One Mark: Steamy Friends to Lovers Paranormal Romance (Blackwell Djinn)

by Nikki Kardnov

  Dae came down the stairwell with Ashley on his arm.

  “I promise not to punch you right now even though I really want to,” Mad said to Poe.

  “Boys,” Ashley said, her voice immediately cutting the tension.

  Thorin wasn’t sure how she managed it. She was brand new to the family. Formerly mortal. Hundreds of years their junior. And somehow she still had some level of sway over them.

  It was one of Thorin’s favorite things about his new sister-in-law.

  “This night is about Thorin,” Dae said. “We need to focus on him. Are we ready?”

  “No,” Thorin said, even though he technically was.

  He’d showered. Tied his hair back. Threw on trousers and a freshly pressed Oxford beneath a crisply tailored black suit jacket.

  He was ready but he didn’t want to go.

  He felt as though his fate was already sealed.

  He had no cards up his sleeve. No winning evidence to use against the Northman.

  Adonis might have verbally provoked him in the Blackbird, but he was the one who turned to violence. And Adonis might have come to the house with a runed blade intent on killing Thorin, but it was Adonis that was now dead.

  In addition to that, Thorin was no more aware of what he was then he was a week ago.

  Dae leaned down and pressed a tender kiss to Ashley’s cheek. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

  “Bring Thorin back with you.”

  “We will,” Dae said.

  But even Thorin could hear the doubt in his brother’s voice.

  Ashley wrapped her arms around Thorin’s waist. He patted the top of her head. “Tell Lola I’m sorry,” he said.

  When Ashley pulled away from him, her eyes were watery with tears.

  “Tell her yourself,” she said.

  He didn’t acknowledge the challenge. He wouldn’t make promises he knew he couldn’t keep.

  Chapter 39

  LOLA

  Lola didn’t bother ringing any doorbells at Blackwell House. She burst in the side door into the kitchen and then ran down the hallway into the grand foyer.

  “Thorin!” she yelled.

  Her voice echoed through the house.

  The giant grandfather clock ticked in the silence.

  “Thorin!”

  “Lo?” Ashley called from further inside the house.

  Lola ran to the arched doorway into the conservatory and found Ashley and Red there. “Where’s Thorin?”

  “Meeting his fate,” Red said. His back was to Lola. He stood at the wall of windows and stared out at the English garden beyond. There was a tumbler of dark liquor in his hand.

  Ashley came to Lola’s side. “What is it?”

  “I just came from Rose’s house.”

  “That was foolish,” Red said to the window.

  Lola huffed. “I got what I needed from her. She started this whole thing again. She and her brothers have been provoking Thorin this whole time.”

  Red finally turned. He drained the rest of the glass and set it down with a thud. “And so? What are you not saying, girl?”

  “Is he always this patronizing?” Lola asked Ash.

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  Should she tell them the whole truth?

  As soon as she spoke it, there would be no taking it back.

  Her life would change forever.

  Everything would change.

  As Thorin’s caeli, she knew she didn’t have to say yes to him. She didn’t have to bind herself to him, but how could she ignore what was already destined?

  How could she knowingly abandon him and their fate?

  Maybe…just maybe she was the one person who could help him.

  Red leveled his gaze at her. “Go on,” he said.

  Lola licked her lips. “I’m Thorin’s caeli. I can see his magic.”

  Ashley gasped.

  Red nodded like he’d suspected this was where she was headed.

  “That changes nothing,” he said and turned away.

  “You’re wrong,” Ashley said. “There’s a loophole in everything. Including your laws. It states in the Djinn Law Codex that a djinn can be exonerated of ill-doing when protecting his caeli.”

  “Bravo, maus. You can recite complex supernatural law.”

  Lola grumbled. She really wanted to kick Red in the balls right now.

  “Regardless,” he added, “Thorin didn’t know you were his caeli at the time.” Red grabbed his glass and grabbed a new bottle of liquor. He popped the cork and poured a long shot.

