Marked Prince

by Michelle M. Pillow

  “Here?” She gave him a quizzical expression. “You want to have sex here, now? I guess—”

  “Mate, marry me, wed,” he corrected.

  “Oh,” Fiora laughed. “For a second I thought you meant… Well, actually, if we could work out the logistics of it, I’d say yes. I’ll always say yes to the proposal of sex with you but I’m fairly sure you know that.”

  Jaxx knew she couldn’t help her blunt honesty, but he didn’t mind it. There should only be honesty between them.

  “Everything all right?” Salena joined them, worried. “Why have you stopped?”

  “Jaxx and I are going to be married,” Fiora said, smiling. She hadn’t given him a direct answer until that moment.

  “I figured as much. But why are you discussing that now?” Salena asked. “It’s not like you can do this now. Jaxx, I thought Grace had your marriage crystal.”

  “She does,” Jaxx said. “But just like I don’t need a crystal to tell me who I am meant to be with, I don’t need its permission to marry my heart.”

  “Agreed, but maybe it can be discussed later?” Salena insisted. “I don’t want to be here any longer than we have to.”

  “Life is short and things need to be said,” Fiora told her sister. “What if I don’t come back from this? Of course we want to know where we stand with each other before going into danger.” She then glanced at Jaxx. “If I don’t come back from this, I want you to be happy and never blame yourself for anything that—”

  “Salena is right,” Jaxx cut her off. “We should focus on the task at hand. I’m not losing you today so there is no reason to discuss that.”

  What had he just been thinking about her honesty? This was not something he wanted to hear or even consider as a possibility. Once a dragon chose his mate, there was no one else for him. If he lost her, he would spend the rest of his life pining for his lost heart. He’d seen dragon-shifters who had fallen to such a horrible fate. They were strange creatures, broken and sad, waiting for a death that took it’s time coming. When the planet had been at war—shifters against shifters—they were often the ones to volunteer for the most dangerous missions as if they hoped the gods would end their suffering.

  “What is it?” Fiora asked. “What are you thinking?”

  “It’s not important right now,” Jaxx answered.

  “Wh—?” Salena began to ask him something and he held up his hand to stop her. He did not want to be forced into putting his worries on Fiora. Salena nodded and moved to rejoin Grier.

  “I don’t like you being here,” he said when Fiora continued to stare at him.

  “I understand. I don’t like you being in danger either.” She began walking toward where they had last seen Payton. “Any idea where she went?”

  Jaxx glanced down toward soft impressions in the street that revealed where Payton had walked. He knew her stride and could pick the footprints out of the many. “This way.”

  His skin tingled with the threat of a shift. The dragon wanted to come out but the man held it back. He searched each face they passed for signs of danger. For the most part, they were ignored, but there were a few who stared a little too long and it made him uncomfortable.

  The pattern in the ground became distorted by heavy foot traffic. He searched for Payton in the crowd. A couple of beat-up sweeper borgs marched past with weapons. Old skin grafts had peeled away to leave a mechanical skeleton exposed. With each step one of them rattled lightly as if their parts weren’t completely bolted together. Thankfully, they didn’t stop in their progress.

  “There,” Fiora whispered.

  Jaxx followed her gaze to a row of faded cloths drying in the breeze at the end of the street. The sound of flapping material became distinct against the noise of the city. The sweeper borgs continued on their way.

  As material blew aside, he caught a glimpse of Payton watching them from beside the rocky cliff. She’d hidden behind a wide piece of cloth to wait for them to catch up. When he met her gaze, she waved them to join her.

  Jaxx escorted Fiora past a corner building to where the street crossed with another to run along the side of the cliff at the edge of the city. Rows of tables were set up in the shadows several paces away from where Payton hid. The smell of cooking meat drifted to where they stood. The tables closest to a fire pit were filled with a dozen men. A boy walked plates of food to a few of them before turning around to fetch more.

