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I leaned my head forward until my forehead was leaning against her shoulder.
“Why would my being King change anything?” I tried a different tactic.
Nikolai and Blythe didn’t have an answer, but the man walking into the living room with crutches under his arm and my nagging sister behind him telling him to ‘sit the hell down,’ did.
“Because you’re going to change the world. There’ve been prophecies,” Derek gasped breathlessly.
Nikolai stood and offered his seat, which Derek gratefully accepted.
“What prophecies?” I asked.
He leaned his head against the back of the couch and lifted a notebook from the pocket of the generic robe we kept in the infirmary for such instances.
“I wrote it all down,” he offered me a spiral bound notebook.
“What all?” I asked, leaning forward and taking the book from his outstretched hands.
“It’s two pages’ worth. I wrote it all down as I sat beside a Purist as he was dying. He kept repeating this over and over while I tortured him to death,” Derek explained, calm, cool and collected.
As if he hadn’t just said he’d tortured a man to death to get the prophecy.
“And when did you find time to do this?” I asked skeptically. “You’ve been in a coma for more than a month. You’ve been out of the coma for less than four hours.”
Derek grinned. “My dragon kept it for me.”
I was utterly surprised at that.
Dragons were usually very forthcoming with their information, and for Derek’s paired dragon, Ulysses, to keep anything from us was huge.
“What’s going on, Derek?” I asked finally, once the silence carried on too long.
He nodded to the paper.
“Read it.”
Sighing in annoyance, I did just that.
A cold night in August, the king and the queen shall bring forth a powerful being the likes of which this Earth has never seen before.
It shall be of light and darkness.
Pureness by choice, but vicious by need.
The child of the light and dark will be the one to change the future of this world as we know it.
Dragon riders will prevail, because of one being only.
Reed.
“I like the name Reed,” Blythe interrupted my reading.
I raised my brows at her.
“Why?” I asked, stunned.
I didn’t like it.
Not at all.
“Because it’s different, like yours. We can’t name him Keifer again. I don’t do Juniors,” she informed me.
I shook my head. “You don’t do Juniors?”
She nodded. “Right.”
“What’s wrong with being a Junior?” Derek asked, offended.
Derek was named after his father. Derek Reedus Donaldson.
Which I guessed was maybe where Reed had come from. A shortening of Reedus.
“Read the rest of it,” Nikolai growled in frustration.
I continued reading, my skepticism fading the more I took in.
When the two moons rise, and on the eve of Prince Reed’s arrival there shall be only one faction. That faction will forever rule, trifle from the pure no longer.
I finished reading the paper and passed it over to Nikolai so he could read it as well.
“So, what does this mean?” I leaned my head back to rest against the couch.
“It means that whatever your child is, that he’s important, not just to the dragon riders, but to the whole world. It also means that he’s already in great danger. That they want you, and they want Reed, which I have to thank you for naming him after me, by the way,” Derek teased. Then he sobered. “You need to be on your game. You need bodyguards. You need to stay safe, vigilant, and aware. And you need to make peace with the knowledge and accept the fact that this child is about to change the world. Literally.”
I clenched my hand into a fist on the side of Blythe’s hip, feeling like shit that I’d damned this child, my child, to this future.
“And it also means the time has come for you to accept the title of king. There’s a reason they don’t want you to be the king. The prophecy is only half of a whole and can only be realized if you take your rightful place. You need to do this, Keifer, and you need to do it now,” Derek continued.
I closed my eyes, feeling like a large pile of shit for doing what I was about to do.
“Call the brothers. Get them here.”
That was directed at my brother.
“As for you,” I told Derek. “Get back to bed. Let your mind do its job, but stay in bed while you’re doing it.”
Derek saluted me.
“Yes, your Highness,” he conceded.
Then the bruised fucker got up and walked swiftly out of the room while the rest of the room was still holding their breath.
“King,” Nikolai laughed. “That’s got kind of a ring to it, doesn’t it?”
I flipped him off, causing Blythe to laugh softly against my chest where she was resting.
My mouth went involuntarily to the top of her head, and I brushed my lips over her hair.
“You ready for this?” I questioned her softly.