  “You don’t have to know it outright to feel it,” Ashley argued. “You and I both know that.”

  Red scowled. He brought the glass to his lips and drained half the pour.

  Lola was satisfied to see him wince against the alcohol’s burn. So he wasn’t entirely without feeling.

  “Even so. Lola wasn’t at the Blackbird where fighting first broke out.”

  “Rose and Adonis were trying to provoke Thorin. They were hoping he’d lose his shit.”

  “And you think Rose will admit as much?” Red clucked his tongue and shook his head. “You are more fool than I thought.”

  Lola refrained from rolling her eyes, even though she really fucking wanted to. “I still have two wishes left.”

  Ashley and Red shared a look.

  “Are you proposing to use a wish on Rose in the middle of a Conclave trial?” Red said.

  Lola winced. “Ummm…maybe? Is that possible?”

  He sniffed. “Well…it might work.”

  “That’s all I need. How do I get there?”

  Ashley pulled her cell phone from the back pocket of her jeans. She tapped hard at Dae’s name and put the phone on speaker. The line rang and rang. Dae’s voicemail picked up after several rings. “Damnit. I need you to answer the phone! You have to come and get us.”

  With a weary grumble, Ashley ended the call and then tapped in a quick text message.

  “Where is this place?” Lola asked “Can we drive there?”

  “It’s in Wales,” Red said with an exasperated look.

  “Wales, New York?” Lola joked.

  “Wales, United Kingdom,” Ashley said.

  Lola raised her fist to the sky. “God damn djinn and their teleportation!”

  “It’s called vading,” Red said.

  “It’s teleportation.”

  Red sneered at her but said no more.

  “So now what?”

  “Now we wait,” Ashley said. “And pray to the gods Dae checks his phone.”

  Chapter 40

  THORIN

  Thorin had been to the House of Cleaves many, many years ago. But nothing had changed since then. It was still drafty and also oddly stuffy at the same time. Old oil paintings hung on the walls in the entry hall.

  The house had once been the residence of a duke but had since been transformed into the Conclave headquarters.

  A servant hurried up to them wearing the House’s purple livery with a coat of arms stitched into the left breast. Everything about this place was stuck in the past.

  “Right this way,” the boy said.

  Thorin could smell vampire on him.

  Poe leaned over and whispered, “Apparently the Conclave is taking on any sort of riffraff these days.”

  “I can hear you,” the boy said.

  “Obviously,” Poe replied.

  The vampire boy lead them down the long hallway that someone at some time had nicknamed the Hall of Mountains because of the hundreds of mountain paintings framed and hanging on the walls. Thorin recognized the hand of a few of the artists. Da Vinci. William Turner. Raphael.

  At the end of the hallway, they turned right and then left and then entered into the trial theater.

  Along the far wall was an elevated bench much like the judge’s bench in a United States courtroom. Behind the bench were eleven leather chairs—one for each member of the Conclave Prime Council.

  Thorin had expected to see the entire
council.

  Instead it was only Riev and two other members, along with two guards at each door.

  One of the members present was Mary Madagen, a djinn nearly as old as Red if the rumors could be trusted. There were just enough lines around her eyes to fool a mortal into thinking she was in her thirties. Her blonde hair hung in messy waves around her heart-shaped face. A nose ring hung from her left nostril and a floral tattoo covered her entire right forearm.

  The third Conclave member was Henri Yung, one of Japan’s most successful businessmen and powerful djinn. He found his caeli in the 1500s and they had been bound ever since.

  And while Thorin had spent some time with the Yungs in the 1800s, it was no secret that Henri often sided with Riev on matters of the law. He was the rogue of the Yung family. He did what he wanted without consultation from the family.

  The same could be said for Mary.

  “Where’s the rest of the Prime Council?” Dae asked.

  “Out,” Riev answered.

