Marked (The Coldest Fae Book 3)

by Katerina Martinez

  “I’m not surprised,” Ashera said, “The castle fae like to keep that part out of their stories because it spells the fall of their oppressive empire, the end of their reign.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Because they don’t like the world remembering what they did to our people. It is destiny that we will one day bring the fight to them and take back what’s ours, but we have lost much already, and we will not take up arms so easily anymore.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There have been others who have claimed to be the tath isia. Others that looked like you, had similar marks, could do similar things. We went to war for them in the past, attacked the castle, its people, but we failed because they were not the true white wolf. If we are to fight for you, we must test you first.”

  “Wait… fight for me? I haven’t asked anyone to fight for me.”

  “You claimed to be the white wolf, did you not?”

  “If I remember correctly, it was my friend who made that suggestion, not me.”

  “That is irrelevant. You bear the mark, and out of respect for what it represents we have offered you and your friends hospitality, and protection. Now, you will be tested, and tried. It is said the white wolf will have powers and abilities we do not have. That you will bestow great gifts upon us so that we can take the fight to the castle and reclaim the Frost Stone that belonged to our ancestors… unless you are a false prophet.”

  “I don’t think you understand… I’m not a warrior. I tried to find you because I didn’t know what this mark really meant, and because maybe you could help me figure out who my real parents were. I didn’t come here to help you fight a war.”

  “And yet here you are, a half-breed bearing the mark of an ancient Goddess. If it is as you say, and the mark simply appeared, then you are indeed the white wolf and have nothing to fear. If you are tested and found wanting, however…” Aesha stood upright and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Your friends will die first.”

  “I thought you said no talk of death at dinner.”

  She gestured at the table beneath her. “I am no longer at dinner, but you may remain here. Eat your fill. You will be shown to your tent when you are done.”

  There were many things I wanted to say to this woman, many angry, nasty things. I could feel my blood boiling, even as fear worked through me like bugs that had burrowed under my skin and started running amok. On the one hand, she’d offered me food, and a bed, and she’d saved the Prince’s life. On the other hand, she was threatening to kill us all if I didn’t pass her tests.

  Why the fuck do I keep landing in these situations?

  “My injured friend…” I said, meekly. “When can I see him?”

  “You may ask Lora to take you to him when she arrives,” Ashera said. “Rest tonight. We begin tomorrow.”

  Without another word, she made her way into an adjoining tent, disappearing behind a heavy, woolen curtain. Gullie exhaled a deep breath she’d been holding onto for a while. “Well, that could’ve gone better,” she said.

  “Keep your voice down,” I said, “I’m sure they can hear.”

  “And I’m sure we can say just about anything around them and they won’t kill us. It sounds like they’ll only kill us if you fail your tests. Lucky for us, that’s pretty common territory, don’t you think?”

  “I guess… why doesn’t that make me feel any better?”

  “Because you would literally rather be doing anything else?”

  I nodded. “Yes, that sounds about right.” I looked around at all the food that was still left on the table, still steaming, but I’d lost my appetite. “We should go and check in with the others.”

  Gullie floated over to my left hand. “I’ll make myself scarce while you talk to the P… Colin. That’s going to take some getting used to.”

  “Sorry, it was the first thing that came to mind.”

  “You could’ve gone with Harrington, or Tatum, or Somerhalder. But you went with Colin. I am so disappointed.” Gullie dropped onto the back of my left hand, and with a puff of green mist, became a little green and black butterfly tattoo against my skin.

  I had never so much as gotten a single tattoo in my life, and now I had two of them. Go figure.

  Grabbing a pastry from the table, I stood up and headed for the door. Lora was already waiting for me outside, sitting casually on a stump. When I left the tent, she perked up and moved quickly to intercept me so I wouldn’t wander.

  “Your tent is this way,” she barked.

  “I want to see the man I brought here,” I said.

  She eyed me up and down, scoffed, and rolled her eyes. I wasn’t sure if she was going to lead me to Prince Cillian, but I followed her all the same.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Lora led me to the tent where they were keeping the Prince, but he was unconscious when I arrived. They had removed his shirt, laid him down on a bed, and tended to his wounds. By his side, on an end table, was a small bowl filled with water, a wet rag hanging off the edge and dripping onto the floor.

  I looked over at the fae who had escorted me here. “Could you give me a minute?” I asked.

  She eyed me up and down, disdain and suspicion playing on her face. “I will walk the camp once. When I return, you leave with me.”

  “Thank you,” I said, as if she were doing me a favor.

  Lora turned away and started walking. I could only hope she was a slow walker, but I highly doubted it. Without wasting another second, I entered the tent, letting the flap fall behind me, and knelt by the Prince’s bed. He looked pale, and hurt, and despite the fact that he had been healed, there were many bruises and dark marks on his skin.

  Gingerly I touched his chest, letting my fingertips gently press against his skin before allowing the rest of my palm to flatten out on him. I could feel his heart beating beneath my palm, I could hear the slightly raspy quality of his breathing, and I could smell the old blood still clinging to his hair and even his pants.

