Marked (Last Princess Book 1)

by A. M. Hardin

  "Shiloi neko salu Maja." Andrei waves his hand toward the mirror hanging on the wall.

  Kade stands up from the couch a mere moment before the glass ripples and an older man is there, looking at the men who now have their heads inclined respectfully.

  "Any news?" he asks, his voice deep and gruff, and it sounds impatient.

  "You could say that," Xander says, lifting his head and gesturing for me to join them. I move to stand next to him, despite my nerves. My curiosity always wins out over nerves. It's kind of annoying if I'm honest. "My King," Xander begins, "as you already know, we've found your daughter."

  The man in the mirror looks at me, and he doesn't move his intense gaze away from me. "My Cherish," he whispers. "You look like a smaller version of your mother."

  I wave lamely. "Uh, hi?" I glance at the guys, wondering if they had told him my name.

  He laughs for a moment before turning his attention to the men around me. "Was there a reason for the call?"

  "The Princess was curious about casting spells using our language," Xander explains. "We chose this as an example."

  "Uh, yeah, could you not call me that?" I ask, flinching slightly. It kind of made everything a bit more real.

  The King laughs. "You'll get used to it, my dear. I take it this means you'll be joining me soon?"

  I speak up before the others have a chance to. "I don't want to leave my family."

  Andrei curses under his breath when the king's gaze falls on me, studying me intently. "How is your mother?" he asks.

  "If you're referring to my birth mother, my mom told me she died around my first birthday." I tilt my head when I see the pain those words bring to his eyes. "You didn't know?"

  He shakes his head sadly. "I did not. Your mother took you from here the moment we got wind that there'd be a war. She wanted you to stay safe. Unfortunately, our kingdom is still at war, so I was unable to have her bring you back here."

  "Why now?" I ask.

  "Before you left, I placed a spell over you to hide your abilities so that you'd be able to blend easier in the human world. Approaching your eighteenth birthday, the spell has started to wear off and thin, leaving you vulnerable to attack should our enemies find you. From what my guards have told me, you've already encountered some of their magic."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You didn't explain it to her?" he asks the guys surrounding me.

  Andrei scowls and explains, "She kind of left in a huff before we could fully explain what was going on yesterday."

  The king raises a brow. "Really?" He shakes his head. "You should explain it to her." He turns his attention back to me. "In any case, until you have full access to your powers you're vulnerable, especially when you have no clue how to use them. Until you return here and I release the spell, you will be on the edge of having that power and being powerless. That is not acceptable. The sooner you come to us, the sooner we can fix that. Perhaps, you could stay with us for a short while, then join your human family after?"

  I bite my lip, debating. "I want to talk to my mom about it." His face falls slightly, making me feel bad. "I'm not saying no, but maybe we can figure out when I can come? I graduate this year. I really don’t want to miss that."

  He nods. "I understand. If you ever wish to contact me, have one of the guards call, and I'll hopefully have enough time for us to chat for a while." His eyes flick to something off to the side, and he sighs. "I have to go. Thank you, boys, for calling me, so I could talk to my daughter. Cherish, I look forward to hearing from you soon."

  The mirror ripples again, and in the next second, I'm looking at my own reflection.

  Andrei turns to face me. "You do know that if it becomes too hard to protect you here we'll have no choice but take you to our home, right?"

  I raise a brow at his tone. "Hmm."

  "What is 'hmm'?" he asks.

  "You're not going to be ordering me to go anywhere. I'll agree to go if it ever gets that bad, but I doubt it will. I will not be leaving my family before I'm ready to if I can help it."

  "Lusi disa," he snarls, clearly unhappy with my answer.

  "Bless you?"

  Kade laughs, while Xander coughs to cover his. "He was calling you a stubborn princess."

  I give Andrei a sweet smile. "The sooner you realize you can't out-stubborn me, the better we'll all be."

  He narrows his eyes at me a second before rolling them and strolling out of the room.

  "He okay?" I ask.

  Xander chuckles. "He's fine. He's just in a mood today. We'll explain some other time."

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cherish

  "Is this all really necessary?" I ask Andrei as he brings me to the basement of their house.

  It's been a month since I found out the truth. The guys have spent the entire month teaching me everything they can about their kingdom. I can't bring myself to admit that it's technically mine, too.

  They've also been trying to teach me their language, which I've been stumbling through. Hey, at least I know the swear words, thanks to Xander-and much to Andrei's annoyance that I haven't learned the more important words first. I can't help it that I wanted to start with the more interesting and fun words.

  I still haven't told Ella what's going on, and I think she's pissed at me for keeping something from her because I haven't told her what I've been doing. Mom and dad have been arguing about if they should include her or not, and it's been all a giant headache.

  "We can't be with you here twenty-four seven. I highly doubt you'll enjoy us being around you that much, anyway, when we leave here. It's important that you can at least learn how to defend yourself until one of us can get to you."