  Across the street from the diners stood a group of people watching, as if desperate to gain sustenance from the smell in the air. Hungry people were nothing new in the city, but it angered him every time he witnessed it. One food simulator would easily feed the starving crowd.

  “I hate the Federation,” Fiora said through gritted teeth. “Promise me when we figure out how to stop this disaster, we’re going to help them. All of them. Promise we won’t stop until this nightmare is over for them.”

  “You have my word,” Jaxx said. She didn’t need to illicit the promise from him. He’d already been working on that, but he saw how important it was for her to lay voice to it. He could imagine how she felt was much like the first time he’d seen such misery.

  A few of the men at the dining tables taunted those who begged for food. He knew the hungry would not cross the street. To do so would be to draw the ridicule of those who were fed.

  Jaxx continued walking, waiting to explain things further until they were out of sight. They arrived at the hanging material.

  “Some of them are just children,” Fiora said. “I know the cruelty that exists in the universes, but to see it…”

  Payton pulled back a sheet and said, “We send them to the corner to stare at the food so no one suspects they’re getting fed from another source. If they stopped showing, someone would notice. A runner will come by later. With Brogan gone the food runs are taking longer.”

  Jaxx nodded when Fiora glanced at him. Payton had beat him to the explanation. “It’s true.”

  Fiora sighed in relief.

  “Doyen is with his followers at the tables. This is as close as we can get without being in full view.” Payton held the material aside so they could duck underneath. “Hopefully, the sheets will provide some protection.”

  “This will do,” Fiora agreed.

  “I’ll go tell Salena and Grier what we’re doing. We’ll be nearby if anything happens.” Payton slipped through the laundry and disappeared into a passing group.

  “Can you use your shifter eyesight and tell me which one he is?” Fiora asked.

  Jaxx focused his vision. It didn’t take him long to pick Doyen out of the gathering. “Back to the cliff, closet to the cooking fire facing the others.”

  Fiora took a deep breath, angling her head as material blew in front of their view. “Got him.”

  “Say the word,” Jaxx said.

  “I know.” She smiled at him. Her eyes already looked tired, and she hadn’t even started the reading. “You’ll fly me out of here.”

  “Yes.” He nodded.

  “There is something you can do for me.” Fiora touched his cheek.

  “Anything.”

  “When I start, don’t touch me and bring me out of my visions. My nose will bleed and I’ll be in pain, but don’t stop it. This is too important.” Fiora ran her thumb along his bottom lip. “I know you’ll want to, but don’t.”

  Jaxx didn’t like it, but he nodded once before dipping slightly to kiss her lips. Her hand slid against his cheek in a gentle caress. He covered her hand with his, holding her to him for a little while longer before finally letting go.

  16

  The rocks started with a light trickle down the side of the cliff to her left. Fiora forced herself not to react in fear, even though she wanted to throw her hands protectively over her head before larger stones rained down on her. The material changed before lighting up in flames from the explosion. The fire burned all around her. She pushed past the blistering heat. This is not the moment she needed to see.

  Sh
e focused her eyes on Doyen’s short black hair, ignoring the material that blew past her to hide him in an unrhythmic pattern. As she stared at him, his blue eyes came into focus. Not so much that her eyesight improved over the distance, but because she picked up on his timeline.

  Ash began to fall. Doyen’s gaze was cold, a reflection of his dead emotions. She’d sensed his kind before. It showed in their expressions, their manners, in their speech. People like him felt very little, and what they did feel was only for themselves—their need for adoration, their wants and desires. He was the kind who could easily kill thousands if it advanced his agenda…or if he simply had a bad day and felt like taking it out on others.

  But capable did not mean he was the one. Fiora needed to see the moment the disaster started.

  Many acts of violence formed Doyen’s future. They came at her in flashes. She flinched as she watched the man strike down a young boy for daring to bump into him. Crowds became inflamed as he spoke of attacking shifters. His men pulled a woman off the streets and brought her to him. Fiora felt the bile rising in her as she watched the horror that ensued. When Doyen finished, her naked, dead body was thrown in a trash fire by a man in red boots.

