Marked By Lies: A Reverse Harem Series (The Marked Series Book 1) by Paige Orr (the red fox clan TXT) 📗

They seem to be taking my revelation in stride, like they get told every day that someone has been talking to ghosts. I can’t complain really, anything is better than the usual reaction. This time it’s Cailean who has questions for me.

“I can see how that would be useful in certain situations, but how is that the key to finding our people sweetheart.”

“Well, that’s the thing. I didn’t know how until I got to the house. I asked Grey who is the ghost I speak to if he and his friends could check out some of the other houses so we could go through the investigation quicker then went to the house that I was attacked in.

As soon as I got there, I looked around and found some things that raised red flags, but it was when I switched to my sight that I found something. All over the walls was a sigil that seemed to ooze a dark aura. The thing seriously fucking creeped me out. Then just as I was about to head to the next house to check if the same sigil was there, the door opened. I managed to slip into the closest room, but as you know, things didn’t exactly go well for me.”

My hand unconsciously moves up to the shoulder that the Harpies claws pierced, finding faint scars already close over, leaving me puzzled. I don’t have long to linger on why I’m fully healed before Zaphyr leans forward at the base of my bed, catches my eye before speaking.

“We can talk about the sigil in a moment, but first, do you think you could tell us what happened with the Harpy little songbird?”

For the first time, I truly hesitate. Ashamed of how defenseless I was, even with my guns. On top of that, if I had just hidden instead of trying to sneak out, or picked another way out then I wouldn’t have got hurt in the first place. Now instead of being out there and trying to solve this shit, they are all here looking after my sorry ass.

I know that I’m just being stupid, but I can’t help feeling bitter over my powerlessness. There were so many different ways I could have dealt with things rather than putting myself into harm's way. I’m just lucky that my bullet stopped the harpy before she ended me, otherwise things would have ended differently.

I don’t know if it’s the memories that I was lost in, but I feel like that same little girl who couldn't do anything. After finding my mom that day, I ended up going completely off the rails, causing trouble for everyone around me. I know that it was just my way of lashing out at all the hurt I was feeling, but because of that, I’ve hurt so many people.

I know I’m not at fault in this situation, but that doesn’t stop those old feelings of shame and resentment from bubbling up inside me. So how am I supposed to tell these people that I screwed up their entire investigation just because I wasn’t strong enough? I know that I can’t avoid the subject, no matter how much I want to though.

“As I said, while the Harpy was distracted, I tried to sneak out the front door. Unfortunately for me, she must have turned around and seen me. I just remember being thrown across the room and landing on the coffee table. After that, we fought for a bit and I managed to stun her with a bow to the back of the head, but that just made her lash out, which was when I got her claws to my face.

That set me off balance since I could feel the poison from them eating away at the skin around the wound, which is how she managed to get me by the neck and throw me against the wall. She knocked the wind right out of me with that one, which gave her the chance to lift me up the wall by my shoulder. When she was reaching back for the final blow, I managed to get my gun pointed towards her, even though my arm was completely numb, and got a shot off.”

The shock written on everyone's face is priceless, and if I wasn't feeling so guilt-ridden, I would probably enjoy it a lot more. But instead, I can only focus on the fact that while they were all distracted with me, at least forty Fae could be going through hell.

Chapter Sixteen

Morpheus

I can see that something is eating away at Melissa, but I’m stuck on how fucking amazing this girl is. Anyone else would be falling apart at what she went through, and yet here she is putting herself down. What she managed to achieve is astounding, defeating a Harpy with the correct weapons is difficult enough, never mind doing it with a gun. On top of that, as confusing as her scent is to us, she's still only human.

I can tell that she's beating herself up about it all, but she should be giving herself a pat on the fucking back. She's lucky to have got out of that shit alive. Hell, it was touch and go for a while. We were just lucky that Annika knew someone who knew the right ritual to perform. If it wasn't for Isabella’s help, then we would have been standing over a corpse instead of talking about what happened.

That thought knocks away some of the cheerfulness that I've been feeling since her eyes opened. This woman, who could have easily told us to go and fuck ourselves when we asked for her help, was kind enough to agree, could have died because of us. I guess earlier I was just so preoccupied with making sure she was alright and then watching her while