My head buzzes under the lights in Pedro's bedroom where he lays me on the bed and I weakly bring a hand up to shield my eyes. "Dalton, the lights!" Pedro shouts and Dalton appears in the doorway, looking over at me with worry etched into his chiseled face as he flips the switch and the overhead light goes out, leaving nothing but the light from the other room coming into the dark room. I know they can both still see fine, but the two of them turn into shadows in my eyes.

Their shadowy figures bring back the fear in my mind, and as images of the man and his white eyes and the mess of words he whispered come back to me my head aches again and I wince. "Lights." I whisper, balling my fists at my sides. "I need to see, I keep seeing him..." My voice quivers and a hand finds mine. I expect it to be Pedro's but as the little lamp on the bedside table casts the room in a warm glow I find Dalton's hand in mine, our fingers intertwined together.

He sits on the side of the bed next to me and looks down at me. "What do you need?" He asks and Pedro sits on my other side, brushing my hair from my face.

"Yes, what can I do for you?" I hear the panic in his voice and see the phone in his other hand. "Should I-?"

"No." I shake my head once slowly, relieved that no pain follows. "Don't call them or I'll be on the first flight home." I don't miss the slight flex of Dalton's hand. "I'm ok." I assure Pedro and he looks torn. "I promise." I whisper.

He sighs, putting the phone on the table. "What happened?" He asks.

I open my mouth but Dalton beats me to it. "She was just walking and then all of a sudden she dropped to the ground and she started screaming." There is horror in his voice as he talks and I don't know whether to be embarrassed that I'd done that, or maybe a little touched that it had freaked him out so badly that something was wrong with me. "I tried to catch her in time but she did bump her head a little."

"That explains this." I sigh, rubbing my forehead where a dull throbbing is.

Dalton brushes his thumb back and forth over my hand once and then continues on. "She started convulsing and her eyes rolled back in her head."

Whelp, now I'm embarrassed.

Pedro leaned in over me. "What happened, sweetie? A vision?"

I nod once and shudder at the thought of it.

"I don't know what happened..." I close my eyes for a slight second and then wrench them back open when I see the strange man's face still lurking in my mind. "I went in like I normally do when I have a vision. It's like I close my eyes here, and I wake up somewhere else." I try to explain but my face is flaming as they both watch me. I know I probably sound like a crazy daisy. "I can walk and move around in the vision, but I can't interfere with what happens, and no one else can see me..." I pause. "Well except that one time," I remember the woman and the sight of Pedro being drug away in chains. "Anyway, there was a man and I followed him to a woman's door on one of the upper levels. He knocks and she opens. It was pretty obvious she didn't know who he was, but he knew who she was. He called her by name and then he...he started chanting this thing under his breath and my head started to feel like it was being ripped apart from the inside out." Out of reflex I move my other hand on top of the one Dalton is holding, gripping him tighter. "It hurt so badly, and when I moved to try to get a look at the man's face...his eyes...they were stark white while he chanted."

Dalton shakes his head in disbelief. "I don't understand, what kind of chanting?"

"I don't know." I admit, trying hard not to think of it. "He was whispering it under his breath, but it sounded like maybe it was in Latin, or some other older language."

"I speak Latin." Dalton urges. "Try to remember something and I'll translate."

I shook my head. "I don't know..." I sighed. "I can remember it, but it hurts my head."

"Just try." Dalton nods quickly, though Pedro looks concerned.

I grimace, but close my eyes anyway, pulling forward the vision to the front of my mind and I listen carefully, trying my hardest not to scream as I choke out the words, the very taste of them on my tongue leaving a bad taste. "Spiritus hominis, sanguis mortuis, in haec verba: veni sub imperium. Pluviam super sanguinem, sanguis novus regnaturi." I cry, tears stinging my face, and then open my eyes to find Pedro and Dalton both holding their heads. "I'm sorry, I told you I didn't want to...He repeated that last part a few times." I try to say, but they both wave it off, getting their composure back.

