The Mark of Fate: Book 3 of The Marked series

by Ford, Rinna

  So that explained the deserted mansion when I woke up. I looked around and finally saw a few supes milling around, doing one thing or another in the predawn morning. A vampire named Nigel clapped Matias on the shoulder as he walked by and Tonya, another vampire, nodded at him as she filled up a glass of blood.

  “You don’t have anything to redeem. Not to me and not to yourself either. She was going to die regardless. Do I wish that one of us was to do it? Of course, but the deed is done.”

  “How are you not angry and disappointed in me?”

  “Because it wasn’t your fault.”

  I stared into his silvery eyes and expressed how truthful my words were. It wasn’t his fault. He needed to let it go, for his own sanity if nothing else.

  “Why didn’t you tell me what you were up to last night so I could go with you?” I asked.

  “You needed to rest and I didn’t want to worry you over something that would be more than easy for our kind to handle alone. As it turns out, there was nothing to find, not even a single trace.”

  I mulled over what Matias had just told me as he extracted his arm from around my shoulders and went to fill up a couple more glasses of blood for us. The fact that he, a vampire, along with other vampires couldn’t find even a speck of a clue that even told them that the detention facility even existed, spoke volumes. What would we do next?

  Chapter Eleven

  The rest of the morning until breakfast passed by slowly as I did chores around the mansion. The residents woke up slowly for a change, giving me plenty of time to think, which was exactly what I didn’t want to do.

  I didn’t want to think about Ronan and the disappearing detention facility, I didn’t want to wonder about where my father was in the dreamscape when I woke up two days before, and I definitely didn’t want to turn over in my head what Ainsley and the other prisoners had gone through. But that was exactly what I did. It was all I could do.

  Matias tried to keep my mind off of it all by chatting away, but I could tell he was out of his element, even if he was a personable sort of vampire. I loved that he tried. Xander even noticed I was stuck in my head when he came down to breakfast, but didn’t call me out on it. He knew I wasn’t shutting anybody out. If they asked, I would have told them what I was thinking, just as I did the night before. So he tried to take my mind off of it all too, without much success.

  He and Xander both tried all through breakfast, but once the meal was over, they both kissed me sweetly and reluctantly said their goodbyes as they went off to do their duties for the day.

  “I thought they’d never leave,” Camille whispered into my ear from behind before plopping down in the chair Xan had just left. Both men turned when they heard her not-so-quiet words and rolled their eyes before turning back around and walking away. “Man, they do look good when they walk away, don’t they?” She then grinned and her eyebrows jumped playfully.

  Soleil didn’t like that Camille just admired my mates out loud and wanted out to show the caster just how much, but I pushed her back down and lightly chuckled. I knew Camille was just trying to get a reaction, good or bad. I mean, she wasn’t lying, but she didn’t have a death wish. At least, I didn’t think she did.

  “So, what are we up to today, oh chosen one?” she then asked, her eyes twinkling with humor.

  My small smile fell and I looked out toward the dining room door then back to her. I really didn’t have any “duties” around the house anymore, not since turning vampire, something I think was done as a way to make up for… you know, and my mates who I usually trained with were off doing other things. Amos and the other rebel leaders didn’t need anything from me at the moment and my uncle had sequestered himself in his workspace, wanting to be left alone, so what could I do?

  There was only one thing I could think of and it scared the shit out of me. I sighed deeply as I willed the anxiety to float away.

  I stood up from my seat and peered down at Camille. “I guess… I’m going to the infirmary,” I told her. “You want to come with me?”

  Her nose wrinkled in distaste and she brought her feet up on the chair seat. “Now why would I want to do a thing like that?”

  I sighed again. “I need to do something helpful or I’m going to lose my shit,” I told her honestly, even though the words scared me on so many levels. “I need to find out what happened to them… what they went through, and I want to help get them back on their feet. You don’t have to come.”

  She made an exaggerated groan and plopped her feet on the floor, making a big deal as she got up and stood beside me. “Fine. You win,” she mumbled. “I’ll go and help out sick people. Ugh.”

  I lightly shook my head as a small smile reappeared at my friend’s antics and began walking out of the dining room. After several steps, she fell in step beside me and continued talking.

  “I mean, why though? Don’t sick people kind of creep you out? They sure as hell creep me out.” Camille’s face was contorted into a sort of grimace as she spoke.

  “They’re not sick, Camille,” I rolled my eyes. “They were imprisoned and tortured. Those are very different things from being sick.”

  My mind drifted off to the moment I found Ainsley laying in his bed at the detention center, but just as quickly as the thought entered my mind, I pushed it out. Being with the rescued supes was going to be hard. No need to make it even worse on myself by thinking about one person I couldn’t save.

  “Yeah, but they could have gotten sick from the twisted things the scientists did to them.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. She was right, but that wasn’t something I wanted to think about either.

  I opened the door to the infirmary and looked inside. My eyes immediately went to Alec’s bed to find it empty. My brows furrowed as I looked around the rest of the room.

  “Can I help you with something?” a woman’s voice asked from the opposite side of the room.

