Air's Mark (Lords of Krete Book 3)
Page 1
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
She’s firmly rooted
Airla and her nymph sisters, the Hamadryades, are cursed. Bound to the trees from which they were birthed, they’re slowly dying in a frozen wasteland. When the last leaf from Airla’s branches freezes, so will she. Yet beyond her reach lies the one male who can set her free. Only, he’s the one who cursed her in the first place. And she’d rather turn to ice than trust him again.
His mark lies on the wind
As a lone wolf shifter, Lord Lycus of Krete follows no one’s path. While his brothers are off searching for an army to free their centaur race, he wanders into the frigid northern barren lands, where no one exists. Or so he thinks. The only thing not frozen in this wasteland is the seductive Airla’s fiery wrath. Until one touch changes everything and a love denied just might blaze hot enough to melt even her glacial defenses.
Caught in a whirlwind of Fate
Lycus vows to set the Hamadryades free once more. Except, their trees are frozen and moving them might shatter not only their grove, but their entire race. Together, they’ll have to skirt the edges of danger and thwart a god, risking their lives and their hearts to change the direction of their destinies.
Air’s Mark
Lords of Krete #3
Rachael Slate
Contents
Free Reads!
Binding Roots
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
Glossary
Acknowledgments
Meet Rachael
Free Reads!
Also by Rachael Slate
Preview of Fire’s Mark
Free Reads!
Psst! Do you love free books? How about sizzling fantasy romances that sweep you away to exotic worlds, pull you in, and leave you breathless?
Subscribe to Rachael’s newsletter and receive her scorching hot novella, Rematch, for free. If you haven’t taken a bite of her Chinese Zodiac Romance Series yet, then this standalone novella is the perfect start.
Plus, you can check out the bonus epilogue for Trancing the Tiger, Foul Play: a Moon Borne short story, and a bonus prologue for Water Borne.
Grab your free reads by joining Rachael’s newsletter.
*Please check your inbox/junk folder for your freebies*
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Rachael Slate
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
First Edition September 2017
Edited by Kelley Heckart
Cover design by NovelArt Designs
Tribal Artwork by Alyssa Renae White
Formatting by NovelArt Designs
Epub: ISBN 978-1-988396-26-2
Kindle: ISBN 978-1-988396-25-5
Binding Roots
When the Olympian gods overthrew the Titans, they divided the rule of the world. Zeus proclaimed himself Supreme Ruler and governed the skies. Poseidon claimed the oceans. The Underworld, and the souls of the dead, fell to Hades. All were content with the arrangement.
Until Hades met Persephone.
Their forbidden love blasted through Mt. Olympus, initiating a cataclysmic rift between the gods. The imbalance in the heavens nearly shattered the fragile human world below. In punishment, Zeus cursed Persephone. Nine months of each year, she would remain by her mother’s side, tending to the human harvests. The other three months were hers to spend with her husband, Hades, in the Underworld.
The arrangement pleased none.
Centuries have passed. As humans turn their devotion to Science, the powers of the Olympian gods diminish. In an attempt to regenerate their divinity, the gods have procreated, breeding new species of being—such as centaurs, winged ones, and mermaydes. With the unique strengths of their individual godly parents, these descendants have thrived in their own worlds, alongside humans but hidden from view.
The rift in Olympus widens as each god gains new strength. When the Fates intervene with a damning wager, these descendants become the answer to Persephone’s curse. Hades and Persephone’s quest to reclaim their love will pit god against god, in a tournament unmatched since time began. Victory will lie in the union of warriors—exceptional females who control the elements and the males whose love makes them strong.
If they succeed, love will be theirs to claim.
But if they fail, their love will fall to ruin.
It is the eve of war, and the battle for the power of Binding Roots begins now.
Chapter 1
Isle of Krete
Year 1 of the reign of King Minos
An icy wind filled Lycus’s lungs, cooling the smoke burning within his throat from the fires. So many fires. He fisted his hands and frowned at the thin ridges of frost forming along his knuckles. The power of Air that Zeus had granted him not moments ago flooded his body. But this was not the gentle breeze of a summer’s day.
Nay, this was the frigid, unforgiving howl of an Arctic night. Precisely what he required to avenge his family. His people. His lands.
Her.
Oh, gods. Airla. What if the Minotaurs…
Around him, his bloodsworne brothers and sister marveled at their new gifts. The slash still cut across his palm from the vows they’d made each other. He should trust in them and beseech their aid, but what if they refused? Their village had been burned, their families murdered while they’d hidden, and now, the Minotaurs continued to ravage their lands. On to the next village, and the next. Only by the grace of Zeus had they managed to escape to Mount Ida, where it was safe. For the moment.