  He still clung to the piece of my dress. It was ruined, now. Bloodied, soaked, ripped, but he hadn’t let it go once and I couldn’t understand why.

  Shutting my eyes, I lowered my cheek against his chest. I could hear his heart pounding, now. He was hurt, but he was strong. He would make it through whatever had happened to him, but I guess I didn’t really have any doubt about that. I just wanted to be near him.

  Nearer to him.

  His skin was warm against my face, and that warmth transferred into me as comfort. These last few hours had been stressful, and tense. I’d barely had a moment to breathe. To think. Even when I was eating with the Alpha, tensions were high. This was a brief moment of peace and calm, and I was going to take it.

  I felt his hand touch the back of my head and I perked up. He hadn’t opened his eyes, but he’d taken a deep breath. He was stirring, starting to wake. “Don’t move,” I whispered as I shuffled a little closer to his face.

  He turned his head to the side and let his eyes slowly open. It took a moment for him to adjust to the light around him, but his gaze finally settled on me. “I had the strangest dream,” he said, his voice soft, low, and a bit of a struggle.

  “What did you dream about?” I asked.

  “I dreamt you had come to me… and you were a wolf. White, and large, and powerful… but the eyes, and the scent. It was you.”

  I leaned a little closer to him and rested a hand against his cheek, brushing some of the dry blood off his face with my thumb. I smiled at him. “That was some dream.”

  “No… it was no dream, was it?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then it’s true.” He tried to sit up, but I cupped his face with both my hands and stopped him.

  “You’re injured. Don’t get up. Can you tell me what happened to you?”

  “Radulf…” he groaned, “He’s getting stronger. He did this to me.”

  My insides went cold. “What? How?”

  “I don’t
know. It’s dark magic. Somehow, he was able to manifest and attack me in the flesh. I couldn’t control him, I couldn’t hold onto him, but he had the power to cut into my body as if he was holding a knife—” he groaned again, grimacing from the pain, “Dahlia, I cannot stay here.”

  “But you need to rest—”

  “I can’t rest; I need to get to—”—I kissed him, pressing my lips against his like my life depended on it.

  At first, he seemed a little surprised, but then he placed his hand on the back of my head again and let his lips part gently for mine. I kissed him deeply and softly, gently, with care and tenderness to begin with, but then pressing myself more closely against him.

  Warm prickles shot through me like fireworks, and when his tongue touched mine, the fireworks only got louder, and larger. I could feel myself shaking, though I wasn’t sure which emotion was causing most of it. Happiness? Relief? Fear? It was a cocktail with no label, and I was getting pretty drunk on it.

  When the kiss finally broke, I held my forehead against his. “You scared me,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not mean to.”

  “You mean you didn’t know?”

  He shook his head. “Not in a way I can properly explain, but I want to try. You need to know the truth.”

  I kissed him again, a light peck, this time. “When you’re stronger.”

  “No, Dahlia. Now. I have so much to tell you.”

  “I do too, believe me, but we don’t have a lot of time right now and all I want to do is kiss you.”

  The Prince lowered his hand to my chin, tipped it against his lips, and kissed me again. Those fireworks from before had turned to thunder inside of me; a continuous grumble of want and desire, sprinkled with a desperate need for more. I wasn’t sure how long I had, but my mind wandered to a place where he and I were absolutely alone, for as long as we wanted to be, and I could explore every inch of him with my mouth.

  “I missed you,” he whispered against my mouth.

  “Not as much as I did,” I said, breathless. “You left without saying goodbye.”

  “I didn’t have a choice. Radulf had exposed himself and…” he shook his head. “I would have freed you from your cell myself, but I knew I would be discovered, so I entrusted Aronia with the task.”

  “Wait, you sent her?”

  “I did. I would have freed you myself, but Radulf had control of me, and he mentioned my father… implicated him in something terrible. I couldn’t trust anyone. I could barely trust myself… this is the only reason I was able to regain control of my own body.”

  He showed me the sleeve of my dress. I looked at it, then back at him, “This is how you were able to keep control?”

  “It’s you. Your scent. It keeps him buried. I can feel him screaming to get out, but now that you’re here, he can’t.”

  “Then, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Dahila, these people…” he paused to look at me. “They’re dangerous.”

  “They aren’t much more dangerous to me than your people were the day you kidnapped me.”

  He let his eyes fall, as if the memory made him uncomfortable. When he looked at me again, I could feel his fear, his concern. I had rarely seen him like this before, so it shook me. “You don’t understand. These people are vicious predators and cannibals. They kill everyone who crosses them and eat their spoils. We can’t stay here.”

  “It sounds to me like both your people are pretty prejudiced against each other. And, also, I guess you’re talking about my people now, too.” I showed him the mark on the back of my right hand. “It’s real. I can do what they do. I’m one of them.”

  “Just because you can shapeshift doesn’t mean you have to become them.”

  Someone walked by the front of the tent, their shadow breaking the light coming in from outside for just a moment. I thought Lora had returned, and for a moment my dinner surged back into my throat, but the shadow quickly moved away again.