  “Fiora?” Jaxx’s voice felt far away. She managed to lift her hand to keep him back. He couldn’t stop this. She had to look. She was the only one who could.

  Next, the smell of liquor overwhelmed her senses, and she coughed as it burned her lungs. She felt as if she moved through a campsite in the forest. Large cats slept on the ground on old blankets next to messy piles of men’s clothing. A giant metal canister, which seemed to be the source of the smell, had been situated between them. Doyen ordered his men to attack, watching as they obeyed. The cat-shifters never had a chance as they were slaughtered in their sleep.

  Each second felt like an eternity in the fire pits of Bravon. Doyen and his men were so proud of what they had done. Fiora wanted to scream at them to stop but couldn’t.

  A bright light illuminated the forest, interrupting the post-massacre celebration. The world spun as her viewpoint altered to face the other direction. The eruption over Shelter City could be seen even miles away.

  “What is this? What are you doing in here?” an angry voice demanded.

  The angry voice jolted her away from the forest vision. She turned to look only to be smacked in the face by something that was on fire. Startled and disoriented, Fiora gasped and flung her hands to stop the attack. The fire disappeared, and she ended up tangled in a wet cloth.

  “You’re getting blood on my linens. Get out, get out!” A man charged at her with a smooth wooden bat. Red, blistered skin covered his face.

  The man swung at her. Fiora screamed, unable to focus between the future and the present.

  Jaxx jumped in front of her and caught the bat in his hand. With a growl, he pushed the man away from them. The man fell on the ground.

  Jaxx grabbed her hand. Instantly the fire cleared, and she saw that the man staring at her from the ground no longer had blisters.

  Jaxx tossed the bat aside. “Go!”

  The man scrambled away from them.

  “Don’t worry. He won’t hurt you.” Jaxx grabbed the damp cloth she’d been entangled in and lifted a corner to clean her face gently. She glanced down to see blood staining the front of her shirt.

  “Hey! What’s going on in there?”

  Fiora pushed the cloth away from her face and turned toward the sound. Doyen and his men had stood at the commotion and came to investigate.

  “We have to leave.” Fiora grabbed Jaxx’s hand and pulled him behind her as she pushed her way out of the material. She rushed in the opposite direction of the dining tables, hoping to get lost in the crowd. She found Payton watching from across the street.

  “What did you see?” Jaxx asked, threading his arm behind her back to propel her forward.

  “It wasn’t him. He will be in the forest slaughtering cat-shifters when the explosion goes off.” Fiora’s head pounded, and she felt dizzy.

  “What?” Jaxx slowed and glanced back as if his first reaction was to help the cat-shifters.

  “Stop them!” Doyen yelled.

  “It wasn’t him,” Fiora was forced to repeat. “He will be in the forest slaughtering cat-shifters when the explosion goes off.”

  “There you are.” Payton showed up next to her. She swept a cloak around Fiora’s shoulders. “Jaxx, we have to split up. That launderer is under Doyen’s protection. They’re looking for a man and woman together. We’ll meet you back at Yevgen’s.”

  Jaxx’s grip tightened on her hand. “No, I can get you both out of here.”

  “Jaxx, you can’t shift here. The Federation cannot see us in the city. It will undo all the progress we’ve made.” Payton pulled at Fiora’s arm, trying to get him to let go.

  Fiora wanted to reassure him but couldn’t. In truth she didn’t know if it would be all right. “I think we need to listen to Payton. Doyen is dangerous. We can’t get into a fight with him here. He has too many followers.”

  “Don’t stop walking,” Jaxx ordered Payton. “Get her out of this crowd.”

  “I’ll protect her with my life,” Payton answered.

  “I’m…” Jaxx’s words were lost as more shouts sounded.

  Doyen’s men began pushing over tables and terrorizing the crowd. “Where are they? Find them!”

  Jaxx finally released her hand. “I love you. I’m right behind you.”

  “I love you,” Fiora answered.

