Chapter Eleven
Elise didn’t know what excuses Reed made to their guests, but the very next day, everyone left Huntington Park to go back to London. With all the excitement of the packing up and heading back to town, there had been no time to speak privately with Julianna or Cross. Neither of them had come to her room for their usual late-night searches, but she supposed that with everything that had happened, they had to change tactics.
It wasn’t until that afternoon that she saw a note slipped under her door from Cross, telling her to come down fifteen minutes earlier than usual for tea with the duchess. By the time she reached the parlor, Julianna and Cross were already there.
“We don’t have much time, so I’ll try to be brief,” Cross began. “I’m working with Reed and Jeremy to come up with a plan to entrap the mage. He’s already sent letters to the Lycan High Council, all his clan members, plus his uncle in Scotland for assistance. Lycan messengers have been dispatched, and with minimum stops to rest, it should take them three days to arrive in Scotland. He’s sure that he’ll get a positive response from the Alpha of Caelkirk, so their forces should be here in five or six days.”
“What have you told him about us?” Elise asked.
“I haven’t told him anything about where we came from, but I did tell him what we knew of the mages.”
“We know where the dagger is. The old bat has it,” Julianna said. “Let’s just grab it and go home.”
Cross’s face turned bleak. “We could.”
Julianna raised a dark brow. “I sense a ‘but’ coming along.”
Cross’s face turned serious. “I haven’t been completely honest with you both. I was sworn never to tell anyone this, but I think it’s important you know.”
“You’ve been keeping something from us?” Julianna’s face flushed with anger. “Cross, I thought we were in this together!”
“It’s not my secret to tell.” He took a deep breath. “It wasn’t my father or my grandmother who was having the premonitions about the mages. It was my brother, Gunnar.”
Elise sucked in a breath. “I thought he could only do some limited transmogrification, like the way Astrid has a short range when moving from place to place?”
“Yes.” His mouth set into a hard line. “But his premonitions are so clear and vivid that it would drive him crazy and send him into seizures. My father tried to bind it permanently to help him, but the binding somehow damaged his wolf. Then one day, he lost control and … there was an accident at a club. Over a hundred people were knocked unconscious.”
Daric’s words came back to Elise. I do not know what a permanent binding would do to your wolf in the long term or your ability to shift. But he did. Daric bound his son’s powers and it harmed his wolf and other people. She had to laugh at the irony of being called a blessed witch. More like a curse.
“Okay, so it was your brother who had the premonition?” Julianna asked. “Why keep it a secret?”
“Because the Lycan High Council would have ordered him put down,” Elise concluded.
He didn’t say anything, but Cross’s silence confirmed the reason why.
Julianna went pale. “My father wouldn’t have let anything happen to him.”
“I know,” Cross assured her. “But if the high council insisted, he would have been caught between a rock and hard place and my father didn’t want to put the Alpha through that.”
“I …” Julianna shook her head. “So, what did he see?”
“Gunnar only told us what he thought was necessary.” His ocean-colored eyes shifted. “But one thing I can tell you is that we go back to our time. He’s seen all of us in a future event. And all of his premonitions have come true so far.”
“Okay, so let’s go back!” Juliana waved her hands in the air for emphasis. “We can be home in no time.”
“My father and I have had many discussions of the future and the past. I’ve come to the conclusion that our coming here wasn’t an accident. Or perhaps it was what set things in motion here. In our time, I read that Reed was killed by ‘evil forces.’ I believe that when we came here, we brought that evil force.” He paused, as if searching for the right words. “I think the mage who attacked Elise and Reed is the same mage who brought us here. He might have traveled back with us, too.”
“Wait, hold on!” Julianna exclaimed. “So, we came to the past, brought the mage with us, and now he’s going to kill Reed, which is what will be written in the history books, which you will then read in the future … er, you’ve read in the past?” She sank down on the nearest chair. “I’m getting a headache thinking about it.”
“I know it’s a paradox, but that’s the only explanation.” His jaw hardened into a straight line. “As sure as I am that we’re going back to the future, I’m also certain that means we set things in motion in the past.”
“At least it means we’ll be going home,” Julianna sighed.
“The mage might have figured out the same thing which is why he’s going to attack on the night of the ascension ceremony.” Cross said. “Somehow, he knows that the dagger is the only way back. Or, since they’ve been doing research on the artifacts for decades now, he might know the way back.”
“Which is all the more reason we should use it now,” Julianna insisted.
“And then when we strand him here, what happens?” Cross said. “He could wreak havoc on the timeline. Change history as we know it. He could even kill all of the London clan. No, I think when we go back, we’re meant to take him with us. After all, if we’re trying to recreate the events that brought
