Hunted: A Vampire Romance (Marked by Night Book 3)

by Sara Thorn

  “What?” I said in shock.

  “You are Cassius, the powerful dhampir of prophecy, a prophecy that I would rather not see fulfilled, to be honest. Bree will wed you, thereby keeping her from the fae man and also preventing you from fulfilling your role in the dhampir prophecy. It couldn’t have worked out better if you ask me.”

  I glanced over at Bree, and she looked horror-stricken. All the blood had rushed out of her face, making the color on her eyelids pop out even more unnaturally than before.

  “I will not marry her,” I said. “I am already in love with another.”

  “I don’t care about that in the slightest,” Lithius sneered. “If you decide to refuse me, then the both of you will stay here in the cage forever while I go back to see which of your other friends I can bring her to convince you into compliance.”

  “Do not touch them,” I growled at him.

  “Then do as you are told,” he said as he matched the depth of my growl with an even deeper one of his own. “I’ll leave you two to think about it, and I’ll be back soon to hear your decision.” Lithius heaved his massive body up from the floor and left, locking the cell behind him.

  “This is ridiculous,” I said angrily. “Lovely father, you have, by the way.”

  Bree had finally stopped crying and was now a mix of panic and rage.

  “Isn’t there anything that you can do to get us out of this?” I asked her.

  “No,” she said. “Nothing that I can do is a match for a greater deity, and as you can see, my father has no love for me. He will not bend his ear to listen or consider anything that I have to say.”

  “Yeah, I saw that. In fact, I think that your having said anything at all just made matters worse.” I tried to think of a plan to free us from this mess, and Bree was obviously not in a situation to be able to help.

  “Okay,” I said after I had paced and thought some more. “I think we should agree with your father’s demand.”

  “What? Why? We would both be miserable for the rest of our lives. You are in love with Mara, and I’m in love with Quinn. Binding us in marriage would have irrevocable consequences that would prevent any of us from ever having happiness.”

  “Yeah, I know that, but hear me out. What if we agreed to it just in order to get out of here and return to Mystreuce?”

  “Lithius would never just let us go. He will watch over us until the arranged marriage comes to pass. He will make sure that we stay away from any involvement with Quinn and Mara,” she said as she shook her head in worry.

  “I would expect so,” I said. “But at least we would be there with them. There is nothing that we can do so long as we are locked up in this dungeon. But if we could make it back to Mystreuce, Mara and Quinn would see that something is not right. They would find a way to help and get to us. Then at least we would have all four of us back in a position to be able to figure out a plan, instead of the situation as it is right now. Currently, they have no idea where we are and are probably fearful that we have been killed. We can’t get any word to them because we can’t get out of here, and we also have no idea where we even are. The only chance we have is to get out of here and then try to figure a way out of this mess.”

  Bree thought about it and paced the room herself a few times before coming back to stand squarely in front of me with her answer.

  “Okay,” she said. “I agree that you’re right. Let’s do it.”

  When Lithius came back into the dungeons several hours later, we gave him our answer. We would go agree to the marriage if we were allowed to go back to Mystreuce.

  Just as Bree had said, Lithius agreed, but only under the condition that he would accompany us and stay until the wedding was completed.

  This was going to be a whole dysfunctional mess.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When I saw Cassius walk through the castle's front door, I was both overjoyed and immediately shocked. I got up to run to him, but Quinn quickly grabbed my arm.

  “Wait,” Quinn whispered. “Look.”

  I wrenched my arm away from him because I felt I needed to go to Cassius now. But when I looked to see what he was talking about, I saw something that wasn’t right. Cassius looked strained and miserable. He also gave me the same look that translated into the same thing Quinn was trying to warn me about—stay away.

  I didn’t know what was going on, but I could tell that I needed to stay put. As I continued to watch from my frozen spot, my heart pounded inside my chest. Standing here, seeing Cassius in front of me, and not being able to go to him was nothing short of torture. Bree came into the doorway and stand alongside him, and then I saw who was standing behind them both—Lithius.

  I immediately set my hand on the ax that laid against my hip, the ax that was now almost a part of me and could be wielded as such.

  “Steady,” Quinn said so quietly from next to me that it was almost inaudible.

  My hand shook as I let it linger there and waited to see what would happen. Cassius and Bree walked forward into the corridor but stopped short of being close enough to touch. Lithius stepped out from behind them and put his mammoth hand on Cassius’s shoulder as if to remind Cassius that he was not only there but that his presence was the dominant force in the room. Cassius looked absolutely miserable as he was quite visibly forced to stand there beside Bree without moving. When no one said a word, and Lithius just stood there grinning as if he were holding the leash of his prized dogs, I couldn’t stay silent any longer.

  “Cassius,” I said.

  The one word was all that was needed between the two of us for him to know that I was scared and confused and angry. I could see in his eyes how much it pained him to stand there and not push Lithius’s giant hand from his shoulder and run to me.

  “Cassius and Bree are to be married,” Lithius said as if he were the only one in the room allowed to speak.

  “What?” Quinn snarled.

