A portal egg.
“No!” I barely had time to react before he crashed into me like a crazed linebacker and knocked me off my feet and into the portal to the Ether Realm.
I was airborne for a second, then his giant weight dropped on top of me, knocking the air out of my lungs. My head cracked backward, hitting cold hard tile, and blackness danced at the edges of my vision.
“What is this!?” Lora’s shrill voice reached my ears, and Silas rolled off of me.
“Get a healer!” one of the Fae Lords called.
He must have spotted the knife sticking out of Silas’ back. I knew I was probably about to die. Not only was it my twentieth birthday, but Silas had portaled us right before the Fae Lords, so they would definitely kill me. But it was worth it. It was so worth it to stab that asshole in the back.
“I smell Greywolf power.” Lora’s voice made my entire body go still. I was flat on my back, looking up at the white and gold marble ceiling.
She loomed over me. I swallowed hard, preparing for her interrogation. I couldn’t lie to the Fae Lords, and that thought terrified me.
“Get. Up,” she growled, and a force, much like Silas’, pressed around my body and pulled me to my feet.
Dizziness washed over me as a warm, wet trickle slid down the side of my neck. I reached up slowly and my fingers probed a cut at the back of my head. I hissed as I felt the deep laceration and sticky wet blood.
“She’s injured.” Lora sounded intrigued.
I peered at her, but my vision was blurry, making two of her, and my mind felt slow.
“Isn’t today her birthday?” Another Fae Lord had joined us.
My legs suddenly went weak and I fell to my knees.
“Is it happening now?” Lora seemed excited as terror gripped me.
Was this how it happened? How I died? My heart hammered in my chest, and in that moment I was hit with a memory.
“Don’t go,” Brayden whimpered as I clung to his chest. His hair was longer, chin length, and he had a nice tan.
He was shirtless, and we lay on his bed as I stroked the name tattooed on his arm. Charlene.
I was Charlene. It was my twentieth birthday and I was dying.
A sharp pain sliced through my head and I looked up at him. “I love you. I’ll find you again.”
“I’ll be waiting.” Brayden’s voice was hollow as he looked at me with utter adoration, love, and heartbreak.
“Lena!” Lora’s voice snapped me from the memory and I looked over at her. I was on my knees before her, swaying, blood trickling down my neck.
What the hell? What was that memory? I couldn’t be Charlene; thatdidmake me Lena and… it hurt to think about that possibility after living so long thinking I was Wren.
“What?” I asked Lora, trying to blink rapidly to clear the blurry vision. My head felt like it was being squeezed into a vise, a deep throb constantly reminding me that I was injured.
“Whydo I smell your power if you’re Lena?” she growled.
Oh crap. She thought I was Lena, I thought I was Wren. I couldn’t lie to her. But after that memory, even I was confused.
I shrugged. “A little bit came back.”
That wasn’t a lie. A little had come back, with Artemis’ help.
She frowned, her pink glossy lips puckering, and then looked over at the male Fae Lord beside her. “Can that happen?” she asked him.
He looked perplexed. “I guess so.”
