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

“You’re forgiven. Now, how about we get ready? That storm is going to get here very quickly.”

I turned my eyes up at it again. It already looked like it had crossed half the world to get here. The wind was picking up, rustling the tops of the trees. Furious streaks of lightning whipped around inside of the clouds as they descended, followed loosely by rumbling thunder. I turned my eyes on the Prince, and for a moment we locked.

He didn’t speak. Instead, he pressed two fingers against his heart. I mimicked the gesture. There was no time for words, no room for further comforts. It was time to fight.

The Veridian was coming, bringing with it what felt like the end of the world.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

All hell broke loose fast. No sooner had the Veridian fallen upon us that the first Wenlow came lumbering out of the tree line. It was fast, large, covered in white fur and armed with long, curved claws that dragged on the ground as it ran. It flashed its giant, gagged teeth, its huge, cavernous mouth spreading from one side of its face to the other, but the worst part was its eyes.

They were deep black sockets, with nothing inside them.

No anger.

No joy.

Just darkness and hunger.

Lora, who had clearly gained rank after I’d beaten Praxis, was the first of the wolves to attack. The grey wolf threw herself at the Wenlow, her fangs barred, her fur bristly and sharp. The other two followed, hurling themselves into the fight behind their leader.

Instead of becoming paralyzed, Lora leapt onto the creature paws first, slamming against its chest and clamping her jaws down on its shoulder. It staggered back a couple of steps and went to peel her off with its claws, but Praxis bit down on one of its arms, and Jaleem grabbed the other one. Together, the three wolves took the Wenlow down with a mighty thud and began taking large bites of its flesh, spraying its blue blood all over the snow.

“Yes!” Gullie screamed, “Take that, asshole!”

Excitement rippled through us. The Wenlow wasn’t getting back up, and the more the wolves tore into it, the less it struggled. They were doing it. They were killing the creature, and they’d done it almost effortlessly, coordinating their attacks to make sure it couldn’t hurt them, but they would kill it.

“Do not celebrate yet,” Toross said. My uncle had moved a little closer to me. He pointed at the trees beyond the wolves. “Look.”

Lightning was striking more frequently, now, the rumbling thunder reaching us almost immediately after each strike. As each lightning bolt streaked into the woods, it offered a little illumination in an otherwise pitch-dark area. There, in the dark, were more shapes lumbering toward us, moving quietly, slowly, relentlessly toward us.

My mouth fell open a little. “There’s… so many of them,” I said. Each one of them a human lost to Arcadia.

“We must tighten our perimeter,” Toross said, “They are slow, but they will overrun us quickly.”

“Will they paralyze us?”

“Moon children have a resistance to their magic, but… yes. If we don’t act quickly enough, they will be impossible to resist.”

Nodding, I took three steps toward the wolves, but Toross caught my arm. “You wait here with the others,” he said, “I’ll go.”

I frowned at him. “Do you see that mark on my hand?” I asked.

Toross turned his eyes to the glowing tattoo on the back of my right hand. The circles and half-circles glowed with inner light, flashing brightly with each lightning strike as if they were reflective. “This mark is exactly why you must be protected.”

“I’ve already faced the Wenlow once before,” I said, “Their paralysis effect hardly worked on me then. I’d be surprised if it works on me at all, now.”

“You cannot be sure of that.”

“No, but I won’t know unless I get over there. You need to protect Mira and the others. You are the second line of defense, understood?”

He scowled at me. “You are the third… I can order you to stay here.”

“So, order me, then.”

Toross’ face screwed up, but he released my hand. “Keep them safe, uncle,” I said, and then I turned around and threw myself against the floor, wearing my predator’s aspect before my hands could touch the ground.

I broke into a sprint, racing past Mira, Melina, Gullie—the Prince. I headed straight for the trio of wolves that had just downed the first Wenlow. More were coming. They weren’t trying to keep themselves hidden, and they weren’t exactly hurrying to get to us, that meant they’d reach us one at a time.

Good.

They would be easier to deal with that way.

Ashera’s voice climbed above the chaos erupting all around us, and she began invoking the spirits of her ancestors to help her rid the Prince of the invading spirit. I wanted to turn around, to look, to help, but I had to focus on what I was doing. We all had a job today, and I had to do mine the best I could.

Keep the Wenlow away. Let Ashera finish. Save the Prince’s soul.

By the time I joined Lora and the others, the creature they had felled was well and truly dead. Its tongue was sticking out of its huge mouth, its white fur was covered in blue blood, and many pieces of its flesh were missing. The wolves moved a little closer to the edge of the forest, making a firm line between them and the exorcism taking place behind them.

“Listen to me,” I said, as I came up to Lora, “They’re going to come at us one at a time, so we’re going to take them down one at a time, and we’re going to do it quickly, before their magic can paralyze us. Understood?”

Lora stared at me, her muzzle dripping with blue blood. She couldn’t talk like I could, but she could growl, and she did, making her point clear. Lora wasn’t going to take orders from me. None