  “It is part of the arrangement we have made,” Lithius continued with little regard to Quinn. “Neither of them will be permitted to be alone with the two of you. I’m sure you can both appreciate the importance of sanctity before the vows are said. They will stay here in the castle, as will I, until the ceremony is complete.”

  My eyes lit up with a fiery fury as I opened my mouth to tell Lithius to go to hell and grasped the handle of my ax, ready to pitch it right into the space between his eyes. But before I could do either, he squeezed Cassius’s shoulder to the point that I heard bones crack. Cassius made a pained face but didn’t make a sound.

  “I would highly advise against trying to disobey my mandate,” Lithius said. “Your friends here have already agreed to it, and there is nothing left to be done. If you act irrationally and fail to heed my desires for this union, then I will have no choice but to make the wedding a rather violent event instead of a happy one.”

  I loosened my grip on the ax, knowing that the situation was too volatile for me to act without thinking first.

  “No one here looks very happy about it to me,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “I am,” Lithius sneered.

  With that, he lifted his hand from Cassius and tilted his antler-ridden head down to indicate they should leave now. Cassius and Bree complied, turning to walk out of the corridor and down the castle's halls toward the individual bedrooms.

  “Cassius, wait,” I said as I started to follow them out.

  Lithius didn’t even try to stop me. He knew that he didn’t have to because Cassius had no choice but to go along with him or else risk the lives of everyone here.

  I followed Cassius and Bree down the hall at a short distance, which was just close enough for us to hear each other.

  “What is happening?” I asked. “Why would the two of you agree to go through with this?”

  “We had no choice, Mara,” Cassius said without turning around. “Lithius has threatened banishment and death. He is a greater deity more powerful than any of us can stop. I had to agree to the arranged
marriage in order to get us back here on Mystreuce so that at least we could be together while we try to figure something out.”

  “Where did he take you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But it was definitely not on this world.”

  “Well, maybe none of us can stop him alone, but maybe we can stop him if we all work together,” I said.

  “Please be careful,” Bree said. “My father is extremely powerful and heartless.”

  “Your father?” I asked in shock.

  “Oh yeah,” Cassius said. “Forgot to tell you that part.”

  My head was spinning, and I wondered where Quinn was and why he wasn’t with me in the hallway to talk with them.

  “We’re going to stay in this room,” Cassius said as they stopped at a doorway to one of the extra bedrooms. “We’ll try to think of a plan to get out of this, and you need to try talk to Quinn and see what you guys can come up with, too.”

  I walked up closer to them and reached out my hand toward Cassius’s face. He looked as though he was going to lean forward and kiss me, but when his eyes darted to something behind me, he stopped. I turned around and saw Lithius standing at the end of the hallway and withdrew my hand immediately.

  I started to wish that I had a bigger ax because while I visualized sinking my blade into Lithius thick throat, I realized it wouldn’t be nearly big enough to lop his head from his shoulders. Lately, I’d been having more sinister and violent thoughts than usual, and I was rather enjoying the visualization of this one. Cassius gave me a look of caution and then went into the bedroom with Bree, who appeared to be every bit as miserable as he was.

  I ran back into the hallway, ignoring the powerful temptation to lodge my ax into Lithius as I passed him. He was an arrogant and smug deity. He had enough power to strike us all down if that’s what he chose to do, but instead, he played with us as if we were dolls for his amusement.

  Quinn was still standing inside the front corridor.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him. “Why didn’t you come with me?”

  He grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the castle with him without saying a word. I walked alongside him as I struggled to pull my arm back and argued about where we were going.

  “What are you doing? Where are we going?” I asked. I didn’t want to leave the castle with Cassius still inside of there with that colossal deity.

  “We can’t talk in there,” he said.

  Quinn didn’t say another word until we had reached the outermost rim of the fae forest. I wasn’t sure why we had to come all the way out here and couldn’t have just stopped to talk inside the human village or somewhere closer to the outside of the castle. When we finally got into the forest, he let go of my arm.

  “Now, will you please tell me what this is about?” I asked. “We need to get back to the castle to help Cassius and Bree and to get rid of that thing.”

  “I have an idea,” Quinn said with a mischievous flash in his eyes. “But I couldn’t chance Lithius hearing it because then it won’t work.”

  “Okay, what’s the idea?” I was pleased and excited to hear that he had at least been coming up with a plan instead of just standing in the corridor, looking as if he couldn’t have cared less. Maybe that had been part of the plan, too.

  “If we can get to the two of them to talk, then we can all flesh out a strategy together. All four of us together should be able to take Lithius down before he can do anything too savage or banish anyone to an unknown place. I can even get Norr and Sylva into the castle to come and help.”

  “Well, that sounds great and all, but that’s not really a plan or an idea,” I said, disappointed. “Obviously, if we could all talk, we could make a plan. But there’s no way to reach Cassius and Bree without Lithius watching. Trust me, I tried.”

  “Yes, but that’s where my idea comes in,” he grinned. “Hear me out; I think it will work. Lithius is expecting you to try to get to Cassius and me to try to reach Bree. He’s not stupid. He can tell. So what if we did something that completely threw him off the scent, something that would make him think we had given up on the pursuit of our old loves because we knew it was hopeless and that we were moving on. Then he wouldn’t suspect us to try to interrupt their wedding.”