  I turned to look at the Prince. “I’m not going to become them,” I said, “But they want to train me, they want to know I’m the real White Wolf. If I don’t make it through their trials, they’re going to kill all of us.”

  “They won’t kill the heir to Windhelm.”

  “That’s just it. They don’t know who you are. I don’t know how they didn’t recognize you, but I also didn’t tell them you’re the Prince, so you need to drop that. From now on, your name is… Colin.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Colin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why Colin?”

  “Look, it’s a perfectly good name, okay? It is where I come from, anyway. The point is, you can’t reveal yourself to them, or it could cause a whole series of complications. They have a huge grudge against your people, and if they find out who you are, who knows what they’ll do?”

  “All the more reason for us to leave. Now. If we start heading for the Veridian, we may reach it before long.”

  I shook my head. “It’s too dangerous, and you’re hurt.” I paused. “Why do you want to go there, anyway? I knew that was where you were going, but I still don’t know why.”

  “There was a moment, the first night he made himself known, where I could sense the storm in him. I don’t know how he was able to… how he even exists, but I know it happened there. I feel the call to go to that place more strongly than ever, now, and I’m running out of time. The longer I wait, the stronger he gets.”

  “We can’t leave. They’ll kill us.”

  “Then we have to find a way. If they want you to pass their tests then there will be moments you cannot spend by my side. When that happens… I cannot allow Radulf to take control again.”

  I glanced at the tent’s opening. Another shadow had passed nearby, only this time, it wasn’t moving on. She was back. I stood up right and walked over to the flap. When I pulled it open, I found Lora outside, waiting for me.

  “It is time to leave,” she said, “I will take you to your tent.”

  I cast an eye to the Prince. “I want to stay here tonight,” I said, “Maybe I can have a bed brought here?”

  “No. You will sleep in our tent.”

  I frowned. “Our tent?”

  “I am to keep an eye on you, to make sure you don’t do anything… stupid.”

  “What about my friends?”

  “They are guests. They are being taken care of, and they will not be harmed.”

  “How can I possibly know that?”

  “You cannot. You can only trust us… if you choose to. But that isn’t my concern.” She arched her head a little to look over my shoulder, then let her eyes settle on me again. “Time to go.”

  Frowning, I dashed back into the tent, grabbed Cililan’s face, and kissed him again. As I kissed him, I shrugged out of the woolen shirt I had been given and placed it in his hands. That left me topless, and I wasn’t wearing a bra, so I covered my chest with my hands before pulling away from him.

  “What… is this?” he asked, his eyes lingering on my stomach, and climbing up to my hands.

  I cocked an eyebrow. “To keep you warm tonight,” I said, offering a slight wink before hopping out of the tent.

  “You removed your top,” Lora said, and for the first time, I wasn’t sure what to make of her expression. Confusion seemed appropriate.

  “I did,” I said, “Is there a problem?”

  She paused, eyed me up and down, then she leaned in to whisper. “I also sleep in the nude. We will be friends.”

  I went to raise a finger, but then I realized that doing so would expose me to half the camp. “Wait, I don’t—” Lora had already started moving. Groaning, I followed her, breaking into a light jog just to catch up with her.

  She really did power-walk everywhere.

  Eyes followed me as I made my half-naked walk through the camp. In hindsight, my decision to give the Prince the one of the only bits of clothing I was wearing was probably a bad idea, but it smelled like me. If that could
help him get through the night without Radulf coming out again, then what was a little public embarrassment?

  Plus, if holding onto my shirt meant he would spend the night thinking about what had been underneath it… urgh, get your mind out of the gutter.

  On my way to my new tent, I caught a glimpse of Mira and Melina. They were both sharing a tent not far from wherever Lora was taking me. It was good to see them both alive and well. It looked like Mira’s leg had been healed, too. I nodded at them, and they both nodded in return, letting me know they were okay.

  By the time I turned and headed into my tent, Lora had already slipped out of her clothes. I caught a full profile of her backside as she slid into her bed. My cheeks flushed hard. There weren’t any other clothes in here for me to wear, and she wasn’t going to get back up to go find me some new ones. I was going to have to sleep topless.

  Sighing, I slid into my own bed, which—while handmade—was full, and plush, and strangely comfortable. I was exhausted. Sleep happened quickly, and I surrendered to it without a fight, hoping not to dream.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The next morning happened all at once. Get up, get dressed, and get out of the tent. I’d barely had a moment to think, to register what was happening. For a second I thought I was dreaming. I couldn’t recognize the tent, the camp, or even Lora, but she was rushing me out like the place was on fire.

  Outside, the whole camp was watching as I was marched into the space in front of the main tent. Dawn had broken, the air was crisp and cool, and the morning brightness broke into streaks as it touched the jagged edges of the snowy peaks all around the village. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but Mel and Mira had both been brought out of their tents too.

  “Oh shit,” Gullie said from inside my hair, “They’re gonna kill us.”

  “No, they’re not,” I said. “Are they?”

  “I don’t know, but these people look serious as all hell. What did you do?!”

  “Nothing! I just slept.”

  “Quiet,” Lora prodded me in the back. “Address only the Alpha.”