The Mark of Fate: Book 3 of The Marked series

by Ford, Rinna

“How are you finding your accommodations, my dear?” Ironshot asked me, cordially.

  I slowly turned my eyes back toward him and looked at him as if he had two heads. Was he fucking serious?

  “Are you fucking serious?” I spat out. “I was kidnapped, stripped of my dragon and vampire, drained of all my energy, thrown in a cold cell, and manhandled by your idiots. How do you think I find my accommodations?”

  He dropped his hand and shrugged his shoulders, his creepy smile still in place. “It could be worse,” he told me, rising from his chair. He walked around the desk as if taking a Sunday stroll and parked himself in front of me, leaning back against the wood. “You could have been beaten, raped, mutilated, killed... it could always be worse, Emelia. Don’t ever forget it.”

  I clenched my jaw and shook my head slowly, knowing he was right and the fact that he was easily discussing those things with me as if it were everyday conversation, scared me and pissed me off even more.

  “So what’s your plan then?” I asked, sticking my chin out defiantly. “You had the chance to kill me and didn’t, so that leads me to believe that you have something else in mind, right? So what will it be then?”

  Ironshot pursed his lips as if considering my questions but then hopped up and turned around, grabbing a tissue and handing it to me. Once I took it, he motioned for me to clean up the blood on my face and sat back against his desk.

  “It’s a little ghastly watching you talk with all that dried blood on your lips.”

  I rolled my eyes and took it from him but made no effort to clean myself up with it. Fuck. Him.

  “This coming from a man who tortures his own people,” I muttered.

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong.” He crossed his arms over his waist and pointed one finger at me. “I don’t torture anyone, I instruct others to. There’s a difference.”

  “What are you planning on doing with me?” I asked again through clenched teeth.

  I was tired of his games and I had only just come into his presence. He was playing with me and I wasn’t in the mood for it. Not at that moment and not ever.

  Before he could answer, there was a knock on the door.

  “Enter!” Ironshot called out once again.

  The door swung open, but I didn’t see who had come into the room because I knew by his smell exactly who it was. My nostrils flared and I balled my hands into fists. Alec walked by me without sparing me a glance and greeted his boss.

  “Alec, my boy! Welcome! Wonderful job!”

  The two casters shook hands excitedly before they both turned back to me. They both looked upon me and their expressions were very different. Ironshot still looked at me as if I were a guest, even though I wasn’t, and Alec turned his lip up in disgust. What an asshole.

  “Emelia, I know you know Alec,” the Councilman said to me expectantly.

  I couldn’t bring myself to respond. I didn’t trust myself to not say something that would get me killed on the spot. Ironshot waited another few seconds, realizing I wasn’t going to say anything and turned away from me and back toward Alec.

  “She’s fun, isn’t she?” he asked the caster who took me.

  Alec gave him a tight smile but then saw me staring at them dumbfounded and his smile became wider. I didn’t know how to take the man. He was so strange but I knew it didn’t deter from his intelligence or his willingness to destroy anyone in his way. Alec knew it too and while I watched him look at me, I could see that he was a little crazy too. Awesome. Just what I needed.

  “She’s definitely entertaining, sir,” he replied, “and I imagine she’s only going to get more entertaining from here.” His smile became dangerous and I could tell he was thinking about everything that would be in store for me as if he were going to be a part of it.

  “Fuck you,” I spat out.

  “Not likely,” he shot back and took a step toward me, but Ironshot held his arm out, stopping him from moving forward.

  “Play nice, children,” the Councilman chided.

  Alec schooled his features and looked repentant. Wuss. “Sorry, sir.”

  I, on the other hand, made no effort to hide my anger and disgust while I kept staring down Alec. I hated them both.

  Was I scared? Yes, anyone would be if they were in the position I was. Alec had the opportunity to kill me when he took me but he didn’t. Knowing it was obvious that Michael Ironshot had something truly awful in store for me, despite the cordial way he was still looking at me. The last time we came against one another, he nearly killed me. I had no doubt he’d finish the deed this time around, once he had his fun with me, however long that would take.