  “I don’t know what would convince him of that,” I said. “He doesn’t seem to be that entirely stupid to think that after only a day or so, we would suddenly all stop loving each other.”

  “Not stop loving each other, just changing who we are in love with,” Quinn said.

  “I literally don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” I said. I was getting frustrated and felt like we were wasting time being out here.

  “We’ll pretend that you and I have rekindled our relationship,” Quinn said with a wide grin.

  “Oh Quinn, come on, please don’t tell me that this is some attempt at trying to—”

  “Mara,” he interrupted. “I assure you that I am only smiling about this because I think it has a chance to work. I want to get Bree back just like you want to get Cassius back. If we don’t do something to stop this, then all four of us are going to be miserable.”

  “Can’t we just undo the wedding after it’s done and after Lithius leaves?” I asked.

  “No, there’s too much power in words. You, of all people, should know that. Look at what happened during your ceremony when Cassius appointed you as consul. The words in that ceremony bound you to the land forever. Imagine what their vows to each other would do.”

  The thought of it gave me a sense of heavy dread.

  “If you and I pretend that we have rekindled our love for each other since Cassius and Bree will now be taken and off-limits for us as far as Lithius is concerned, then he will suspect that we have given up and are finding comfort in the arms of our past lovers instead of trying to fight a losing battle. He will be thrown off the scent and will ease his strict adherence to monitoring them, and we will be able to get close enough to them for all of us to talk.”

  “And what happens if he doesn’t believe it?” I asked.

  “Then we make it more believable,” he said.

  “We won’t be able to talk to Cassius and Bree about this beforehand,” I worried. “What if they think it’s for real.”

  “They won’t,” Quinn said. “They know us better than that.”

  I hoped so. “What if Lithius doesn’t back down his watch over them even if he believes that we aren’t going to try to stop them?” I asked.

  “He will.”

  “You seem awfully confident that this is going to work,” I said. I wished that I were feeling as confident about it as Quinn seemed to be.

  “That’s because I know it’s our only option at this point,” he said. “If the four of us can’t figure out a way to take Lithius down together, then we won’t be able to stop him. There are plenty of people in the villages we could try to ask for help, but none of them are strong enough to survive an attack by Lithius. And we can’t ask them to put their lives at risk. The four of us are strong enough. I know we are. We just need to be able to make a plan.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

  On the walk back to the castle, we talked about how we would make this work and seem convincing. We would invite Cassius, Bree, and Lithius to dinner. Then, at dinner, Quinn and I would act as if we were all over each other to show Lithius that we were real about our affections and our ability to move on. I knew that part would drive Cassius insane, but if we didn’t make it convincing, Lithius wouldn’t buy it. Neither Quinn nor I could think of anything that would be more convincing than shows of affection in front of our past lovers. I was sure Cassius would understand it was necessary to prevent him from getting married off to Bree, and even if he didn’t, then I would deal with the much less awful aftermath of that later. Right now, the only important thing was finding a way to stop the wedding and get Lithius off of Mystreuce.

  “It’s going to have to be really convincing,” Quinn
said just before we walked back into the castle. “If I kiss you, you’re going to need to kiss me back this time.”

  “I know,” I said. “I will.”

  Quinn smiled at me.

  “Don’t tell me for a second that you’re enjoying this, Quinn, or I will seriously slap you.”

  He laughed. At least we could still find tiny pieces of humor among the struggles. Sometimes it felt like picking out minuscule shards of clear, broken glass from out of a thick shag carpet, but it was still a welcome reprieve to have any chance of levity at all.

  “And if I was to say that I might just enjoy one or two small moments of it,” he said. “What then?”

  I stared at him for a minute with my hand on the doorknob before going inside. I didn’t have anything to say in answer to that.

  Chapter Nineteen

  There were a few things that I expected to occur at the dinner and a few that I didn’t.

  I expected that everyone would come and that it would be tense. That part, I got glaringly correct. The tension was so thick that it was nearly choking me to try to breathe through it. Cassius and Bree were sitting across the table from Quinn and me with such stiffness that it looked as if their skin had been ironed too hard. Lithius sat himself down at the head of the table so he could watch everything with an eagle’s vantage point, but also most likely because he couldn’t fit at the sides of the table without needing more space around him to move his antlers every time he turned his head in one direction or another.

  At first, the dinner was silent and extremely uncomfortable. Quinn had asked Sylva and Norr to help serve the trays and drinks, thinking that it would be a good idea to have them there to help as well, in case things started to go sideways. Neither of them was particularly comfortable with seeing Lithius inside the castle. And neither had any idea of the plan Quinn and I had concocted. We kept that strictly to ourselves so that it was held as close to our chest as possible with less chance of raising suspicion.

  Once the drinks were poured, I took a huge sip and downed nearly all my wine glass contents before waving Sylva over for a refill. I could see Cassius looking at me with halfway-lidded eyes as if he were waiting and watching to see what it is that I was up to and what I was so nervous about.