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

moon children weren’t too happy my mother had taken a human for a mate. He also told me she’d been visited by an… emissary? I think I’m remembering that right.”

“An emissary?” Mel asked, “An emissary of what?”

“Fate,” I said. I shook my head. “It told my mother I would be special, somehow.”

Mel nodded at the marks on my hand. “It wasn’t wrong. Why not protect you herself, though?”

I clenched my hand into a fist and examined the mark. “Because the emissary told her she would die three days after giving birth, and she believed it. She made preparations to have me smuggled out to the human world. I don’t know how she knew my other mothers, but she must have. By the time Toross came back from his mission, leaving me with the women that raised me, my mother and father were both… dead.”

Saying it stung all over again. I felt my chest constrict over my heart and lungs, making it instantly difficult to breathe. The tears came. I shut my eyes to try to stop them, but it didn’t work. I heard Gullie come buzzing past my ear and flutter somewhere in front of me.

A moment later, a little cloud of pixie dust caressed my cheeks and nose. I inhaled some of it as it passed by, and slowly, the pain in my chest started to subside. Slowly, over time, I regained the ability to take normal breaths, but it was a hard-fought battle even with Gullie’s help.

“This is ridiculous,” I said, as tears freely streamed down my cheeks. “I never even met them. Why am I so fucking sad?”

Mel and Mira remained silent. They were trying their best to understand me, but this was probably something they weren’t used to. I had never seen any of the fae shed as much as a single tear. I wasn’t even sure they could cry, much less understand all of this.

“They were your parents,” Gullie said. “It doesn’t matter that you never met them, your heart knew them.”

I took another deep, cleansing breath and exhaled. “I can’t sit in this bed all day,” I said.

Mira nodded. “I agree. You should get up and start training. These people want you to pass their tests, and it didn’t sound like the Alpha was going to give you a second chance.”

I sat upright, keeping the blanket up and above my chest. “They want me to kill. I don’t know if I can do that.”

“You’re going to have to think of something, then. I’m not sure our chances of escaping this place are very high, even we rode out of here on your back.”

“That’s not happening.”

“The only way out is through, right?” Mel asked. I had taught her that, too. “So, we’ll get you ready, and when it comes time to kill… I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out,” I said, “If I don’t have it in me to kill anyone, then we’re on a timer. We’d better start looking for a way to get out of here. It’s what Colin suggested, anyway.”

“He asked you to leave?” Mira asked.

“He told me about the reputation these people have. That they’re dangerous, that they’re cannibals.”

“I’ve heard the same stories,” Mel said, “But I’ve also heard about how these are deeply spiritual people motivated by virtues and not vices. It’s up to us, here and now, to try and learn which of those are true.”

I paused. “Well, I haven’t seen them eat anyone yet.”

“Yet,” Gullie put in. “But the night is young, as they say.”

“Even if that’s true, I doubt if you have much to worry about.”

“Yeah, there’s not much meat on me.”

I frowned. “Because you have wings, not because you’re basically a snack.” I shook my head. “And I want you to use them. Promise me, first sign of trouble, you get up into the air and you get out of here.”

“If I was ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble, I’d be long gone by now.”

My stomach rumbled and I side-eyed the plate on the floor. Mira, noticing, picked it up and handed it over to me. A moment later, I was eating fruits and bits of bread, satisfying the hungry animal inside of me that had just woken up from its nap.

“If we’re going to get out of here,” Mira said, “We have to do it at night, under cover of darkness. We also need to coordinate ahead of time considering we sleep in different tents.”

“That’s right,” Mel said, “And you have a roommate to consider.”

Lora. “Shit,” I said after swallowing a mouthful of fruit. “I’d forgotten about her.”

“You’re also forgetting about the whole uncle situation,” Gullie said. “He saved your life out there today. Are you really just going to leave him?”

“I don’t know, Gull. I feel like I owe him, but I also feel like we’re all in worse danger the longer we stay here. Maybe we should just leave in the dead of night—make for the edge of the forest as quickly as we can.”

“We’ve got another problem,” Mel said, “They brought Ollie here, but they couldn’t bring the carriage through the stone circle. It was too big.”

“I didn’t see it the last time I was out there,” I said, “Where is it?”

“As far as I know, parked somewhere nearby. It should still be intact. The only thing is, we’d have to get to it first before we can use it, that means we have to get out of this place on foot with a giant elk in tow. We can totally rule out the stealthy approach.”

I pondered as I thought. “We’ll need a distraction… something to keep them all occupied while we make our escape. This is going to need some seriously careful planning if we’re going to get it right.”

A tense pause moved through the room while the four of us considered just how difficult this breakout might be. There were already a lot of moving parts to think about, and night was fast