randy!" She runs to the gray-haired man who stops her.
"Cas. Take them. Please." He mumbles, pushing the black-haired man to gather the children and guide them into one of the back rooms.
This was so different from my own upbringing, the pain in my leg was making me irritable and I found myself wishing they'd just put me down. "Temp, less talking, more fixing." He scowls, elbowing her side as she flashes her teeth at him.
"Asshole." She spits, rolling her near-indigo eyes heavily. "You should have shot him more times." I nearly snicker, preparing myself as she very carefully palpates my leg with her thumbs. "It's bad... he might lose it."
Sitting up sharply, I'd jump off the table if I could. "No, that won't be necessary."
"You'll die of infection." She points out roughly.
"not if I get home." I respond, irritated. "Splint it and let me leave."
"In the rain? With military all around?" Mama sounds suspicious, shaking her head. "I have a good kitchen knife... "
"We're not taking his leg." Verando sighs, shaking his head in complete shock. "We're going to patch him up and send him home. It's his leg, he gets to choose what happens to it."
Home. I needed to get home before my enhancer wore off. Irritated, Tempy grits her teeth as she yanks the bandaging tight across the splints. I scream, nearly blacking out as she does the second one, then the third. Maybe I should just let them take it, this was almost more than I could bear.
Verando's hand finds mine, letting me squeeze his as I scream, shaking, sweating, cursing, my body was practically convulsing from the pain. The next thing I know, the world goes dark and I'm gone. After being awake for almost three days straight, my body finally had had enough and I succumbed to my exhaustion and pain.
What had I done? How was I supposed to get home? Surely I could make another portal, but would it be so easy to find my way back? Then what? Watch Fenrir consume my husband, my soul mate?
A distant giggle makes me flinch, I feel the sunlight on my eyelids and dare myself to peek. Another giggle forces me to open my eyes, I spot Adriam and Tempy, a little girl between them, playing with one of the many bracelets on Adriam's wrist. "He's gained twenty-five pounds.. you say he's only been gone for two days?"
Tempy nods once. "Then they show up with this man... who looks familiar but doesn't. The bullet he spat up... it..."
Adriam nods in return, "Very odd." He rolls the metal between his thumbs. "The blood tastes weird. He's like us.. but not. I'm worried this is one of the hybrids we've been warned of, take your brother and go towards the capital, see if anyone else has gone missing. "
"In the rain?" She whines.
Sitting up, I touch my leg, relieved it's still there. The bed is hard, I realize I'm on top of crates with what appears to be some sort of various styles of padding. Adriam glances over at me, clearing his throat and for a moment I could almost cry. Much as we didn't get along, it was so good to see him again. "Adriam."
He blinks, tilting his head as I realize I'm not supposed to know his name. "Have we met?"
"Randy talks of you fondly..." I clear my throat, folding my hands in my lap. "I put two and two together."
Scoffing, he cocks a brow. "I'll have to remember that next time he's calling me a tiny devil... I was certain he was the reason why the state keeps checking to insure I have a penis and that I'm not a witch."
I nearly snicker, before clearing my throat as well. I'd be in better spirits if I wasn't in so much pain. Though thankfully, my bullet wound was starting to close and my shoulder was finding its way back to some sort of normalcy. I wasn't crippled, much as I felt like I would be, it would take me some time to heal but it appeared I'd recover eventually.
"Where did you say you were from?" He questions, tilting his head.
Right, Adriam was a veteran and this was what he considered his family. Of course, he would be suspicious that I would show up here, with my heritage, trying to be close to the son of Kavanza.
"Dezna." Stay as close to the truth as possible.
"Mmm. Ties to the royal family?"
Reluctant, I consider this.
"Your hesitation means yes. So, considering that you look like you've been through a grinder, perhaps you've learned your lesson about what spying can get you?" He grips my knee, squeezing, nearly making me cry out from the effect it has on my leg. "What are you looking to gain?"
"Nothing!" I demand, gripping his hand with such strength that he yanks out of my grasp, wide eyed.
"What are you?"
"Adam." Verando's voice shocks him, I want to run to him, but this is not my version. My version was at home, dying, trapped in a mental prison. "He's my guest and my friend. He's not looking for information, but I did promise to get him home."
"Which is?" Adriam puts his hands on his hips. "This could be the only chance to unearth what they're up to, Randy. We can't just let him go!"
Verando touches my hand, frowning, I must feel feverish. "We have to. I'm a man of my word."
"You aren't! You lie all the time." Tempy snaps, shaking her head in disbelief.
Glaring at her, he flicks her nose and she growls, swinging at him only for Adriam to separate the two. "This is so ridiculous. You're embarrassing yourselves in front of our prisoner."
"Mmm... don't quite think I'm your prisoner but perhaps an unwilling guest?"I sigh, running a hand through my hair. "Adam. You have no reason to believe me but I'm telling you, I'm on your side.. and I have to get back to my home before something really bad happens to the people that I love. I would love your help.. all of your help, but if you're going to keep me here I'm going to have to fight and I will win. I have to get back, staying here is not an option and I'm not going to let you get in my way on a hunch."