  Mad came up beside Thorin and said, “A fair trial is a balanced trial.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mary said, her voice high pitched and sinuous. “Are you a member of the law, Mad Blackwell?”

  Mad grumbled to himself.

  “That’s what I thought.” Mary turned her shrewd eye on Thorin.

  A door to the left of the bench opened and Rose Northman, along with her older brother Aleksander, came through. They sat in the peerage box in front of the council bench.

  “Bloody hell,” Poe said beneath his breath. And Thorin had to agree. Aleksander was the oldest Northman. He was much like Mad in the sense that his duty was to his family and no one else.

  In addition to that, Aleksander and Henri Yung were best friends. Everyone knew it.

  This was not a fair trial.

  This was the furthest thing from a fair trial.

  “You stand before us charged with provoking, attacking, and killing a fellow djinn with strength that seems to be outside the bounds of a djinn’s capabilities,” Mary said. “Do you deny this?”

  Thorin clasped his arms behind his back. If he stuck to the truth, then he had nothing to be ashamed of. He had done horrible things, yes, but he was no liar. “I do not deny it.”

  “From the testimony of Rose Northman,” Henri said, “it’s alleged that you were trying to protect the honor of a mortal. A” —he lifted a slip of paper and read from it— “Lola St. James. Is that correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Was she your mark at the time?”

  Red had told him to say as much when Riev first visited the house. Thorin had had the chance then, and he decided he wouldn’t lie about it now. “At the time, no.”

  “Is she your caeli?” Mary asked.

  “No.”

  “I’m told this mortal is a very important member of the Blackwell family,” Riev explained with a smile. “Clearly more important than the life of a fellow djinn.”

  “Excuse me,” Dae said, “but Adonis came to our house. He came armed. Thorin was just protecting himself.”

  Mary arched a brow. “Did you have opportunity to cripple Adonis instead? Could you have stabbed him in the knee? The shoulder?”

  “I—” Thorin summoned a breath. Truth was, he had plenty of opportunity to make another choice. But with Lola lying unconscious at the time? He could think of nothing other than avenging the pain they’d brought her and protecting her from any more.

  “What was that?” Henri said.

  “Yes, I could have easily crippled him instead of fatally stabbing him.”

  “Then it’s settled?” Mary said.

  “Hardly!” Poe yelled.

  “Quiet, Mr. Blackwell. Or I’ll throw you in the Tower. We all know how well you fared there, don’t we?”

  Poe snapped his mouth shut, but anger flamed in his face.

  They were losing.

  An uneasy feeling curled in Thorin’s gut.

  “There is, of course, one other matter to attend to,” Riev said.

  “Oh right.” Mary clapped her hands together and the gold bangles on her wrist chimed together. “What are you, Thorin Blackwell?”

  From beside him, Dae’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

  Thorin’s heart galloped in his chest. He was finally going to admit to his greatest secret. One he’d barely known he had. Though the more he looked back and examined his own life, the more obvious it became.

  “I’ve only just learned that the man I thought was my father isn’t. I don’t know who my father is and those who did are dead. It’ll take a bit more time for me to uncover that truth.”

  Mary looked at Henri and Henri looked at Riev.

  Riev cut his glittering gaze to Thorin. “We can’t let someone with your capabilities just run free, now can we? One djinn is already dead.”

  Dae grumbled again as his cell phone went off a third time. He checked the screen and frowned. “Fuck,” he muttered. Then, “Excuse me. I need to attend to an emergency.”

  Thorin turned to his brother. “What? Now? What could be so pressing?”

  Dae looked pained. “I don’t know. It’s Ashley. Something is wrong.”

  In a blink, he was gone.

  Mary threw up her hands. “Blackwells are so fucking presumptuous.”

  Poe widened his eyes at Thorin and mouthed, What the fuck is going on?

  His life was about to go down in flames. That’s what was going on.

