ask if he was a fan of Shakespeare, but I wisely refrained.
“You are destined to belong to one of the Kings in the Hell’s Realm… yes?” he asked as if confirming a rumour of some kind. I nodded, thinking this was the smartest reply I could give, although he quickly wanted it confirmed when he said,
“The one name Lucius Septimus, Ruler of the Kingdom of Death and son to Lucifer himself?” Again, I nodded which was when I realised this obviously wasn’t enough for him as he raised a brow expectantly. So, I swallowed the hard lump named ‘intimidated by yet another King’ and answered him,
“Yes, that’s my boyfriend… erm, I mean, the King I am destined for,” I said after my childish sounding blunder, because Lucius was right and especially in a setting like this, it did sound juvenile. And the moment he smirked in response I knew that he felt the same way. But then he nodded to his captain, giving him some silent order, and one I only understood when he stepped closer to me. This caused a chain reaction when all three of the McBain brothers went on high alert and were about to intervene before I held up a hand stopping them.
“Please don't,” I said looking back at them before focusing on Trice who looked as if he wanted to argue. So, I looked back to the King and said,
“Can you please give me a minute?” I saw his gaze scan to where my problem lay as the three brothers all had their hands itching to go to their weaponry. But this was one fight I wanted to prevent, because hello… Dragon Fire didn’t sound fun.
The King bowed his head slowly, granting me my wish, so I turned on a heel and slapped a hand to his captain telling him,
“Take five, Balin.” He chuckled before stepping out of my way. After this I walked up to Trice, but when his dark gaze wouldn't leave that of the King’s, I grabbed one of the straps across his chest and used it to pull him my way so we would have the appearance of privacy. Even though one look round at these guys and I knew it was an impossible task for they would no doubt be able to hear us… especially with those pointed of ears of theirs. Either way, it didn’t matter as there was only one person who I needed to listen to what I had to say.
“Look, I'm sick of fighting, not to mention I'm thirsty, I'm hungry and I feel as though I could sleep for a week. Look around you, Trice, we are outnumbered, and I doubt you guys will be able to shift again for a while… right?”
“We are nae wi'oot oor powers, lass, 'n' ah think ye remember that we are mair than capable in a fight,” he said referring to the first time they had saved me against the two battling sides.
“That may be so, but they haven't hurt us, and by all accounts they saved us from the raiders.” Trice didn’t look convinced as he cast his stunning dark brown eyes that were edged with a dark green ring over towards what he most likely considered the enemy and narrowed them even more.
“Come on, Trice… look, it sounds as though it was his brother who was the one that had the raiders out looking for us. I think that was the King that the witch was in league with. Just please don't do anything rash and let me go with them,” I said with that pleading tone.
“And if tis nae as it appears, whit then?”
“You heard it yourself, he knows who Lucius is, so perhaps he can help us in getting back to him, because unless you have forgotten, we are kind of under a very tight time constraint here.” At this Trice softened his gaze and lifted a hand so he could soothe the apple of my cheek with the pad of his thumb. Then he told me the hard reality that I already knew I couldn't disregard as being a possibility.
“And if we're already tae late?” I closed my eyes against the thought of it, and released a sigh before I told him,
“Then that is a new nightmare I will face when I finally get back to him, but until then I have to hope and do all that I can to turn that hope into a possibility that he might still be alive, and