  “Tell me why I’m here,” I demanded.

  Ironshot tilted his head to the side as he considered his answer. “No, I don’t think I will,” he said matter of factly and left it at that.

  “What then? Why am I here in this room with you?”

  Ironshot pushed himself away from his desk and walked toward me slowly. When he reached the space right in front of me, he leaned down so we were face to face and roughly grabbed my chin so I couldn’t look away. All the humor and lightness in his expression was gone leaving behind the cruelty and malice I had come to expect from him and his people. The mask had slipped away and for the first time since stepping into the office, I felt more at ease. He was finally showing his true colors.

  “Because I willed it,” he told me. “You are here in this room, in my presence because I want you to be. You will always do what I want you to do because I am God to you. I am God to everyone here and soon, I will be God to every living human and supernatural on this earth. You were the only one standing in my way and now that I have you, there’s no one who can stop me from doing as I please. I own you, Emelia, and the sooner you understand that, the better things will be.”

  He released my chin with a jerk and stood up straight. After a few seconds, his happy-go-lucky smile returned and he shook his finger at me.

  “You tricked me,” he chuckled. “I didn’t want to tell you my plan and with one question, you had me spilling my guts.”

  “So you don’t plan to kill me? I find that hard to believe.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Believe what you want.” Ironshot broke eye contact with me and looked toward the men at the door. “Our guest is tired and needs her rest.”

  The two idiots quickly reached me but as they each grabbed my arms, Alec stepped up.

  “Councilman Ironshot, I can take her back to her cell before I leave, if you’d like.”

  “That’s not...”

  “That would be wonderful! Thank you Alec,” Ironshot interrupted me before I could voice my displeasure with having him anywhere near me.

  The two goons let go of my arms and backed away as Alec walked forward. He smiled down at me cockily and helped me up, holding onto my upper arm and pushed me toward the door.

  “I’ll see you soon, Emelia. Rest well!”

  I didn’t turn to acknowledge Michael Ironshot’s parting words as we rounded the door and into the hall. Alec kept pushing me, which made my still exhausted legs stumble.

  “Can you walk, Emi, or do you need me to carry you?”

  I jumped up and growled in his face. “You son of a motherfucking bitch. You don’t ever get to call me that. Do you understand me?”

  For the first time since my predators were lost to me, I felt the ferocity that they lent me, even though I knew it wasn’t them all along. It was me. He had no right to use the name Xan had always called me, no one did but him. My heart hurt as I thought about him and Matias. They had to be going out of their minds looking for me.

  As if he could read my thoughts, Alec smiled again. “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of them when I return to the mansion.”

  My stomach dropped and my body heated up with anxiety. For the first time since arriving, I couldn’t not show how afraid his words made me. “What?” I asked.

  “Oh, you didn’t know?” he teased. “I’m heading back
to your precious rebellion after I drop you in your prison. Yeah. Don’t you worry your pretty little head. They’ll all be in good hands while I’m there since I plan on being very helpful while you’re gone.”

  With that, he shoved me down the stairs, making me fall to my knees. He let me stay there for a few seconds before wrenching me back up and pushing me all the way down to the bottom. I didn’t get a chance to find my footing again before he threw me in my cell and locked the door behind me with a deep laugh.

  I glared up at him from the cold floor and vowed that I’d kill him. I didn’t know when and I didn’t know how, but his death would be mine.

  “Nothing to say, little queen?” he continued to laugh.

  With strength I didn’t know I possessed at that moment, I pushed myself up to my feet and walked over to the bars separating us. He took a step forward, leaving only six inches between our faces.

  We stared at each other until I spit in his face, making that cocky smirk disappear.

  “You’re going to die for that, bitch,” he sneered and wiped at his face.

  “Good luck with your mission,” I told him and turned, showing my back.

