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

“I don’t want to go back without him.”

“And we won’t, but you need to stand up first… please.”

I kept my eyes shut, planted one hand on his chest, and slowly lifted myself. My other hand was still wrapped around my dagger, and my dagger was still wedged in his heart. I unfurled my fingers, figuring that was better than pulling it out of his body.

Mira helped me the rest of the way up, and once I was on my feet, I turned around and threw my arms around her. I cried, now, letting it all out. Mel and Gullie approached and wrapped themselves around me. The Veridian was gone, and so were the Wenlow in the trees.

“I’m sorry,” Mel said, but I could barely hear what she said, let alone muster the willpower to reply.

I was broken, finished. There was nothing left of me. By killing the Prince, I had killed part of myself, too. I could feel it. Not the break in the bond he and I shared, but the absence of it. It was as if our bond had never existed in the first place, and it made me feel hollow.

“We should get the others,” Mira said, “Head back to the village. We’ll give him a proper burial.”

I grabbed hold of her clothes more tightly, pulling her closer to me. Mira returned the embrace, resting her head next to mine. “It’s going to be alright,” she whispered. “We have you, and we have each other.”

“Thank you…” I whispered between sobs.

“Come on. Let’s get back to—"

“—look out!” I screamed, and I pushed her aside just as my dagger came hurtling toward us. The dagger struck me in the shoulder. I flew several feet and fell on my back from the force of the impact, dazed, winded, confused. I had seen Cillian’s face the instant before the dagger had hit, but that couldn’t have been right.

He was dead.

Wasn’t he?

Chaos exploded around me again. There was shouting, the sounds of a fight going on. I was out of it, my brain barely capable of processing what was going on. A dagger protruded out of my shoulder, and I was bleeding from the wound. I could feel my own blood trickling out of it and tainting the snow underneath me.

Slowly, I turned my head up to see what was happening, and I had to suck in a sharp breath.

Cillian was standing. Toross charged toward him, but with the wave of a hand, he sent Toross hurtling through the air and onto his back like he was weightless. Then Melina, then Jaleem, Ashera—one by one, they all followed. None of them could get close to him, and he seemed not to be breaking a sweat. When our eyes locked, I realized, his weren’t blue anymore, but deep black—like pools of shadow.

“Not him…” I said, still dazed.

The Prince angled his head to the side and looked at me. For an instant I thought he was about to come down on me, finish me off, but he restrained himself. “Fine,” he said, almost to himself. “But that’s the last favor I do for you.”

“W-wait…” I tried to reach for him, but my shoulder shrieked with so much pain I almost lost consciousness.

I saw him walk away, just barely. He headed for the trees, then pushed into them, melting into the night. No one else had been able to stop him, or even get close to him. In moments, he was gone. He wasn’t Cillian anymore, but Radulf—and he was gone. But the worst part wasn’t that he’d come back from the dead, and his brother had taken even more control of his body.

The worst part was that I couldn’t feel our bond at all.

It really was gone.

And so was the Prince.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

It had been a week since I’d seen the Prince. Maybe two. There was no way of knowing. The days and nights all merged together into one long, never-ending string after the exorcism. I wasn’t sure how long it took for me to heal the wound in my shoulder. I wasn’t eating. Barely drinking. If not for Mira’s insistence, I probably would’ve crumpled into myself.

I had crumpled, who was I kidding?

The days dragged on, the nights twisted to become nightmares, and everywhere I looked, he was there. Not Cillian, but Radulf, infecting every last one of the few good memories I had of my time with the Prince. I felt hurt, strangely betrayed, and violated; not to mention, humiliated.

How much of it had been Cillian?

How much of it had been Radulf?

I thought I had gotten so good at telling them apart, I had barely given any strength to the idea that maybe I was wrong sometimes. That maybe Radulf was better at hiding than I gave him credit for. It still made me shudder and shake. Even when I thought I didn’t have the energy to tremble, a memory would flash into my mind, and I’d see that awful, shadowy face on top of me, hear it panting, and groaning, and I would curl further into myself.

I was always cold, now. Empty. Numb.

“This is unacceptable,” came Mira’s sharp, cold voice like a biting wind.

I didn’t open my eyes. Instead, I turned onto my other side and tucked myself deeper into my blankets which seemed to do nothing for the cold.

“Get up,” Mira said. “It’s time to leave.”

That got my attention. “Leave?” I grumbled.

“Yes. We’ve been here far too long. There are things to be done.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to get up.”

“You can’t very well spend the rest of your life in that bed.”

“Go away, Mira.”

She sighed. “We’re all worried about you, Dahlia. Gullie is worried about you.”

I shut my eyes even harder, trying to fight the tears welling up behind them. “I made it all worse…” I said. “I made everything so much worse.”

“You couldn’t have known. None of us did.” She paused, then came over to my bed and placed a hand on my shoulder. “We think