  Timelines came at her from all directions. After focusing on Doyen, she found it difficult to block out the onslaught of visions. She saw a man kissing a woman in a stolen embrace, only to have the ghost of the image replaced by children running through them.

  Ash again fell like snow. Payton had a hold of her elbow and was guiding her through the city. Fiora wanted to turn and look for Jaxx, but she couldn’t see past the flurry of movement as visions overlaid reality. Several people ran down the street, screaming. Their translucent forms passed over two unaware children playing some kind of game in the dirt.

  “We’re drawing attention.” Payton paused long enough to pull the cloak over Fiora’s head. “You look like I beat you bloody. Try not to glance up.”

  Fiora saw a future where Payton was curled into a ball crying surrounded by darkness. She felt a wave of anguish wash over her from the woman.

  “I’m sorry,” Fiora whispered in reaction to the pain.

  “Not your fault,” Payton answered, clearly not understanding what Fiora referred to.

  Before she could explain, the ash stopped falling. Fiora looked to the sky, waiting for the explosion. It didn’t come. Something prickled her senses.

  Fiora pushed the cloak off her head and looked around the city street. A myriad of sounds from the murmur of conversation to a high-pitched laugh overtook her hearing.

  “Du—o!” In the chaos of the present and future, a figure caught her notice. She smelled the faint trace of liquor from the forest.

  “Come—” Payton began.

  “No, wait.” Fiora dug in her heels and refused to follow.

  The figure looked like so many others in the city. His eyes were rimmed with red, and he weaved on his feet. His mouth opened, and he angrily shouted something. Fiora tried to focus on his words.

  “Du—o!”

  Fiora focused harder, making the moment replay itself.

  “Dulla! Where are you, woman?” The figure moved past them, and the smell became stronger. “Stupid whore. I’ll show you.”

  Fiora pointed away from where Payton led them. “We have to go down there.”

  “The alley? Many of them don’t come out on the other side. They’re dead ends. I don’t know what’s back there.” Payton shook her head. “Yevgen is this way. I need to get you out of the crowds.”

  The princess again tried to correct their path.

  “Trust me,” Fiora insisted, forcing Payton to walk with her since the woman wouldn’t let go o
f her. “This way.”

  “If you say so.” Payton didn’t sound sure, but she darted ahead of Fiora to enter the alleyway first.

  The visions happening in the alley were less active than the wider street. Fiora ignored the numerous future-trysting couples against the metal walls. The figure she was interested in was the man walking away from them.

  The walkway was between the buildings with no doors on either side. The uneven width caused them to turn to the side to pass a few times. Old glass bottles and scrap metal littered the ground.

  “Where are we going?” Payton asked.

  “I don’t know. Follow him,” Fiora answered, pointing after the man.

  “Follow who?” Payton glanced back at her. “There’s no one there.”

  “Me. Follow me.” Fiora touched Payton’s arm to move her out of the way so she could take the lead.

  Adrenaline pumped through her, and she found a renewed strength. The smell of liquor became more potent, the closer she came to the vision. Dulla’s drunken husband mumbled to himself, cursing his wife for running off, threatening to kill Brogan if he ever dared to show his face. Fiora already knew that the brother and sister would not be returning to Shelter City.

  After what felt like a long walk, the figure finally stopped at a dead end. One of the metal canisters like the cat-shifters had in the forest stood in the small opening. The smell of liquor was stronger here.

  “What is it?” Payton asked, clearly not seeing what Fiora did.

  “Liquor,” Fiora tried to explain, but it was hard to concentrate between the future and Payton’s present. Dulla’s husband fussed with the metal canister. Loud clanks came from his work.

  “You need a drink?” Payton asked. “I’m all for it, but there are better places than tapping into this old still.”

  “Still?”

  “Yeah.” Payton walked up to the metal canister and slapped it. The man in the future didn’t react. “One of the marsh farmers must have sold someone this piece of junk. They use them to brew liquor in the forest. Potent stuff. Smells like rocket fuel, tastes like fire, and it’ll take the hair off a cat’s back.”