“I know,” Brandt said as he came to sit down beside her. “It’s an impossible situation, but doing nothing is a choice itself. So, one way or the other, a choice must be made.” He rubbed her back and put his arm around her shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it more?”
“No,” she said. Her voice was muffled through her hands. “I just need to think.”
Brand understood. This choice would rest fully on her because the guilt of whatever deaths her decision caused would be her burden alone to carry. He sat with her in silence until the sun dipped below the horizon and the moon peeked through the buildings. Brenna lifted her head every now and then to look at him and sigh. Then she changed positions and laid on her back as she stared up at the blank ceiling, and he laid next to her without saying a word and simply holding her hand. He watched as she got up and paced the room back and forth until she was dizzy and when she went to stand in front of the window with her face pressed up against the glass.
The plague continued to ravage the earth outside. As was the case on Alfheim, most of the people had taken up shelter inside their homes, thus minimizing the death toll caused by the plague. But just as it was on Alfheim, the dark sorcery was beginning to strengthen. The buildings they were all hiding in would not hold it out forever. A choice must be made.
Thankfully, Brandt had gotten better at being patient, and he devoutly waited as his mate thought through the pros and cons of each action. When she had thought about things as much as her brain could tolerate, she had only one question left unanswered.
“Why is it my magic?” she turned to ask Brandt from the window. “Helia’s magic is much more powerful than mine, and Cai’s magic is more closely rooted in the dark origins. Why would my magic be able to stop this plague? Doesn’t it seem a bit strange to you?”
“Yeah, it does,” Brandt agreed as he sat up on the bed to face her. “But if there’s one thing I know about magic, it tends not to make rational sense. There’s always a reason for why things work, but it’s usually some cryptic reason that is just out of reach of any normal understanding.”
“I’m going to need to speak to the Fate again. I’ve made my decision, but I have a hard time believing that it’s going to be just as easy as lifting my hand toward the dark sorcery to stop it. I’m sure there’s something more monumental that needs to be done in order to make it work, prophecy or not.”
“Perhaps. So, you’ve decided to cure the plague then?”
“Yes, I think so.” Brenna looked out the window at the city, and her face contorted. She fought back the tears that stung the corners of her eyes. “I love this city. It is my home. And the thought of doing anything that might destroy it may as well destroy a part of me. But, I cannot and will not let anything happen to those I care about. If it is a choice between losing this world and all the millions of people on it or saving the people I care about on other worlds, I will choose to save those I love. We can get our friends and family to safety, and I will cure the immortal realms of the plague. That’s selfish of me, isn’t it?”
Brandt shook his head and then came to stand beside her. “I don’t know if it’s selfish or not, but I would do the same. I would let every world perish if it was a choice between saving you and saving countless others.”
“I’m not sure that makes me feel any better,” she said as she tried to manage a smirk to lighten the desolate mood.
“It wasn’t supposed to make you feel better. It’s just the truth. At least it can make you feel that you are not alone in the choice you make.”
“I know I’m not alone. Thank you.”
“We will get through this, Brenna, I promise you. We will cure the immortal realms, and with Cai’s help, we will restore the mortal world, just as the Fate said. It will be awful to watch and to endure, I am sure, but we will make things right in the end.”
“And if we can’t? If it doesn’t work or the cost for remaking the mortal world is too high?”
“We won’t think of that yet. Just take it one step at a time. You’ve made the decision. We will talk to the Fate and stop the dark sorcery. That is all.”
Brandt got ready to turn from the window with Brenna in hand, to go back to the other room and inform the Fate of Brenna’s choice and seek guidance on what to do next. But Brenna pulled his hand toward her and looked at him with a fearful longing in her eyes.
“What is it?” he asked as he looked softly upon her.
“I just want that moment,” Brenna whispered. “I don’t want to do any of this. I just want the moment in the loft in Chinatown—the moment where it’s just us, and there’s no prophecy and no plague and no decisions to be made. But now I feel like that moment may never come.”
Brandt stood and looked first at her, and then out the window at the city that was taking a short sleep between the waves of suffering. He wanted that moment too.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he lifted her up and carried her over to the bed.
“Taking back our moment.”
Brandt laid Brenna gently on the bed and crawled onto her as he nimbly slid off her pants and tossed them to the floor. She pulled him onto her and lifted his shirt over his head. The sight of his bare, muscular chest made everything else vanish from her mind, at least for this moment. If there was anything that she wanted to keep sacred, anything that she wanted to protect more in this realm or any other, it was this.
Their bond had started into motion every event that had followed. Perhaps things would have played out differently if she had never met Erik in that alleyway on the night she had left Pratt. Maybe if she had chosen one of the other men, the worlds would be better off, or possibly worse off, there was no way to tell. But she would do all of it over again, even the parts that threatened to destroy her, for every single moment she’d had with Brandt. From the first time she had touched him and felt his body quiver as he tried to resist her, to the moment their child was born, and every moment since…he was everything that was worth fighting for and dying for.
He kicked off his pants and pressed against her thighs. Brenna looked into his eyes as he leaned down to kiss her, and she felt his tongue wrap wildly around hers. They had a history now, of magic becoming enhanced and doing unpredictable things when they joined together. Their powers sometimes mixed to fly books from shelves, spring mushrooms from the ground beneath them, or cast glowing colors in the air. It wouldn’t seem like anything could surprise them anymore when their powers reacted with each other and intensified with their passion, yet something new and breathtaking presented itself again.
As Brant pushed into Brenna’s warm and waiting body, his power emerged on its own without being called. Memories of their past together flashed across his closed eyes, and he relished them as he kissed her and pushed and pulled his swollen cock within her. But this time, as their foreheads touched and their mouths closed around each other, the memories didn’t stay inside his head. Brenna gasped as his images filled the space behind her eyes too. Somehow, he was sharing them with her; somehow, without his guidance at all, the memories became a backdrop of pictures for them both as they writhed in pleasure within each other. Every touch was intensified because it felt like a hundred moments at once. Brenna felt his hands on her breasts, his cock inside of her, his tongue in her mouth…and as she felt it with her body, her mind felt it tenfold as though they were making love in every moment at once. Brandt felt it too, and his muscles contracted with a taut tension against her body as the tantalizing feeling wrapped both around and inside of him. After one of the most satiating and pleasurable orgasms, they lay wrapped around each other in silence and let their minds and thoughts linger on the shared images.