  I turned my head to see a caster named Lyra standing over one of the rescued supes. She stood upright and looked at Camille and me questioningly.

  “Yeah, hi,” I smiled nervously.

  “Look who couldn’t stay away.” Alec’s tired voice drifted into the room from what looked like the bathroom, and Marco was there, helping him walk back to his bed.

  “Hey, ladies,” Marco grinned at Camille and me. “What are you two up to?”

  Camille had a hold of my upper arms as she was halfway hidden behind me. I easily shrugged her off and took a couple of steps toward them.

  “Hi. We both just wanted to see if we could help.”

  “We could always use help and I’m sure that they would like the company,” he told us.

  Alec smiled reassuringly but as he attempted to take another step, his foot didn’t lift up off the ground completely and he stumbled, pulling Marco down with him. I hurried through the room toward him and Marco, coming close to one of the beds but I was stopped short as someone had grabbed a hold of my wrist tightly.

  It would have hurt if the woman who grabbed me was at her full strength, but I could tell by the energy it took her to sit up and grab my arm, she had nearly reached her limit. She was sweating profusely and her skin had taken on an ashen appearance.

  I didn’t try to pull my arm away. Instead, I turned to fully face her. Her eyes were huge and sunken in on her head and her dry, cracked lips harshly parted as if she were trying to speak. She smelled of rot and earth, which I didn’t completely expect, but it made sense once I realized she was a wolf shifter, like Ainsley. He always had that earthy woods smell, and standing near her, I could smell the similarity. My heart seized at the memory and I did my best to swallow the emotion, planting a fake smile on my face.

  “Can I get something for you?” I asked the she wolf as I used my other hand to try and lower her back down onto the bed. She seemed to want to fight me on it but eventually gave up.

  “Selina, what do you need?” Lyra asked as she and Marco walked over to the other side of the wol
f’s bed.

  “You’re… the one,” she said to me, barely whispering.

  Then, without warning, she pulled down on my arm with a strength I didn’t anticipate and I nearly fell on top of her. Her teeth lengthened into sharp fangs and her pupils expanded, making her appear more canine. Long strings of spittle began rolling out of the corners of her mouth as she pulled me closer to her face.

  “This is all your fault,” she growled fiercely.

  Soleil sprung forward and her features became mine as I finally yanked myself away just as Lyra and Marco jumped on top of her to restrain her. I did everything I could to hold my dragon back since I knew Selina wasn’t in her right mind. Yes, she wanted to hurt me, or at least let me know she was angry, but she had every right to be for what happened to her.

  “It’s all your fault!” she said again, this time screaming it as she fought against the hold of the two casters. I watched as she got close to breaking free. Shifters were physically stronger than casters, even if they were weakened. I moved forward as if to help but Marco shook his head stiffly, telling me to stay back.

  Lyra put her hand on Selina’s forehead and began muttering a spell over and over again. From the way the fight began to slowly leave the she wolf until her eyes closed, it appeared to be a sleeping spell.

  “I’m sorry,” I told them and broke eye contact.

  I looked back to Camille, who stood stock-still in the exact spot I left her until she realized I was looking at her. When she noticed that, she hurried forward and began pulling me away.

  “I was just trying to help,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Both Lyra and Marco looked at me with understanding and a little bit of pity as they watched me go. They knew my intentions were good, just as I knew the she wolf was only reacting to the trauma she went through.

  As I hurried through the door and into the hallway, my eyes caught Alec. He had made it back to his bed and was leaning over it. I expected to see him looking at me the same way Marco and Lyra were, but instead his expression was one of wonder.

  His excited eyes were the last thing I saw before being dragged out of the room and into the long hall.

  “Holy fuck! Out of everything that I thought would happen, I didn’t expect that invalid to go apeshit on you! That was intense!”

  Camille was going on and on as we walked away from the infirmary and toward the foyer of the mansion. I honestly didn’t expect it either, but I probably should have. I mean, I could see why she’d think that it was my fault that they were tortured like they were. Even so, I didn’t like hearing Camille talk about it like she was.

  “Please, shut up,” I sighed, but she was too wound up to hear me. It didn’t help that she was speaking louder and louder with every breath she took.

  I put my hand on her arm as she was waving them wildly, making her finally pause and give me a disapproving look.

  “That’s enough, Camille,” I told her when I knew I had her full attention and then let her go and walked away. “Just drop it, please.” How did she not know hearing that coming from the wolf shifter made me feel like complete shit? I mean, I told her I was already feeling that way in so many words.

  “What do you mean? I was just saying how strange it was. You don’t think it was fucking wierd?” She spun me around so I was facing her again, completely oblivious to my feelings, not that I really expected her to be kind about them. It wasn’t her style. She just called the she wolf an invalid, for crying out loud.

  “I don’t want to talk about it right now. Can you please just stop? For once in your life, can you just… not?”

  I could see anger flare across her face as she started gearing up again, this time for a fight. Not what I needed.

  “What do you mean, ‘for once in my life'? Am I too much to handle for you, Emelia?”

  “Don’t do that,” I warned.