"What the hell is that?" Pedro asks, bringing a hand to his chest and looking as if he just saw a ghost. "How do the words find a reaction like that?"

"I don't know." I shake my head. "When he said them to the woman, she didn't react in pain though, she like...I know it sounds crazy but it was like she was under his-."

"Command." Dalton says. It's not a question. I nod once, fear pooling in my belly.

"What did it mean, Dalton?"

He closes his eyes briefly. "It's very old Latin." He tells us. "It doesn't make any sense though."

"Well, what was it?" Pedro inches forward.

Dalton sighs, glancing at me and then up to Pedro. "Spirit of man, blood of the dead, upon these words, come under command." He says lowly. "The rest of it was really hard, extremely old Latin. And you said he repeated this part?"

I nod my head and something about the look on his face tells me I'm not going to like what he is going to say.

"Upon blood rain, new blood shall reign."

I sit up quickly, letting go of Dalton and yanking my knees up to my chest and ignoring the throbbing in my head. "This can't be happening." I shake my head and then grab Pedro by the shoulders and hug him to me. "Someone needs to get Lance."

As soon as I say his name he comes in the room. "I'm here," He says, sliding in-between where Dalton had stood beside my bed and me. "What the hell happened?" He asks. "I was gone for a hardly an hour and you managed to find trouble?" He smiles.

I can barely glance at him where he sits on the side of the bed and rubs a spot on my back. "No," I whisper. "Trouble found me."

Lance glances back at Dalton, then looks back at Pedro and me and the smile on his face slides away. "What have I missed?" He asks wearily.

I release Pedro slightly, but then I grab his hand and hold it tightly and turn to Lance.

"You've got to get your men mobilized." I tell him. "There's a threat to the king."

"What?" All three say in unison.

Dalton moves around Lance to the foot of my bed and puts his hand over on my knee. "You think the new blood shall reign thing means trouble for Pedro?"

"I know it does." I grimace, holding back the tears in my eyes. "I saw it." I explain. "I dismissed it at the time because sometimes I will get random visions that don't have anything to do with me, or that to my knowledge never comes true or it'll be total nonsense."

"What are you talking about, dear?" Pedro whispers, as much as he tries to hide it, I see the concern in his eyes. Whether it's for me or him I'm not sure.

"Months ago, before I even knew the truth about any of this, I had a vision." I let the word roll off of my tongue as much as I despise it. "I was here, which I didn't know at the time, but anyway, I was here and there was this woman and this creepy old man. They came out from Castrum and they had all of these cloaked men with them who were dragging chains behind them with people attached at the ends." I look up into Pedro's eyes. "You were one of them." I whisper in horror. "I didn't think it could be real, so I never said anything, but then...when I woke up from that vision the people around me told me that I had been chanting some creepy stuff." I look over at Dalton and his eyes widen as we both say it together.

"Upon blood rain, new blood shall reign."

Dalton and I stare into each other's eyes, a tenseness there, but also a desperation. If I knew one thing about him, I knew he respected Pedro above any other, and I would even dare say he probably even cares about him deeply. Just like me.

Without meaning to, my hand inches over to where his is on my knee and my fingers brush his gently, making his eyes dip from mine to them.

Lance misses it, or at least seems to as he leans in to hug me. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here." He whispers and I nod at him.

"Well you are now, and we will need your help to protect Pedro." I glance back at him.

"I'm more worried about you, my little Rosie." Pedro taps my nose, trying to ease my nerves but the action only twist the worry in me. What would I do if something ever happened to him? My whole family would never be the same. Pedro is the glue between us all. We need him.

I jerk out of Lance's grip and my hand leaves Dalton's as I turn in the bed to hug Pedro again. "I love you." I tell him.

"Oh, Rosie." He holds me tight. "I'm going to be fine. You said yourself that all of your visons don't come true. We will take extra precaution, and I'll be just fine. You just wait and see."

A whimper escapes me and Lance and Dalton both go to reach for me but both stop. Lance looking strangely. "You should go check on Eyan." He says lowly. "She was pretty shaken up when she and Fallon called me."