  I wanted him to doubt himself and what he’d be able to accomplish at the California mansion. I needed him to doubt himself, even just a little bit for my own sanity. Alec was definitely a charming asshole, but I knew my mates, my uncle, and my grandfather wouldn’t trust him completely. At least, that was what I hoped.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I stayed standing with my back to the door until I heard Alec’s footsteps fade away and the door close at the top of the stairs, leaving me all alone once again. That was when I let myself collapse onto the tiny, moldy mattress.

  I was exhausted but beyond that, my thirst was growing by the second. I tried to think about something else; my mates, a way out of there, anything, but all I could think about was how hungry I was.

  I was so lost in thought about it, I didn’t hear asshole guard number one come into the basement until he was standing right in front of the door. The disgust on his face was something I expected but not the bag of blood in his hand. Carelessly, he threw it onto the floor a couple of feet from where I lay.

  “Drink up, bitch.” He growled out the statement as an insult rather than the answer to my prayers and walked back toward the stairs.

  With shaky fingers, I picked it up and examined it carefully. The bags back at the California mansion had a drain which allowed us to pour out the contents into a cup to drink it. Of course, the one I was holding had nothing like that to make consumption easy. It was completely sealed all the way around. The fucking jerks. They wanted me to tear into it like an animal.

  Cursing under my breath, I shuffled the bag in my hands until one of the corners was facing up, leaving a bubble of air at the top of it. Using my very human teeth, I clamped down on that corner gently and tore away the plastic, then spit out the piece that ripped away, only spilling a bit of the thick liquid onto the floor.

  I looked down at the little hole in the corner of the bag and slowly brought it to my lips, ready to drink.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, lass.”

  I immediately stopped when I heard Ronan’s familiar Scottish brogue coming from two cells away and searched for him with my eyes. It took me a second but then I realized what I thought to be a crumpled blanket on the mattress was actually my missing caster mate.

  “Ronan,” I breathed out, and spilled a little more of the blood. He was there. He was alive.

  Ronan’s topaz eyes shone in the dark as they watched me intently from his spot on the mattress. Besides his voice, his eyes were the only thing that resembled him at all. His dark wavy hair was longer, just past his ears and disheveled. Not at all like the perfectly styled hairdo I was used to seeing on him. His facial hair had grown as well, leaving a thick, bushy beard covering his face and neck. And his clothes, one sleeve was completely ripped off of his once white dress shirt and his pants were covered with dirt and things I didn’t even want to imagine what they were. I would have never known it was him by just looking at him.

  Ronan slowly sat up and stretched his arms up and over his head before his eyes found mine again.

  “It might be poisoned,” he told me, nodding toward the bag of blood I forgot I was holding. “Or worse, spelled to make you compliant. Either way, you’d be fucked.”

  I raised one eyebrow. “Have you done that in the past? Poisoned and spelled a vampire’s blood, I mean.”

  “Not me personally, but I’ve seen others do it for the good of the Council.”

  “For the good of the Council.”

  Ronan nodded his head. “Yes, for the Council.”

  Our eyes stayed locked on one another’s for almost a half a minute before I looked back down at the blood in my hands, bringing the hole just under my nose.

  “Would a vampire be able to smell poison or spell, if there is one?”

  He thought for a second. “Maybe. I don’t know, Millie. But I wouldn’t try it.”

  “Don’t call me Millie,” I retorted and inhaled deeply. I knew my vampire senses were locked away just like my ability to call on the predator itself, but I needed to try. I was planning on drinking it anyway, but I just wanted some kind of reassurance.

  I didn’t know what I expected but by the smell of it I knew it wasn’t human blood. It had to belong to an animal. It was repulsive, but didn’t seem deadly.

  “Oh, shit.” I covered my nose with my free hand and backed my face away from it.

  “What is it?”

  I heard the panic in his voice and saw he had moved closer toward me in his cell, as if he could get to me to help me with whatever problem there was. There was an entire cell between us, not to mention thick bars in between that.