Nay, ’twas better to go alone and not risk them, too.
He gave his head a swift swing to clear it, then dashed through the cavern.
“Where are you going? ’Tis not safe,” Rhoetus’s booming voice bellowed behind him, but there was no time to waste.
Lycus squeezed his eyes and vanished into the wind, swooping and swirling like a newly born calf. He smacked into a rock wall, shook out his jitters, and refocused. He had to master this new gift, now.
Before it was too late once again.
Determined, he raced to the meadow. Here, sunlight broke through the tree tops, though dense clouds of crimson smoke snuffed out the horizon. The sight of the cornelian cherry tree grove unharmed eased the strain in his chest enough for him to seize in a deep breath and transform into his centaur shape.
“Airla!” He pressed a hand against the bark of a central tree. She belonged to a race of nymphs bound to the trees that birthed them. Hamadryades. In the distance, a shrieking wail echoed, reminding him of the urgency. He had to save her, to save them all.
“Lycus.” A spritely young maiden stepped out from within the tree’s trunk, the concealment of bark fading from her flesh. Terror and anguish misted her evergreen eyes. “Thank the gods you’re safe, but what are you doing here? What’s happening out there? The sm
oke is choking my leaves.” Rushing toward him, she squeezed her arms tightly around his waist, and he fought not to shed any tears.
He trailed a trembling hand across and down her long, vibrant green locks. “Nay, lass. None of us are safe anymore. You can’t hide. They’ll find you and burn your trees to the ground.” Minotaurs were good at burning things. Homes. Lives. Dreams.
“Who?”
“Minotaurs.” He curled his lip. “Sent by King Minos to destroy us.”
“Minotaurs?” She whimpered and buried her cheek against his chest. “We are done for.”
He’d been helpless listening to those savages slaughter his family, but this impotence destroyed him. Her slender form was so frail in his arms. As a nymph, she wouldn’t be able to lift a hand in her defense. He refused to watch her nymph race destroyed like his sister Cyane’s had been.
Another screech carried on the wind, easy for his ears now to detect. Time was running out. The Minotaurs were going to burn this whole damn island to the ground.
Bloody hell if he let them have his mate.
Even if it meant he would never hold her again.
Airla quivered against Lycus’s reassuring embrace. She might be only a young nymph, but even she was wise enough to realize this was defeat.
Lycus was barely older than she was. He couldn’t save her people, no more than she could. Even now, her sisters were hiding within their trees, unaware of their impending doom. It would break her heart to tell them, but she must. The best thing for them to do would be to retreat inside their trees, away from the Minotaurs’ savage grasp.
Though that meant they’d never walk in this realm again.
Resolve poured through her. Lycus was her best friend, her confidante. Someday, when they were both older, she’d hoped he might be more.
The truth was bitter in her throat, but she stepped back from his embrace, pressing one hand to his youthful cheek. His pale eyes were the hue of an endless expanse of ice, not purely white but with touches of gray and blue. His lashes, long hair, and horse hide were of the same cool coloring. Yet there was nothing frigid in the way he gazed at her, longing and desperation in his scrutiny.
“This is farewell, my sweet friend. Please don’t cry for me. May we meet again.” She seized another pace back, toward her tree’s illuminated bark. It would open only twice in her existence, once for her birth and once for her death. However, she would continue to exist in the place from whence she’d been formed.
Whatever that would mean.
Her fingers slipped from Lycus’s cheek, and his tears splashed onto them. She brought her wet fingertips to her lips, though she couldn’t kiss away his suffering.
He stared at the ground, clenching both fists, then he glanced up at her, his eyes full of determination. “Forgive me, Aella, my sweet whirlwind, but I’m afraid we won’t.” Streams of air spiraled from his hands, spinning in icy currents around and outward, toward the hundred trees in her meadow.
“What are you doing?” She spun, panic flooding her chest, making the air sting her lungs. The wisps of frigid wind surrounded her family, uprooting them.
Around them, the dryads screamed while their trees shot into the air.
She whirled to Lycus, but he knelt on the ground, his fists clamped tight in the air and a frosty, luminescent mist consuming his form. “Don’t do this!” Whatever this was.
Airla lifted one leg, attempting to veer toward him, but the gusts of a thousand winds blew at her so hard it was like fighting a solid wall. She slammed her open palms against the barrier, yet the gale wrenched her backward, sweeping her up, too, with the trees and the dryads.
The whirlwind engulfed them, spinning them higher and faster, stealing her breath. On the ground below, she spotted the centaur, frozen as the winds encasing them.
Lycus, no. She formed the words, but no sound escaped her lips.
The meadow below vanished and blinding white light struck her.
