Marked (The Coldest Fae Book 3) by Katerina Martinez (novel24 .txt) 📗

Evelynth, although she liked to be called Eve. She was our Alpha before Ashera. Proud, strong, fiercely cunning and easily the most intelligent woman I had ever known. I looked up to her, not only as my Alpha, but as my big sister.”

“Alpha…” the word fell out of my mouth. It conjured images of a snarling wolf beating down her foes, tearing into them with her teeth, then howling at the full moon in the night sky. Never in a million years would I have guessed my mother was anything remotely close to that.

“She didn’t want the responsibility,” Toross said, “But after our father was killed trying to defeat the King and his forces, the mantle fell to her as the eldest of us to lead us.”

“The King killed my… my grandfather?”

“And grandmother. We retreated after he killed them. Thinking us defeated for good, he declared his new family name to be Wolfsbane.”

Another push of sinking cold worked through me. Wolfsbane. Was the Prince involved in that fight? Did he have a hand in killing my grandparents? I had questions, so many questions. I couldn’t think of which to ask first, which was the most important one to ask. We sat in silence for a moment while I went through it all in my head.

Finally, I settled on what seemed the most obvious question.

“Who was my father?” I asked.

“Your father… his name was Michael, a human who had fallen through a portal on the Winter Solstice and gotten lost in the woods. Your mother found him, freezing, dying. She did not want him to become Wenlow, so she brought him here, warmed him, nursed him back to health. Our people objected. A human had never been brought to this place before then, but she was the Alpha, and her word was law.”

“She saved him…”

Toross nodded. “For days she would not leave his tent. They spoke well into the night and into the morning. She was curious to know more about him, his world, where he came from. Some say her curiosity was always her biggest weakness. Others would disagree; say she had a human heart well before she gave hers to him. Eventually, most of us accepted him as her mate.”

I could almost see it in my mind. My mother, strong, powerful, falling in love with a man who didn’t belong in this world, who was not built to survive out here, and yet she couldn’t keep away from. It reminded me of the Prince, and the way he took a shine to me.

“He was my mother’s belore…” I said, thinking aloud.

Toross frowned. “How do you know that word?”

That cold I had felt suddenly turned to burning heat that made my entire body prickle over. “I heard it somewhere,” I lied. “I’ve picked things up since I’ve been here.”

A pause. “Which brings me to a question of my own. How did you get here?”

“I… came through a portal.”

“Obviously. But what portal? And how? When?”

I searched his face, trying to figure him out. I had no doubt he was telling me the truth about my mother, about him. I could see the truth in his eyes, I could smell it on his skin. But if I could do that, then so could he—and he was probably way better at figuring out if people were lying to him than I was.

I didn’t think there was any way around telling him the truth—even if I could take a couple of creative liberties.

I sighed. “I’ll tell you,” I said, “But first, I have another question.”

“I have already answered several.”

“I know, but please. It’s important, and… it may even be relevant to why I’m here.”

I was pushing my luck. I could tell. Exhaling deeply, Toross nodded. “Ask your question.”

“If my mother and father were both here, how did I end up in the human world?”

Toross scanned my eyes, then looked down. “There are two reasons for that. Number one had to do with your father. I said most of us accepted him, but not all. He could not shift, he could not do magic, and he smelled too human for some. There was an attempt on his life by her Beta at the time. Her Beta had wanted to be her mate, but she had given that privilege to a human, and he hated that.”

“Someone tried to kill my father?”

“Very nearly succeeded. Your mother was forced to kill her Beta in combat. After that, her hold on the pack began to slip. She named Ashera her new Beta because she did not trust many of the others.”

“Why not you?”

“That isn’t how packs work. Siblings cannot be in charge at the same time, and Ashera was a far better choice than I. In any case, the attack crippled your father. Around the same time, your mother learned of her pregnancy… and not long after that, she was visited by an emissary of Fate.”

“A what?”

“It is difficult to explain. But the emissary told her you would be special, and that you needed to be protected… and that she would die three days after giving birth.”

Tears threatened to spill again. Toross looked like he was about to stop talking, but I shook my head. “Please… go on.”

He nodded. “She told no one of the emissary’s visit except for your father. Together they formulated a plan to smuggle you out of Arcadia, to put you out of the reach of the rest of this pack. On the night after your birth, she asked me to go with her and your father into the woods.” He paused. “I held you in my arms for the first time that night, moments before your mother opened a portal for me to go into the human world…”

“You… you brought me to Earth?”

“She told me she had made arrangements for you to live with friends of your father. That they were waiting for you, and that they had been sworn never to speak a word to anyone. Not even you.”

“Why didn’t she cross herself?”

“She