Marked (The Coldest Fae Book 3)

by Katerina Martinez

  My Prince.

  I stretched my other hand toward him, halting him as he approached. He frowned. “What is it?” he asked.

  I swallowed hard. “I have something to tell you,” he said.

  “Tell me.”

  Taking a deep breath, I let the dagger I’d been holding behind my back fall to my side, bringing it fully into view. Cillian turned his eyes on it, then looked at me again. There was no anger on his face, no fear. A little surprise, but that was to be expected, considering I’d just pulled a knife on him.

  “I met my parents,” I said.

  “Your parents?” he asked.

  A pause. “They’re both dead…” I looked at the dagger in my hand, then back at him. “They told me I had to kill you.”

  “And you believe them?”

  I nodded. “I believe what I saw, what I heard. I believe the prophecy. You and I both know what you have inside of you, but neither of us know what will happen if we try to pull it out. The easiest thing to do, the easiest way of stopping the darkness from coming is to kill you.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Is it really that simple?”

  “I wish I knew. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but I hate not knowing things.”

  “I think I’ve come to learn that about you, yes.” He paused. “Are you here to kill me, Dahlia?”

  I gripped the knife so tightly, my knuckles turned white. “I am the white wolf,” I said, “Without me, these people will die, and every second you live increases Radulf’s strength. What happens when he takes hold of you for good?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What if we can’t kill him, then? What if he’s too powerful?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he repeated. Then he took a step forward, extending his arms out to the side. “But you don’t need to justify yourself any longer.”

  “You want this?”

  “If it will keep you and these people safe, then do it. Plunge it into my heart. Strike hard, fast, and true. Don’t let me get back up, don’t let him take control.”

  I stared at him, my hand trembling, my breathing coming out ragged. “You’re sure about this?” I asked. “You want me to kill you?”

  “I would do anything for you, belore.”

  My eyes shut hard, tears stinging, my heart pounding. I believed him. I knew, if I was to race up to him and drive the dagger into his heart, he wouldn’t stop me. He wouldn’t stop me, and he would die, moments later, on this floor, simply because it was what I wanted.

  The thing was, I was ready to kill him. My entire body was primed and running hot. It felt like I hadn’t calmed down in hours, maybe even in days. I was wound tight and ready to explode at a moment’s notice, and maybe if he had been anyone else, I would’ve uncoiled and attacked—but I couldn’t.

  I dropped the knife, letting it fall to the floor. Slowly, I kneeled, and as my knees touched the ground, I shed my human form and became the white wolf. It was getting easier, now; the transition happened in an instant, with little more than a thought.

  I looked up at him, quietly watching him from where I sat. Then I got up and I charged, suddenly, catching him off guard. The Prince took a step back, startled. When I leapt into the air, I assumed my human form again, but instead of diving away from me, he caught me and held me.

  I wrapped my legs around his abdomen, cupped his face, and kissed him, then, drinking deeply of his lips. The Prince shut his eyes and grabbed hold of me more firmly, his lips parting to accept my searching tongue. When the kiss broke for an instant, I pressed my forehead against his. I was naked in his arms, laid bare for him.

  “I can’t do it,” I said, breathless. “No one can make me kill you, not even my parents.”

  “What if you’re making a mistake?” he asked.

  “There’s another way. There has to be.”

  “And if there isn’t?”

  “Then we burn together.” I kissed him again. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone else before.”

  “So do I.”

  “Then tell me. Tell me how you really feel.”

  “Dahlia you must know—”

  —I plunged my hands into his hair and kissed him again, pressing my lips against his like my life depended on it. “I don’t care what you think I know,” I gasped, “I want you to say it, and then I want you to take me on that bed and make me yours this time.”

  The Prince turned off to the side and carried me to his bed. There he set me gently down, arching over me with one hand on the bed and another on my cheek. I kept my legs wrapped around his waist, holding myself against him. He kissed my forehead, then the corner of my mouth, and then my lips.

  When the kiss broke, he paused, his lips hovering over mine, his hot breath breaking against my face like a wave. “I started falling for you the moment I saw you,” he said.

  My words caught in my throat.

  “You were the one whose name was written in my stars,” he said, “You were the one who I thought of when I was alone, the one I wanted to see, the only one I cared to spend time with. You, Dahlia, are the one that fate chose for me, but I am the one who chose you.”

  I touched his face with my fingertips, brushing my fingers up and along the length of his horns, but I kept quiet. I didn’t think I would’ve been able to speak if I’d wanted to. Breathless, adrenalized, and so desperately wet for him, I waited, my fingers trembling as I touched him.

  His hand moved from my cheek to my neck, to my collar, then glided up the curve of one of my breasts. My breath hitched again, my back arched, and the ache at the center of me only bloomed into something so powerful, I wasn’t sure I would be able to hold on for much longer.

  “Tell me,” I whispered.

  He kissed me, then gently took my lower lip in his teeth and pierced it lightly with one of his sharpened canines. The prick of pain only heightened my need, my desire—brought me closer. He licked my lip, tasting my blood.