  Riev said, “It is the court’s recommendation that Thorin Blackwell, based on past grievances and with his unknown origins, be immured at the Conclave’s discretion until the matter of his origin is settled and his debts paid.”

  And to really hit it home, Riev slammed down a gavel, prompting the guards to surge toward Thorin.

  “Fucking hell,” Mad said.

  Thorin knew what immured meant. They’d toss him in a windowless cell for an undetermined amount of time.

  For a split second, he considered vading.

  There were a million places he could go where they would never find him.

  At least for a time.

  Eventually they’d bring out their bigger weapons—witches who could cast location spells. Psychics that could read their surroundings.

  And if that didn’t work, they’d resort to violence.

  His family—Lola—would be in danger.

  Eventually he’d be found or forced to turn himself in.

  And the punishment would be so much worse.

  He decided not to fight his fate, but the witch disc still heated as the guards took control of him.

  “I demand a balanced trial,” Mad yelled. “By order of the Law of Djinn!”

  The guards clamped iron shackles around Thorin’s wrists. Runes were carved deep into the metal. Would they hold him? He doubted it.

  He wasn’t a coward.

  He would suffer his punishment.

  He would repent for his sins.

  As he breathed deeply and surrendered to the guards, there was only one regret churning in his gut.

  He hadn’t had the chance to tell Lola he loved her.

  Chapter 41

  LOLA

  Lola paced the conservatory. The rising panic in her chest felt like it might just crawl out of her.

  What was the point of being surrounded by magical things and magical beings if they couldn’t even get a message through in an emergency?!

  Lola was about to tell Ashley to call Dae again when he no sooner popped up next to her. A mixture of irritation and concern was etched across his face.

  “This bloody well be good,” he said.

  Ashley surged to her feet. “You need to take Lola to the trial.”

  Dae directed his gaze at Lola and said, “To what end?”

  “Rose admitted she and her brothers came to Blackwater to provoke Thorin and me.”

  Dae raised his brow. “Why would they do that? And how could that possibly exonerate him now?”

  “I’m his caeli. An
d Rose knew it. She’s known for a very long time.”

  Dae’s mouth dropped open. “Truly?” He looked from Lola to Ashley and then to Red.

  Red said, “If the girl is telling the truth, it’s firmer ground to be on.”

  Dae hurried to Lola’s side. “Have you vaded before?”

  “No.”

  He grabbed her arm, and said, “Hang on, darling. This won’t be pleasant.”

  “Good luck!” Ashley yelled right before everything went black.

  Lola felt weightless and also five times her size. It felt as though her body was being pulled in multiple directions but at the same time…she couldn’t exactly place her hands or her legs or really any of her body.

  When the light winked on again, she was on her knees on a stone floor. Her limbs were loose and far away, like she’d just stepped off a tilt-a-whirl.

  “I think she’s going to vomit,” Poe said.

  “Lo?” Thorin said.

  “What is she doing here?” Rose yelled.

  “Come on, darling.” Dae gently hoisted her up. The room swayed for a second and then righted itself. Lola gulped down air.

  “Oh—God. That wasn’t what I expected.”

  “Who is this?” a female voice said.

  Lola scanned the trial room. It was large like a cathedral. There were three people behind a judge’s bench directly in front of her.

  The woman looked like she’d just stepped away from Coachella.

  The Asian man on Lola’s right could have easily graced the cover of GQ and for an oblivious second, she had the urge to photograph him.

  On the left, the older man leaned back in his chair like he was already bored.

  The woman appeared normal, or as normal as she could be in a supernatural trial.

  But the men…

  The older one had the same windowless eyes she now attributed to wickedness.

  The Asian man fared better, but there was a sheer, black cloud surrounding his head like the wickedness was trying to slither its way into his soul.

  Lola took in the four guards surrounding Thorin. Two of them were female. The other two appeared all right.

  Thorin was already in cuffs.

  Shit.

  Was she too late?