  “Because I have to say, you’re a real fucking treat with all your drama! I mean, come on! Get over it already! So what? You were abandoned and orphaned when you were a kid. Big fucking deal!”

  “Shut your mouth…”

  I could feel my vampire and dragon rise to the surface, ready to spring forward and put her in her place. They were both riding me hard, pushing at my restraint. It was damn near impossible to hold both of those parts of me back, especially since they were working together.

  “No, you fucking stop! Stop being so pathetic and own up to your shit! It is all your fault, just like that bitch said! If it weren’t for you and that fucking prophecy, none of this would have happened! Those supes wouldn’t have been tortured like they were and we wouldn’t be here planning a war so you could take over the whole goddamn world!”

  In less than a second, I had my hand wrapped around her throat, causing the words that were spewing out of her mouth to suddenly cease. Looking at her through my blood red eyes, I could see her anger morph into fear as I pulled her closer to me. Her eyes cut to my razor sharp teeth that were punctuated by two sharp vampire fangs when my mouth opened to speak.

  “I told you to stop, and I meant it.”

  She began gasping for air so I eased up a bit, letting air flow into her lungs but not enough to allow her to speak. I didn’t want to hear anything else she had to say. Not at that moment and probably not for a very long time.

  “I know you are angry and you have every right to be, but your words don’t hurt me as much as piss me off. When you are ready to tell me what you’re really upset about, then by all means, talk to me. You have solutions to these huge fucking problems? Let me know. But until then, do us both a favor and keep your snide remarks to yourself. Do you understand?”

  Her head bobbed up and down quickly and both of her hands covered mine on her throat until I released her and took a step back. She inhaled deeply and coughed several times before she was able to stand up straight and glare at me.

  “You’re a fucking psychopath!” She screamed and began backing away, never taking her eyes off of me. “You don’t deserve my friendship! You don’t deserve anything that you have!”

  “Last warning,” I growled and clenched my fists. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I wasn’t going to let her continue to berate me because she wasn’t dealing with her own shit. I had too much to deal with on my own without adding more problems to the mix.

  Thankfully, she finally decided to heed my warning and pinched her lips together tightly until she reached the corner of a hallway and slipped away.

  When I knew she was really gone, I sagged against the nearest wall letting my beasts slip away. What a mess.

  I hated fighting with Camille but she was getting harder and harder to be around. I knew it was because of what happened to Grayson and although she had said she was going to blame the Council for his death, she seemed to be blaming me. Apparently, she could form a support group with the number of people who blamed me for everything that was happening.

  But what if she was right? What if the she wolf was right? Was I really to blame?

  Chapter Twelve

  “What the fuck is he looking at?” Xander growled, just low enough for Matias, Devlin, and me to hear.

  He was referring to Alec, who was sitting close to the other end of the long dining room table with some of the other supes as we ate breakfast. He kept glancing toward my mates and me more than usual, in a sort of nervous way. It was rather odd and apparently, getting on my mate’s nerves.

  Alec was released from the infirmary four days after my unfortunate visit and moved into a room on the second floor, just down the hall from mine. A lot of the rescued supes had been released from the infirmary and most of them had decided to stay and help out with the rebellion. The ones who didn’t want to stay had their minds altered before they were teleported away with no hard feelings. They’d all been through enough and we felt they should be able to make up their own decisions about their lives.

  Alec was one of the ones who decided to stay. At first, I was excited to have him as part of the gr
oup for no other reason than he was nice to be around. From our first interaction, I could tell he had a great sense of humor and liked to keep things light, even in the most tense situations.

  I had hoped we would become friends, but I didn’t push him and since he chose to spend most of his time with the other casters, it didn’t really happen. That didn’t mean he wasn’t friendly; in fact, he offered to train with me a couple of times when others acted a little too gun-shy around me, most likely because of my earlier magic mishaps. Word had spread that my magic had completely vanished, and that my caster mate had died which caused it, but that didn’t keep others from acting frightened around me.

  The first time I heard the rumor, a shark shifter named Laos was talking to another shifter about it. I almost took his head off in a rage but Xan was standing right next to me when it happened. No one who knew about the potion told anyone else (Dev had spelled everyone who knew, so besides him, my mates, and me, no one would be able to speak about it) so the fact we were suppressing my magic was a huge secret. I should have known others would be confused about how one day I was destroying everything in my wake accidently, then the next I was magicless. It was a logical guess, but it still pissed me off that they would say Ronan had died. Thinking back on that day, I thought maybe that was why other supes didn’t want to train with me. But Alec never refused and I appreciated it, especially since I knew my main targets in the Council were casters. I needed as much training against casters as I could get.

  Almost everyone loved Alec for one reason or another, especially the women. My mates, however, hated him with a fiery passion. We’d even fought over it. Two and half weeks had passed since my first meeting with Alec and they had both had altercations with him which involved me too. I wouldn’t have understood their anger and protective jealousy if it weren’t for the fact that Alec was just naturally charming, which even I wasn’t immune to, but I didn’t want him, just like I didn’t think he wanted me.