Dalton glares at him and I'm annoyed with Lance for making the grimace return. The soft concerned look is so much more appealing. I nearly roll my eyes at myself though. Doesn't matter how I prefer for him to look because he has Eyan. His girlfriend.

Dalton suddenly turns back to me. "Wait a second," He blurts out, the wheels turning in his head. "You said the guy in the vision called the woman by name?" He asks. "Who was she? We can go find her or stay watch in her room."

"That's a good idea." I agree, leaning away from Pedro just a little. "He called her Miss Carla."

Dalton's face drops and Lance cuts his eyes to him quickly. "Carla?" Lance repeats and I nod. "She's...well, she left."

I roll my eyes at him as it all makes sense to me now.

The day I got here there were those people out front demanding answers and someone said something like 'I know they were here.'

"Those people out front were looking for the people we have no clue where they are, weren't they?" I demand and he nods.

"I only lied because I didn't want you to get spooked on your first day here." Lance says, his eyes cast down in shame.

"How many are missing?" I ask.

"Four." Dalton tells me. "All of them were here one minute, then the next their rooms were cleaned out and they were gone without a word." He shrugs. "It wasn't all that suspicious before, which is why none of us wanted to worry you with it. It just looked like they decided to leave which isn't uncommon around here. Some people are more nomadic than others." He looks over at Lance and for once they don't look like they want to kill each other. "All four of them are now officially missing." He tells him, then goes over my vision and what I'd seen the man do to Carla and then the more disturbing part that is the threat to Pedro.

"Do you think that means you?" Lance asks me seriously. "The new blood, I mean?"

"No." I shake my head and then yawn.

"You can't go to sleep." Dalton says quickly. "You hit your head pretty good, you'll need to stay awake a while to be sure you don't have a concussion."

I sigh and frown. "I don't know how I'm going to do that." I admit. "It took a lot out of me."

"I know," He sits by my legs. "You'll have to try though."

"I'll keep her distracted." Lance smiles, but Dalton glares over.

"You need to go be meeting with your men and upping the security around here." He tells him.

"And you should go check on your girlfriend." He fires back.

"Guys, please." I hold my head. "Both of you just stop." I groan.

Pedro pats my shoulder and stands. "She's right." He tells them. "Dalton, go see that Eyan says nothing of what she saw, and then meet me back in the council room. We need to address the others about the disappearances."

"How will we convince them that they really are missing and not just moved on?" Dalton asks.

Pedro shakes his head. "I don't know yet." He sighs. "We will have to get creative." He tells him then looks back to Lance. "You go to your men. Beef security without making it too noticeable. We don't want people to panic. It all stays under wraps until we know what we are dealing with."

"Yes, sir." He nods, then looks back to me. "What about Rose?"

Pedro smiles over at me. "Safest place for her to stay for a few hours. I'll have Fallon brought up to sit with you and keep you awake."

"At least an hour or so." Dalton adds sternly.

"Yes, sir." I salute him weakly and roll over in the bed, my eyes already heavy.

I hear the door click shut as they all exit, and though the urge to go to sleep is strong, I know that the eerie feeling in my stomach will keep me up. Something bad is stirring around here, and I can't shake the feeling that the people I care about are in danger because of me.

**(A/N) Alright everyone, what do you think so far? I'm really excited where this story is going! I also wanted to ask you all a favor! I'm asking that you all go over to my Facebook page where I will be posting all of the updates on me, my books, publishing info and everything else, in exchange for a shout out in this book! There are only three things you need to do!

1. Go to the page and give it a like and follow

2. Leave a rating or review of me as a writer or which of my books you love the most (both review and rate is even better:) 

3. Come back to Wattpad and send me a message saying "done" so that I will know what username to shout out since most of your facebook names are not the same as your Wattpad names. 

And that's it! Super easy and a great way to have more people directed to your page! All three steps must be completed to be valid! :) 

Here's the link, if you're on mobile you can find it in my bio on my Wattpad profile!

https://www.facebook.com/ShelbyVPainter/