  “I have fallen for you, Dahlia,” he whispered. “I have fallen the way I never expected to fall for a woman before. You have woken up something inside of me I thought didn’t exist.”

  I moaned against his lips; a primal, animal sound. “More,” I breathed.

  He kissed my chin, then my neck, then my collar. “I want you,” he whispered, his warm breath exciting my nipples an instant before he took one into his mouth.

  I dipped my hands into his hair released the hold I had around his waist. Slowly, the Prince slid down the length of my body, trailing kisses along my stomach, my abdomen, my hip. When his warm tongue made contact with my wet, aching center, it took everything I had not to scream.

  Instead, I grabbed hold of the bedsheets with my hands and wrapped my legs around him—only this time it was his shoulders I was straddling. The Prince slid his hands under my thighs, holding me to him while his tongue worked. It was an experience like none I had ever felt. Tears were coming, my lip was bleeding, but I had to keep biting it to stifle the groans that were trying to claw their way out and into being.

  When I couldn’t hold it any longer, I grabbed hold of his horns and bucked my hips against his tongue, riding my climax as it surged through me like a wave. Trembling, shuddering, pulsing, I had to throw a hand up against my mouth to catch the shriek that had just about escaped.

  My vision was starting to blur, my ears popped, and my heart was pounding so fast I thought I was about to pass out. I wasn’t aware that I had released my vice-like grip around his head, or that he had undone his trousers, until he was guiding himself into me.

  This time I did moan, and it was loud, and raw, and absolutely uncontrollable. The Prince’s careful movements only served to stretch out the immense pleasure wave I was still riding. I hadn’t come down from the high, and what he was doing to me only made it all better, more vivid, more explosive.

  I dug my fingernails into his backside while he gave me what I’d asked for a moment ago. Thrust after powerful thrust, the Prince pr
essed his lips against mine and we kissed through the experience, breaking only to exchange the kinds of words people say in the heat of the moment, when the endorphins are dancing.

  “What am I?” I breathed.

  “My mate,” he growled.

  I bit his lower lip this time. “Prove it.”

  The Prince pulled me closer to him, allowing him to go deeper, and faster, and harder. I felt his breath sharpen and his muscles tense the instant before release. Grabbing hold of his backside, I yanked him to me toward the apex of his climax. He pressed his face into the bed, beside my head, roaring as he erupted.

  There was a tingle in the pit of my stomach that bloomed into a surge of heat as he made good on his promise and made me his. I held onto him while the moment came and went, breathing harshly with him. We were both sweating. Had there been windows in here, they’d have been steamed up by now.

  “Don’t let me go,” he said against my ear.

  “I won’t. I promise.” I kissed his cheek.

  We stayed there a moment longer, the two of us locked together, breathing together, sweating together. I didn’t care if anyone had heard, because they obviously had, and caring would only have made that worse. Hell, Mira and Mel had probably heard from their tents. I hadn’t been quiet.

  The Prince raised his head and looked down at me. I wiped some of the sweat off his brow and smiled.

  “Now what to do we do?” he asked.

  “Now, we stay,” I said, “We stay, I train, and I figure out how to beat this thing inside of you without killing you.”

  “What about the Veridian?”

  I shook my head. “One problem at a time. But we can’t go, Cillian. If I leave, they’ll die.”

  “And if I don’t leave…”

  “You have me, now. And if I have to ride you every minute of every day to keep him from bubbling up, then that’s what I’ll do.”

  “That sounds… immensely tiring,” he said, an eyebrow cocked.

  “Is that a complaint?”

  “Not at all. You know I love a good challenge.”

  “I do. I also know it’s your biggest weakness, and you can rest assured I’ll use it for good and for evil.”

  “Evil? How?”

  “Whenever I want you to do that thing you just did with your mouth again…”

  “Oh, that is evil.”

  “Isn’t it just?” I patted him on the backside. “Now, how about you get off me and we go find something to eat? I’m starving.”

  “Will they let me join you this time?”

  I shrugged. “I’m the white wolf. They’re going to have to.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Again,” Toross barked.

  “We’ve tried this a hundred times,” I said, “I’m not going to get it.”

  “You will do it, or the only way you’re getting out of here is by going through me.”

  We were standing on a snowy cliff overlooking the village. The sun beamed high in the clear sky, the air was crisp and cool, but I was sweating and breathing hard. It had been almost a week since Toross started training me. I was getting pretty good at shapeshifting, and I could stand up for myself in a fight using my wolf form—which they called the predator’s aspect.

  What I’d had trouble with, though, was magic.

  I couldn’t summon it, even with my mother’s dagger. Toross suspected my human side was repressing that part of me somehow, keeping it contained. He was probably right. I had grown up in an environment where I was forbidden from triggering the magic in the very dresses I was being asked to make.

  It was a twenty-four-year-old habit I was being asked to break, and it wasn’t giving up easily.

  Toross had brought me to the edge of the cliff, and had been taking a step toward me every time I failed to manifest even a little magic. I had my dagger gripped tightly in my right hand, and I was wearing a new suit of leather armor I had made for myself. It was white, it had a furry cloak and hood, and it clung nicely to my body, but the best part about it were the spells I had woven into its seams.

