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

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