  “Animal blood, I think,” I finally answered. “I can drink it, but it smells wretched.”

  Ronan’s look of concern changed to one of almost humor as he watched me bring it back to my lips. Matias once told me vampires can live off of animal blood, but it isn’t as satisfying as human’s blood, and it smelled and tasted like shit. I didn’t think he was lying then, but I didn’t expect him to be so spot on. I was literally gagging from the idea of drinking it. Leave it to Ironshot to torture me with shit-tasting blood.

  But I needed it. It would give me energy, so drinking it down would be a necessary evil. Gagging again, I took my free hand and pinched my nose and tipped my head back, letting the foul liquid flow down my throat quickly. Ripping the bandaid off and all that.

  Once the bag was empty, I dropped it and immediately felt it start to come back up. One hand covered my mouth and the other covered my stomach as I burped, but thank fuck, I kept it all down. I didn’t think I could handle tasting that shit twice.

  “Oh, God,” I muttered and leaned back against the bars. “That was horrible, but at least I feel a little bit better.”

  “That’s my girl,” Ronan grinned.

  My body warmed at his words and the tone he used when he referred to me that way, but I immediately squashed it back down. That was when I realized I didn’t feel him.

  In the past, whenever I was near one of my mates before we were bonded, I could feel them. It was like a tickle on the back of my neck that made me nervous and giddy all at the same time. I didn’t feel that at all, sitting about twelve feet away from the caster who Fate picked to be my mate.

  It was freeing and heartbreaking all at the same time. I knew it was because of Dev’s potion. Moving my hand down to the pocket in the waistband of my leggings, I touched the small bump where the vial stayed hidden. I still had every intention of getting rid of it, but I didn’t want someone to discover the evidence so I kept it hidden until I knew I could destroy it in secret.

  I didn’t feel the pull of my mate but as I looked at him, I knew that I still longed for him. I wanted to push the hair out of his eyes and touch his lips to mine. He looked like a homeless man and he’d infuriated me with a nicknam
e, but I still wanted him.

  “Do you feel me?” I asked, almost sadly. “From your cell, can you feel me close by?”

  “I felt you before you even walked down the stairs,” he replied. His tone was reverent, loving. “They brought me down here not long before you.”

  So he wasn’t here the first time Alec brought me down. Michael Ironshot was nothing if not cunning and cruel. I wondered what he had in store, giving me my mate but keeping him out of reach. Was this like the blood? Another form of torture that looked like a gift?

  “Can you do magic?”

  A few seconds passed before he answered, “No. It was taken away some time ago, just after our last meeting. It’s a very powerful spell to take away a caster’s magic. Do you have yours?”

  “No.”

  “What about your beast?”

  It took me a second to realize he meant Soleil.

  “No. Alec suppressed my dragon and my vampire when he captured me. I’m a vampire now too, by the way.”

  “I heard the rumor that you were turned. Do I have more competition now?”

  I smiled wistfully, thinking of my vampire mate.

  “Matias Alvaro,” I told him. “That’s my vampire mate’s name.”

  He thought for a second then awareness crossed his eyes. “Fuck me. The Butcher?”

  I lightly laughed and nodded my head.

  “You really are something special to be bonded with that maniac,” he chuckled.

  “You’d be surprised. He’s actually one of the kindest, most thoughtful men I’ve ever met.”

  “Seriously?” I nodded my head again. “Fuck me, she tamed the Butcher,” he muttered, making me laugh out loud.

  “How did the beast take it? You bonding with another?” he then asked.

  It was a valid question, especially since Ronan was meant to bind himself to me too. I sighed, remembering everything I went through before claiming my vampire mate.

  “It was bad for a while,” I admitted, “but they’re both okay with one another now.”

  I still couldn’t believe they got along. Both Matias and Xan knew I needed to take Ronan as a mate too, but I also knew it would be harder on Xan because of his history with Ronan. To say the two men disliked one another would be putting it mildly.