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

cold biting at my nose, the tips of my ears, my cheeks. After a moment, though, the cold didn’t really bother me all that much anymore. Adrenaline was coursing through me, and my heart was pumping hard enough that I was starting to warm up from the inside out.

The closer I got to the light on the other side of the lake, though, the dimmer it got. I saw it receding, fading. I stretched my hand out, “No wait!” I yelled, but the light eventually became a tiny blue dot, then disappeared just as I reached the other side of the lake.

I staggered a couple of steps before finally coming to a stop on solid ground. Panting, hot steam issuing from between my lips in puffs, I looked around, searching for the source of the light, but it was gone, and I couldn’t find it.

“What is happening?!” I yelled. “Where are you?!”

“Dahlia,” I heard a voice that made me freeze to the spot. It came from behind me somewhere, and as I slowly turned, I saw two figures standing by the edge of the lake I had just dashed across, wreathed in moonlight.

It was a man and a woman. The man was tall, with shaggy blonde hair and kind blue eyes. He was wearing a brown, tweed jacket, black trousers, and a grey scarf around his neck. The woman was somehow taller, with long, silvery hair, and even though she was slender, she still exuded strength and confidence. She wore a combination of furry leathers, most of them black and deep brown, that clung perfectly to her body and looked comfortable to wear.

They were bathed in moonlight. Both were smiling, he was handsome, she was beautiful, but neither looked like they were dressed appropriately for the weather around us. I wanted to ask who they were—it was an instinct—but I didn’t have to. It would’ve been stupid to waste breath on such an obvious question. My knees gave out from under me and I fell to the snowy dirt.

I was already crying.

“What is this?” I asked.

My mother tucked some of her brilliant, silvery hair behind a long, pointed ear. “You know what this is,” she said.

“I don’t. Is it… is it really you, or is this another fae trick?”

“Look inside yourself. What does your heart tell you?”

“My heart hurts. So much has happened, sometimes I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t anymore. I couldn’t bear it if this was a trick.”

My father approached, taking a few steps across the snow. He extended a hand, and without hesitating, I took it. As soon as my skin touched his, I grabbed him as if he was a life-ring and I was adrift on a cold, black sea. I couldn’t have rushed into his arms any faster. I clung to him and sobbed into his chest, not speaking, just crying.

A moment later, I felt my mother’s hand touched my back, and soon, all three of us were joined in the embrace. Once a broken, separated family, now whole again. I didn’t want to doubt this. I lost myself completely in it. If it was a trick, then let me be tricked. I could care less at this point.

“We should speak quickly,” my mother said, “We don’t have much time.”

I perked up, my eyes and nose red, tears wetting my face. “Time? What do you mean?”

“The magic that brought us all here won’t last long.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You touched my dagger, did you not?”

I turned my eyes up to look at her. “I… I don’t remember, but I think I did.”

She looked down at me and brushed my hair with her fingers. “That is why you’re here. That is why we’re here.”

“But isn’t this… what is this? Are you ghosts?”

My mother and father exchanged soft smiles. “We passed from this place a long time ago,” my father said, “But when you touched the dagger, it brought us back so that you could see us. So that we could see you—see the woman you’ve become.”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t want you to leave,” I said, “The fae took away my mothers, I won’t let them take you away as well.”

“We don’t have a choice, but we still have some time.” He took one of my hands, my mother took the other.

I looked up at my mother. “How did you know I would touch the dagger?” I asked, “I thought you never wanted me to come back here.”

“I didn’t,” she said, “It isn’t safe for you here. It’s the reason why I sent you to Earth. But I knew, one day, you would come back. Even I wasn’t strong enough to re-write your fate.”

“We didn’t know how you would be brought back here,” my father said, “Only that one day, fate would call on you to return to fulfil your destiny.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t want a destiny. I wanted to keep living my life back at home, where it was safe.”

“Safe is not an environment in which people grow, and you have grown to be an outstanding woman… we are both so very proud of you, Dahlia. You have inside of you the best of both of us. You have my strength and my cunning, and you have his… human eyes.”

“Hey,” my father protested.

My mother grinned. “You inherited his ingenuity, his creativity, and his skill with a needle.”

“You made clothes?” I asked.

“I made this little number,” he said, pointing at his tweed jacket. “It’s a little dated now, but it’s comfortable.”

I shook my head. “I never knew you were a tailor. I never knew… I… I have so many questions for you both.”

“I know,” my mother said, “But we don’t have time to answer them all for you. In fact, our time grows shorter by the second, and we have something important to tell you.”

“What is it?”

She paused. “They need you, Dahlia.”

“Who does?”

“The moon children. They are lost without you, and I fear after the next battle, there won’t be enough