Marked (The Coldest Fae Book 3)

by Katerina Martinez

  “It is the obvious choice. My brother has somehow become a malevolent, invading entity. The only way to get rid of him is through exorcism, but I don’t know the rituals.”

  “Neither do I, but the moon children do.”

  “They do?”

  “Mel, Mira, and Gullie have been studying the problem all week. They think they know what they have to do, but I can’t stress enough just how dangerous this could be.”

  “If you think this is the right way forward…”

  “There’s more. I don’t know how the Veridian plays into all this, and by the sounds of it I don’t suppose you do either?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Did your brother ever allude to anything? Did he let slip some surface thought you were able to pick up on?”

  “Nothing like that ever happened. At first it was simply a sense. He, in his current form, came from there, somehow. How, I don’t know.”

  “You never really told me what happened with him.”

  “Because I don’t want to speak of him. I feel like by simply mentioning him, we’re inviting his presence into this room, and I don’t want that.”

  “I know, Cillian, but we can’t keep hiding from him. Sooner or later, he’s going to come back, and we need to know as much as we can if we’re going to get him out of you safely. Please… I need you to tell me what happened. Maybe there’s a clue in the story.”

  Cillian stood up, then sat on the bed next to me. He ran his fingers through his black hair, then moved them across his beard, taking a breath before speaking. “He is my older brother,” Cillian said, “My father’s first son, his heir, his favorite. I don’t have first-hand experience of his early years, but I know from what I have been told, he and my father did everything together. Hunted together, trained together, fought together. They were inseparable, and that continued well into his final days and nights.”

  “And your mother?”

  “My mother nurtured him, cared for him, but he was… too male for her. He was rude to her, disrespectful. His prejudice towards women manifested early, and my father did little to discourage it.”

  “That’s common, isn’t it? Disrespecting females among your kind.” I shook my head. “Our kind.”

  He nodded. “It is. Females, queens included, are there to breed and look after our infants until they can take care of themselves. For males, that happens sooner than for females.”

  “You’re not like that.”

  He turned his head to the side to look at me. “My mother would never have permitted me to disrespect a female simply because of her gender. Perhaps if I had spent more time with my father, my edge towards women would’ve been sharper, and colder, but he cared more for Radulf’s continuing development than mine. Radulf was to be his heir… he never even made it to his Royal Selection.”

  A pause. “Why did he leave?”

  Cillian turned away. I could tell he didn’t want to go into this, but he was going to have to. I took his hand, trying to encourage him to speak without fear of… anything. He had nothing to worry about with me. I doubted if there was anything he could say that would make me run off.

  “There was an attack on the castle,” he said, “My father had him fight in the vanguard… he was injured, the healers couldn’t stop the bleeding. He and my father left together one night, stole away under cover of darkness. Only my father returned days later, and he commanded Radulf be stricken from all records, all mention of his name erased.”

  “He took your brother to the Veridian…”

  Cillian nodded. “It’s the only logical conclusion.”

  “He thought the Veridian could save his life.”

  “If that’s true, then my father was clearly wrong. What happened out there, I don’t know. My father threatened to execute anyone who spoke of it or questioned him about it—even my mother.”

  I shook my head. “That doesn’t explain how Radulf’s spirit… invaded you.”

  “I know. I thought perhaps I would find answers in the Veridian since I sensed it so strongly on him when he manifested that night.”

  “Do you think he wants you to go to it because he’ll get stronger from it?”

  “It’s possible. I have no way of knowing. I’ve given deep consideration to the possibility that he’s trying to gain more power, and that by taking him to the place where this happened to him, I would only be meeting his needs. But there’s something to be said about places of power, even dark power.”

  I angled my head to the side. “What do you mean?”

  “If it made him… it can unmake him. It’s a risk, and I may not be able to help when it comes time to remove him. I have to admit, magic is not my best strength. My mother gifted me with healing magic, I have learned how to create portals, and I know many spells that will help me in a fight, but with an exorcism?” He shook his head, “Nothing like that.”

  “The moon children might be able to help.”

  “Do you really think they will now that they know who I am?”

  “Probably not… I may have screwed up our chances.”

  “Maybe. But they were going to find out eventually, especially if we stayed here. Better they know now than later.”

  “I should talk to Ashera… Melina thinks we can draw the Veridian out through you. Maybe between the four of us we can combine our skills to perform an exorcism. But Ashera is the Alpha of this pack—if anyone around here knows how to rip a spirit out of a person, it’s going to be her. We stand a better chance with her as an ally.”

  “And the Veridian?”

  “I think I want to try to remove him without summoning the storm… but I don’t know if that’ll even be possible?”

  “Why not?”

  “Gullie suspects you’re a… sponge for magic. That there’s a beacon inside of you that’ll light up when exposed to great deals of it and that alone is enough to bring the Veridian on you. I’m pretty sure an exorcism will generate enough power to call the storm.”

  “So, no matter what we do…”

  I nodded. “We don’t have a lot of options, Cillian… but I want him out of you. I can’t deal with the thought that he’s in there, hurting you, trying to find a way out.”