  "Dude, you are aware that I went to almost every self-defense class available around here, right?"

  "That's not enough, you don't have knowledge of different weapons do you?"

  I pause, and he smirks at me.

  "Exactly."

  "You don't need to be smug," I snap.

  "Cheer up, buttercup. It'll be fun."

  I raise an eyebrow at him as he leads me to a wall. "Fun? I didn't think you really did fun. You're more serious than Xander and Kade."

  He places his hand at a spot on the wall, and it opens a doorway leading to a closet-sized room filled with weapons.

  He doesn't move, just turns to face me. "Cherish, when you're as old as I am, you see a lot of shit. After so long, it starts to get to you. I pray that you never have to go through some of the things I've had to see or go through, myself."

  I want to ask him what he means, to elaborate, but something in his eyes stops me. Instead I give him a brief nod.

  He clears his throat and walks into the room. He grabs a large duffle bag and starts filling it with various items. Some of them I don't recognize or even know what the hell they do. The ones I do recognize are the knives, bow and arrow, and a gun. Uh, what? No. Hell no.

  "I should tell you, I'm uh, not really comfortable with the gun," I admit, hating my fear of the damn things.

  I don't know where that fear came from, but if I've ever been in the same room as one, I avoid it entirely. My dad has a shotgun that he keeps locked up in his closet because it makes me so uneasy.

  Andrei glances at me while zipping the bag. "What do you mean?"

  I wince. "I'm kind of afraid of them."

  He stares at me for a second, his lips twitching.

  "Don't you dare," I warn, pointing a finger at him with my eyes narrowed.

  A chuckle slips out, and he shakes his head. "You're serious?"

  "Deadly."

  "You know the guys are going to love giving you shit about that, right?" His expression shows that he's still fighting laughter. Asshole. Even his shoulders are shaking.

  "And they'll get my foot shoved up their ass. Just like I'll do to you, grandpa. Don't test me."

  He tilts his head back and laughs outright, his shoulders shaking harder. He shakes his head and puts the bag on his shoulder. "Co
me on. We're going to be doing this outside."

  "I'm not touching that gun," I say quietly, looking down at the ground while we walk, pretending to be fascinated by the floor.

  Andrei stops walking and tilts my head up to look at him. "We'll work through it. I won't push you to do something you're not comfortable with, but we do need to work through that fear."

  I bite the inside of my cheek. "Okay."

  His eyes roam across my face before he releases me and steps away. He leads me to the backyard, and I frown when I notice that there's really no coverage from nosy neighbors.

  "Should we be doing this outside?"

  Andrei nods. "There's a glamour around the house and the yard. Any humans that are around won't be able to hear or see what's happening over here."

  "That's nifty. It's like your own little soundproof room."

  He shrugs. "I guess it is, though the only reason the glamour has been added to the very edges of the yard is because of your training. You ready to get started?"

  "I guess." I mutter, "It's not like I have a choice."

  He smirks at me. "You really don't."

  Over the next several hours, Andrei explains what each weapon is, what it does, and how it works. After that lesson he had me learn how to use a few of them hands-on for at least an hour each before moving onto the next one. All I have to say, some of these weapons that the elves have made are crazy weird, or powerful. Whichever works, I guess. They look weird and are powerful, so I mean, I guess they both work. Thankfully, I haven't been made to use them in any kind of sparring against him yet since he just wants me to get a feel for the weapons.

  "Damn, Andrei," Xander's voice cuts through my concentration, and I look up to see him walking over towards us his hands stuffed in his pockets. "Maybe she should take a break." He meets my eyes. "You look like you're about to collapse, Princess."

  I scowl at him. "How many times do I need to tell you, stop calling me that," I huff out between panting breaths.

  He grins. "Sorry, Princess. It's not happening. Especially since when we go home, you'll be called that by everyone."

  I narrow my eyes. "Don't be a dick, Xander." His shoulders shake with a chuckle.

  "I was actually going to call it a day. She's got more to go over on our history and everything yet, anyway," Andrei says before I can snap at Xander for laughing.

  I groan. "More learning?"

  Andrei smiles. "More learning," he confirms. "You need to know these things, Cherish. We wouldn't be pushing you to learn about it if it wasn't important."

  Letting out a sigh, I grab my water bottle and take a drink. "I know, I know. I just do enough learning at school. All this shit does is annoy me. I'm more artist than I am a learner."

  Xander laughs. "If I hadn't seen how you acted at school when you need to learn shit, I'd almost be offended on behalf of our entire race."

  Scowling at him, I throw my now empty water bottle at him. "Shut up. I just don't retain information well on the best days. Unless I'm the one instigating the learning process or whatever, I just can't keep myself interested. That's what makes learning so annoying for me."

  "Why don't you go take a shower, Cherish, then we'll get everything ready for your next lesson," Xander says.

