Death's Finest Hour

Chapter Fifty-One

When Faith came around, things that hadn't made sense before now did. Her urgency was renewed, doubled.

They had to get moving.

They had to work faster, the past be damned.

They could stay like this forever, letting life catch up with them, just to return to this point in time and do it all over again. But that was selfish. Wrong. Still, Faith wanted to do it. She wanted to fuck the future off and stay here forever.

Responsibility weighed her down.

Gasping for breath, she bolted upright.

Back in the cave. She was still in the cave. She'd never left the cave.

But things made sense now.

She had a nagging suspicion she knew what she'd read on the wall. Not all the details of it, but the importance of it.

Someday, in a future far from now, those words would be spoken to Evie Wicker, opening her eyes to the war.

But here and now, they gave her direction.

"We have to go," she stated, fighting to catch her breath. "Let go of me! We have to leave. We need to get moving."

Hands held her down, keeping her still.

"You're not going anywhere," Damien hissed. "Not until I'm caught up on whatever the fuck just happened to you."

"I saw things. The future in the past. It's dark magic. I don't know how, but I'm sure I will before the day's up."

"Faith love, take a breath." Despite the dark, Damien cupped her cheeks. "You're not making any sense."

She made perfect sense—but she couldn't explain it.

"Nadine's going to tell Annaliese about what happened to Viktor and Zara. Everything's going to go wrong. She thinks she's going to win. We've got to get a move on."

She could sense the confusion of the other women in the cave but made no effort to explain herself.

"What happened Faith?" Damien pressed. "Look at me, love. Tell me what happened."

With her stronger senses, she forced her gaze onto his face. The concern there called to her mating instincts, helping to calm her down.

She'd worried him. She needed to fix this.

"Those words on the wall."

"What words?"

"I shouldn't say them. I think that's what—what made me slip."

"Ruby?" Damien asked.

Hastily, the demoness moved to stand by the wall, her runes casting shallow light across the engraving there.

"It's Tamil," Damien said, reading it quickly. "Feel the fire."

Faith felt fire alright. Her bones seemed to quake with it. She felt drained, like some heat had stormed through her body and sucked out all her energy. "I'm not sensing any magic from it. It must be a landmark that we're near the dragons."

"I'm telling you that's what did this to me," she insisted. "And my mum—she said something. When her and my dad first met, Emilio said some words some guy had told him to say—the guy that set the bounty for her. We always assumed it was Ronan. But he said this thing, and then her visions changed. Like, they started to centre around the war. They were more focused. I'll bet my life on it being those words. Don't ask me why. It's just instinct."

"Okay then. Then these words will become cursed."

"You believe me?"

"You're mad, Faith, but rarely ever wrong."