  I tugged on a thread under my right wrist and snapped it like a whip, summoning a trail of sparks and embers. “There,” I said, “Better?”

  “I’m not interested in your tricks,” he said, “I want to see real magic, the magic of your parents, of our ancestors. I know it’s in there.”

  “And if it’s not?”

  “It is. You know it is too.”

  “Fine, but what if I can’t call it out again? What if it only works in extreme situations?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think you understand just how extreme your situation is right now,” he said, taking another step toward me. I backed up, and some of the snow under my foot gave. I was able to hold my balance, but I had reached the edge of the cliff. Behind me there was only the whooshing wind, and a rolling drop all the way to the village.

  “You won’t kill me,” he said.

  “Not deliberately, no.”

  “Not even by accident. You’re my uncle. I know you won’t let me die.”

  “I will do my best to save your life if I’m able, but I don’t think even I would be able to catch you if you fell off that cliff.”

  I pointed at his feet with the tip of the dagger. “Which is why you’re going to stop exactly where you are. This is getting ridiculous, Toross—we’ve been at this for hours today.”

  “Complaining will not get you out of this.”

  “What will, then?”

  “I have told you many, many times. Magic. I want you to call on it and use it.”

  I shook my head. “I really wish I could help you, there, but it’s just not working.”

  Toross paused. “Don’t you want to learn how to dedicate your clothes?”

  “Dedicate them?”

  “Enchant them, so they won’t fall off you when you shapeshift.”

  My cheeks and chest flushed as I recalled all the fun the Prince and I had been having for that very reason. I trained most days, from sunup to sundown. A lot of the time I spent in my predator’s aspect, learning not only how to fight in it, but how to eat, drink, rest, and live in it. The only time I got to slip out of it was after a long day of work, once I’d returned to my tent.

  There was something about watching me shift back into my human form, naked, that made him so eager to ravish me… I couldn’t understand it, but I also wasn’t complaining.

  Definitely not.

  “I mean…” I paused, “I guess I’m in no rush?”

  Toross’ eyebrow cocked. “You should want to be able to dedicate your clothes. You should also want to know how to use your magic. It is your gift, the gift of your mother.”

  “I know.” I shook my head. “Look, it’s not that I don’t want to, I just can’t do it. The last time I really called on it, I was… so angry.”

  “Angry?”

  I sighed. “Some bitches had dragged me out of my bed and locked me in an aviary.”

  By the look on his face, he didn’t understand the word bitch or aviary. “Is that… bad?”

  “There were birds everywhere, and Mareen had whipped them into a frenzy. They were attacking me, and they just wouldn’t stop. I remember finding somewhere to hide, but there was so much noise… all the squawking, the shrieking. Something inside of me snapped, and I screamed, and my voice was enough to shatter the glass keeping the birds locked in the aviary.”

  Toross was silent for a moment. “So, anger triggers the magic?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been that angry since.”

  Another pause. He cleared his throat. “You know… Mira and I will be sharing a meal tonight.”

  My chest tightened and I perked up. “You… what?”

  “Yes. We, uh, talked, and decided we should talk more… in private.”

  I shook my head and waved my hands. “Wait, wait. Hold on. You and Mira are having dinner? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  “I thought she had told you.”<
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  I could already feel my heart starting to pound. It was making my vision tremble. “She has told me nothing of the sort.” I scanned his eyes, “Wait, are you lying to me?”

  Toross’ face hardened. “I am a man of great honor. I don’t lie.”

  “Seriously, tell me the truth right now. Are you lying to me? Are you really going to dinner with Mira tonight?”

  He took a deep breath. “I am not lying,” he said. “Mira and I have a lot in common.”

  I laughed in his face, but it was an angry, panicked laugh that was kind of all over the place. “You two could not be more different!” I yelled, “What could you possibly have in common?”

  “She is… interested in food, as am I.”

  “Just because you both eat doesn’t mean you share that in common. Try again uncle.”

  “Mira is a proficient archer, and she has many skills I find interesting.”

  “Alright, well, you’re my uncle, and she’s my friend, and I don’t think it’s a good idea for the two of you to have dinner. In fact, I think I told her to keep away from you.”

  “Yes, she had mentioned that. And she had also suggested you would be upset by the news, but you—my niece—cannot tell either of us what we should or shouldn’t do with our time.”

  I shook my head, purely because I didn’t know what else to say. Yes, he was right, I didn’t have a leg to stand on here. But Mira and I were friends! It was weird that they were getting close, and I didn’t like it. I mean, what would happen if they hit it off and—oh Gods—got married or something?! Would she be my… my aunt?

  Oh no… no, no, no!

  I spun around and faced away from him, shutting my eyes and letting the wind cool my face as it rushed past. It didn’t work. My heart was slamming against my chest like a caged animal desperate to get out and tear him to pieces.

  Tear them both to pieces for putting me in this position.

  “Dahlia…” Toross called out to me.

  I didn’t turn around.

  “I thought you would want me to be happy.”