  “Our bond is his prison.”

  “I know… but that won’t last forever.”

  He tucked a little silver hair behind my pointed ear and gazed into my eyes. “Are you planning on staying with me forever?”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Is that a proposition, my Prince?”

  A slight grin swept across his lips. “I would never do something so crass as to propose in such a manner.”

  “Out of curiosity… how would you do it?”

  The Prince slid off the edge of the bed and got to his knees. He placed his hands on my thighs, and I parted them to let him move in between them. Slowly, his hands climbed from my thigs up to my ribs, then he brought them down to settle on my hips. He stared at me, his big, blue eyes gleaming.

  “Dahlia…” he said, and my heart surged into my throat.

  Wait.

  I couldn’t speak.

  “Will you do me the pleasure…”

  Wait… what’s happening? My heart started hammering against the sides of my neck. It pulsed with so much force, I was sure the fae in the tent three doors down would be able to hear it. I stared at the Prince, my eyes locked with his, my breathing almost completely stopped at this point.

  The Prince’s hands came back up, his hands wrapping around my back, his fingers searching for the lace that kept my leather armor held in place. “Of helping me with these straps?” he asked.

  I swallowed. “Wh—what?”

  He leaned a little closer, his lips hovering an inch away from mine. “Were you expecting a different question?”

  Trembling. “I… I don’t know.”

  “We are about to embark on a dangerous mission…” he whispered as his fingers worked. “We may not make it back alive. I want to taste my mate one mor
e time before that happens.”

  “T-taste…?”

  What the hell? Why couldn’t I speak?

  “Yes,” he whispered against my lips, and the warmth of his breath against my mouth sent a warm, pleasurable racing into the pit of my stomach that left me suddenly aching. “Unless you would rather leave without it?”

  Whatever was keeping me locked in place suddenly unstuck itself. I scrambled to pull apart the laces keeping my leather bodice wrapped around my chest, and as soon as it was free, I kissed him deeply. Cillian hooked his fingers into my waistband, and I lifted myself up just far enough for him to be able to slide them off right from under me.

  In moments I was completely naked and hurrying him out of his own clothes like my life depended on it. “No one can hear us this time,” I breathed into his mouth. “They think we’re talking about really serious stuff.”

  “This is serious.”

  “Cillian, I mean it.”

  The Prince slid out of his. He pulled my naked body toward his. “Then don’t let them hear you.”

  “I’m not always the loud one.”

  “You are far louder than you think.”

  I slid my hand down his abdomen and grabbed hold of him tightly, making him moan. “So are you,” I hissed.

  He bit my lower lip. “Fine,” he said, and then he took me by the shoulders, spun me around, and pushed me face first into the bed and knelt behind me. “Be as loud as you want against the mattress.”

  “Mattress? Wait, what are you—” I felt the Prince’s warm hands on my backside, and a moment later, I felt his tongue start doing that thing that I loved. I gripped the bedsheets tightly, pressed my face into the bed, and could’ve screamed from the pleasure that burned through me like wildfire.

  We had done a lot of things this past week, but this? This was new, and a welcome distraction from all that had already happened tonight.

  On his knees he treated me like a queen, like his queen. He hadn’t been joking about wanting to taste me, and I was in no position to argue—I was only in a position to enjoy it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I needed to talk to Ashera, though I was probably the last person she wanted to see. Our last interaction hadn’t exactly gone swimmingly. I was pretty sure she wanted to kill me, or send me away from the village, especially now that she knew who Cillian truly was. I hadn’t wanted to leave him alone while I went to talk to her, but I didn’t have much of a choice.

  You could learn just about anything on the internet, but even if I had access to it here, I doubt I could find a decent exorcism ritual. Ashera was the only person I could think of who might be able to help. Alright, that wasn’t exactly true; there was also Toross. But he was Ashera’s Beta, and I’d already pissed her off enough.

  Going to her Beta behind her back could’ve been enough to make her actually try to kill me instead of just want to.

  Jaleem and Lora were both standing sentry by the entrance to the main tent. They tightened around the opening as I arrived, making it clear they weren’t going to just let me head on inside at my own leisure.

  “She doesn’t want to talk to you,” Lora said, her tone cold and distant.

  “I need to see her,” I said.

  “I do not care what you want.”

  Jaleem seemed to share her sentiment. I stared at them both, anger starting to flare inside of me like the birthing of a sun. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, “But I am the Alpha’s number three, and Toross is her number two, which puts me above you in the pack.”

  Lora cocked an eyebrow. “You are no member of this pack.”

  “No? That’s not what your Alpha said.”

  “We won’t step aside,” Jaleem said.

  I nodded. “She might not want to see me, but I’m telling you to step aside. Now. Or I’ll do to you what I did to Praxis, and he was much bigger, and way stronger than either of you two nitwits.”

  They looked at each other as though I’d confused them with the word nitwit. Then a voice floated out from inside the tent. “Let her in,” Ashera called out.

