Frankie (Through Time 4)

She saw his dark eyes and they were wet with unshed tears. She knew he was in his own hell. She knew he wanted to save her and she blew him a kiss. “Graely, ye know that we have unfinished business, so I’ll see ye soon.”

“Sure you will…for I will die without ye, Frankie,” he answered.

His words faded with the breeze the wards made as they yanked him away.

Frankie sighed and knew how awful he must feel. She didn’t have time to think about that now. She had to do something. The pain was sapping what was left of her Fae strength. Graely had told her to forget her Fae and be a Fios.

“Right then,” she said out loud. “I am a Fios. What would a Fios do if a Fae net was thrown over her?”

She knew, all at once she knew.

She was too much Daoine not to be affected by the net, but she had something she could do. She had needed Graely to remind her. Weak and in pain, she had not been thinking clearly. But now, she may still be weak and in pain, but there was something she could do, somewhere she could go for help.

All she had to do was get down deep into the dark well that held all her Fios magic.

Fios were created as a guard against Fae invasion of their homelands, Ireland and Scotland. Fios could see the Fae even through their invisibility and Fios were immune to most of the Fae’s most powerful magic.

She had to put her Fae to sleep as she worked her Fios spell and brought up her fireball. Her fireball! It was more powerful than any Fae even knew. Even Jazz and her father did not realize that it had grown since that day in Dublin six years ago.

Now, she needed a tempered fireball, petite and pliable. In spite of her hurting, she felt a grin coming on.

Wrapped in the net, she maneuvered her hand toward her ankles, and her Fios went to work, creating the burning orb the size of a golf ball.

Carefully she sent it spinning at the net encircling her ankles until the magic netting around her ankles had been sizzled away.

She didn’t feel quite strong enough to jump up, but she gradually got to her feet and stretched. The poison was still in her, the pain was still agonizing and the netting was still all around her, keeping her in place. However, now with her legs free, she did what Princess Radzia had taught her.

She shifted underground, leaving the net on the iron floor above.

Once in the earth, she spit out dirt and shifted again, this time back to where the portal had originally thrust her out of its yawning mouth.

It was difficult to move, as the bubbles of poison were still shooting through her system. She had a moment of clarity and wondered why she wasn’t being thrown back home by the wards. Of course, she had come through a portal. Did that make the difference?

She stepped out onto the lush grass, and felt her eyes open wide.

Oh no, no, oh no, she thought what the frigging heck!

Frankie was surrounded.

Wolves, with yellow glaring eyes, all in position and ready to strike.

She sighed heavily and said, “Seriously?”

Chapter Eighteen

GRAELY FOUND HIMSELF standing on a ledge overlooking the lush green valley of the Grampian Mountains. The wards always seemed to shove him back here. He wondered at it. He loved Scotland. If he could, he would live a man’s life, take a wife—and there could only ever be one for him. The vision of Frankie sitting by their fireplace, turning to smile at him, presented itself, real and compelling, children running about the house, made him feel a happiness he did not think an Unseelie could feel.

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sp; He would give up immortality to have that. He would give up his magical powers, his many Otherworldly skills, just to have that.

It was a dream, and right now, he had no time for such dreams. He had to find a way to rescue Frankie from Pestale.

He knew that Conglam was surrounded by wards to prevent the Daoine and Seelie Fae from entering, but Jazz wasn’t just a Seelie Fae, was she?

She still had her human deeply etched in her make-up, she was still a Fios and could she perhaps put those attributes front and center to fool the wards for a little while?

He shifted to the last spot he had been with Jazz knowing that time in Conglam was very different and only moments had passed in the Human Realm.