Long, terror-filled moments later, she crashed into something soft, fluffy, and cold as death. Snow? Coughing into air almost too icy to inhale, Airla staggered to her feet and whipped toward her tree. Those massive roots plunged into the rolling banks of snow, down deeper and deeper she sensed them, until finally they discovered soil and sank in relief, rooting firmly.
Around her, a cascade of concerned cries arose as the other nymphs emerged from behind their trees.
Airla gawked at their surroundings, at a sea of white land, so harsh and forbidding, it was like staring into oblivion.
She rubbed her arms and blew on her hands to warm them.
Damn you, Lycus. You’ve killed us all.
Chapter 2
A century later
Beyond the Riphean Mountains
Year 1378 of the reign of King Boreas of the Hyperboreans
Lycus prowled through the snow. North. He snorted. The one direction he hadn’t wished to choose, yet of course, he was best suited. His wolf’s paws left prints in the snow that the drifting wind quickly erased.
Lowering his head, he focused ahead. Always ahead. Never backward.
That would only remind him of her, of what he’d relinquished.
The glacial wind wailed around him, but he didn’t suffer its bite. In truth, he didn’t feel much of anything anymore. Certainly not the desperation his bloodsworne siblings did, to recruit an army and revolt against King Minos’s harsh reign.
What was the point?
It was a foolish venture which would likely end them all. His father had been a great warrior and even he had fallen to the Minotaurs. Aye, his father had saved Lycus, but for what? To walk this realm alone, forever?
Not for the first time, he contemplated not returning. Just wandering, endlessly, until his days passed and he fell into eternal slumber.
They would be better off without him. Hunching his shoulders, he bowed his head and closed his eyes. Though in his centaur form he possessed two sets of hearts and lungs, which aided greatly in his endurance, this unforgiving land was better suited for his wolf form. The only people foolish enough to live in this harsh environment were the Hyperboreans—a race of giants. Or so the rumors claimed. Lycus hadn’t encountered anyone in the four months he’d roamed these barren lands. Only ice and snow, infinite miles of both.
Eyes shuttered, he continued onward. Perchance, he’d simply reach the top of the world and fall off. Seemed a better plan than heading to slaughter on Krete.
He lifted his hind left paw right as an ominous clink crossed his ears. Lycus whipped open his eyes but a vice snapped closed around his paw and shot him into the air, dangling upside down.
Bloody hell. A trap? In this remote wasteland. Who had set it?
He winced at the trickle of blood dripping from the trap’s steel claws, down his white fur, and onto the pale snow. This trap hadn’t been meant for something his size, but rather, a creature much smaller, that would have perished upon capture. Grimacing, he swiped at the trap’s latch, but his damned claws didn’t have the dexterity to open it. Trapped like this, he couldn’t perform the morphos into his human form.
“We caught something!” The trill of a feminine voice echoed from below and lithe footsteps crunched across the snow toward him.
Lycus narrowed his stare on the figure. Too small to be a giant.
Two others fluttered around her. “Oh, it’s a wolf.” Disappointment coated her groan. She tugged on a rope attached to a tree and the trap sprang free.
He landed on the dry-packed snow and licked his injury, casting them suspicious glances while the other two braced spears and shoved their pointed tips toward him.
“Ah, he’s injured,” one murmured empathetically.
“What should we do?” The third eyed him nervously.
Lycus contemplated changing into his human form, except these females appeared to be a race of nymph. All pixie-like features and sensual radiance. He’d never heard of them existing this far north, but perhaps they preferred their secrecy. If he ho
bbled off, they might leave him well enough alone.
They’d clearly been after nourishment and couldn’t harm him anyway.
Baring his teeth, he skulked backward, hoping they’d let him go.
But then, another female joined them. Her sparkling depths and cascading locks were impossible to forget. “What did you catch?” she hummed, striding past the others. Her lips parted, her eyes growing round.
It wasn’t possible, yet there she stood staring right at him. The one person he’d given up hope of ever meeting again. The one person who could make him want to live again.
Thunderous, the pulse of his blood rang in his ears.
Mine.
Airla gaped at the wolf. It couldn’t be. Yet, those eyes… They were as haunted as those of the lad she’d once known and loved.
Before he’d betrayed her, cursing them all.
She tightened her fist around her spear. Was it him? Dare she find out? Advancing, she wielded the tip of her spear toward the beast. “Go.”
The wolf didn’t flee, just as she feared he wouldn’t. Instead, those piercing pale pools stared at her with all the warmth of the frigid wasteland he’d condemned her to. “Get out of here…Lycus.”
The massive wolf flinched.
It’s true.
She swallowed hard, braver now. So many times, she’d mused about what she would say to him. Yet now, in this moment, none of those glorious utterings came to her tongue. Blast it.