  Lora turned her head. “Alpha, you said—”

  “—I know what I said. Step aside.”

  The guards at the door turned to look at me. Then, scowling, both of them did as their Alpha demanded and cleared the way for me to walk through. It unsettled me a little that neither of them seemed even the slightest bit interested in following my instructions. I was pretty sure they were breaking with pack tradition by challenging me like that, considering I’d just won a challenge only a few hours ago.

  I decided not to press the issue and simply go inside to talk to the Alpha.

  Ashera was sitting at the head of a long table covered in plates that had once been full of food. There were empty pitchers on the table, cups, and traces of whatever beast had just been cooked and devoured in here. It stung that I hadn’t been invited, but I doubted if I would’ve wanted to come considering what I’d just been getting up to with the Prince.

  She turned her eyes up and looked at me, then gestured for me to sit next to her on one of the carefully embroidered cushions. I walked over to it, sat myself down, and looked over at her. For a moment, neither of us spoke. We simply stared at each other as the tension in the room grew, and grew.

  I was about to speak, when she raised a hand. “Bring us more food and drink,” she called out. From behind a curtain, someone seemed to listen and get immediately to work.

  “That’s not necessary,” I said.

  “You will eat at my table,” she said, her words short and curt.

  I frowned. “Very well… but we should also talk.”

  “We should. You brought the enemy to our door. Made us feed him, heal him… and now you put yourself between us and the justice our people deserve. Why? Because you want him inside you?” She scoffed.

  I stared blankly at her, feeling the sting of embarrassment. I hadn’t expected her to use those words, and they’d caught me off guard. I did my best to shake it off. “That’s not why I’m protecting him,” I said.

  “Then why?”

  “Because you’re wrong about him.”

  “He is not the Prince of Windhelm? The heir to the throne of winter?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Then he is the enemy.”

  I shook my head. “He’s not your enemy, or my enemy. Look, I know I’ve only been here a little over a week. I can’t be expected to know every single little detail about what happened between your people and the fae of Windhelm, but I can tell you this situation is far more complicated than you think… and I need your help.”

  “My help? With what?”

  “That’s just it. I’m sure that as soon as I tell you, you won’t want to help me.”

  She slammed the table with her fist. “And with good reason!” she snarled. “You came into my home, ate our food, accepted our hospitality, and all this time you have been sleeping with the man responsible for the death of many of our kind. Your kind.”

  “He’s not responsible for that!”

  “And you know this how? You, who were once banished to Earth and called back only to take part in the Royal Selection. You know nothing about your own people, how could you possibly know anything about his?”

  A sharp cold tore through me. “Toross told you…”

  “He is my Beta. He tells me everything.”

  Of course he did.

  I wasn’t sure why I had expected him to keep what I had told him a secret. I had told him mostly everything; my mothers, my kidnapping, the selection. I had concealed the part where I’d slowly fallen for the very man who had stolen me from my home, though—for obvious reasons—and it was a good thing I had, too.

  I had no idea how Toross would’ve taken it if I’d told him the Prince of Windhelm was currently living in his village, or that I had started falling for him. Knowing, now, that he would’ve gone and told Ashera everything whether I was ready to reveal it or not made it clear I had dodg
ed a lethal bullet by keeping that secret to myself.

  “I know you want justice,” I said, “Toross has told me… a lot of things since we started training. I know more about our people now than when I arrived. I also know you were friends with my mother.”

  “I was her Beta. She trusted me.”

  “I know. And that’s why I’m going to trust you now when I tell you what I have to tell you. But before I do, you need to promise you’ll keep an open mind.”

  She frowned. “Go on?”

  “You doubted I was the white wolf because the first part of the prophecy has not happened yet.”

  “When brother turns on brother…” she nodded.

  “I’m going to tell you now that it has. The Prince of Windhelm… the original Prince, Radulf. Do you know of him?”

  “We hear only stories of the castle fae. Few of us still alive have ever seen any of the King’s children.”

  “Do you know his first son is dead?”

  “Yes…”

  I shook my head. “He’s not dead. He was attacked once, some time ago. Seriously injured. His father took him to the Veridian hoping it could heal him, but then something happened to him to turn him into some kind of… spirit.”

  “Spirit?”

  “That spirit then possessed his own brother. I don’t know how, but he has dwelled within him for… well, for years. Slowly, he gathered enough power to be able to influence his brother’s thoughts, and even some of his actions. I heard they were planning an invasion of Earth, with the Prince leading the attack.”

  “An invasion? Why?”

  “That doesn’t matter now. What matters is, these are the two men spoken of in the prophecy… they are why I’m here.”

  Ashera was having a hard time with this. I could see it on her face, the disbelief, the distrust. Part of her still didn’t believe I was the white wolf, but if I had been able to believe it, then I had to make her believe, too. It was the only way we were going to be able to help Cillian and stop the Veridian from bringing darkness to the land.

  “Alpha…” I said, trying to play the pack card. “I need your help. We all do. If we can take Radulf out of his brother’s body, we may be able to stop this before it starts.”