  "Do I still have a clean set of clothes here?" I tilt my head in confusion at Xander's shifty expression. "What?"

  "Uh, the king sent the royal dress maker here, he sent her here with a bunch of dresses for you, so I mean, you have clothes, but they're not exactly the clothes you brought."

  "He what?" I ask, stunned. "But, why?"

  "A lot of the women in our court wear dresses, those that don't are usually guards," Andrei explains.

  I look between them. "I don't want to wear a dress all the time."

  "It's not a requirement, Cherish," he assures me. "I think your father just wanted you to be able to get used to wearing dresses so often."

  I blink at him. "These aren't like super flashy are they? I don't do flashy."

  Xander snickers, and Andrei shakes his head before answering. "Maybe? I don't know what you consider flashy."

  I roll my eyes. "Whatever." I turn to walk back into the house, pausing when Xander speaks.

  "The clothes are in your room hanging up."

  I wave my hand up in acknowledgement and head to the room the guys dubbed as mine when they took me on a tour of the house. They claim that it's only there to hold my things while I'm here, but I wouldn't be shocked if they tried making me move in here with them, in an attempt to keep me safe.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cherish

  Another week has gone by, and nothing bad has happened, and I’m starting to think that the guys are just being overly paranoid since they’re more on edge now than they were before. Needless to say, their paranoia is suffocating, especially since all it’s doing is making them stick to me like glue when we’re at school. All that is doing is feeding the stupid rumors that I’m fucking the three of them.

  Not that I wouldn’t mind. They’re all freaking delicious, but I don’t think they see me as anything else but a duty. It’s kind of annoying because I don’t know if I’m the only one that’s being affected by the soft, lingering touches between us. I also don’t think I’d be able to handle three guys at once. Or if they’d even be down with that. It’s definitely fun to fantasize though.

  I still get dirty looks and exchange not so nice words with Gloria almost daily. Adam's left me alone for the most part, minus the longing looks he sends me when I'm walking through the halls alone. If one or all of the guys are with me, his expression darkens and turns angry and jealous.

  Ella's frustrated with me for keeping secrets still, and I finally managed to convince dad that we should tell her tonight because we had decided that I'd leave after graduation and spend the summer with my biological father. It's still a lot to wrap my head around, and I'm nervous now that there's only a month to go until graduation.

  “Everything okay?” I snap out of my thoughts at Kade’s words and turn to face him. I didn’t even hear him come in.

  “What?”

  “You’ve been staring out the window deep in thought for quite a while. You didn’t even realize I came in. I’ve been here for a few minutes, waiting for you to notice, but it was like you were lost in your own little world.”

  I purse my lips as I close the book he had given me to read through and set it aside. “Yeah, just thinking about everything.”

  “Everything?” he asks, moving to come further into the room.

  I sigh. “Just school, Ella, and leaving with you guys after graduation.”

  He smiles softly at me. “I know it’s a lot, Cherish. You’ve advanced well in your training with Andrei as well as the language with Xander, even if you do stumble through it quite often, except for the swear words,” he says with a chuckle. I give him an unrepentant shrug. “Even though it’s a lot to take in and something you don’t really want to do, you’ve learned a bit about our culture and our history.”

  “Sorry, I know I should already know more about it than I do, but it’s boring as shit.”

  He laughs. “It’s all right, if I didn’t live through some of it I’d have thought the same thing.”

  “Is it time for me to leave already?” I ask, not really wanting to go into the whole learning shit again. “I haven’t even looked at the time in a while.”

  “Yeah, we figured since you walked here today, I’d walk you home. Make sure the wards are in place still.”

  I raise a brow at him. “You don’t already know?”

  He flashes a sheepish expression at me. “Uh, the wards we have set up only alert us to a breach if we’re actually inside the ward.”

  It doesn’t take long for me to read between the lines. “At least one of you have been staying outside my house at all times when I’m home, haven’t you?”

  He shrugs. “Yeah, we needed to make sure you were safe.”

  I snort. “You could hav
e told me, I’m sure my mom wouldn’t object to whoever’s there overnight to sleeping in our guest room or on the couch.”

  “Probably not, but we needed to be outside anyway just to patrol the area. It’s fine,” he assures me when he notices my frown. “We’re used to it, mia.”

  My frown deepens when I don’t recognize the word he used. “Mia?”

  “Precious,” he supplies. I bite my lip and feel my face getting warm.

  “Oh.” ‘Oh’? Great reply, Cherish. I’m such a dumbass.

  He chuckles. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

  I stand up from my spot at the window and follow Kade out of the house, shouting goodbyes at Xander and Andrei before I leave.

  The walk back to my house is silent but pleasant. At least, it is until I feel Kade tense beside me after we take a few steps on my driveway.

  "What's wrong?" I ask, feeling myself tense up in response.

  "There's been a breach," he says a split second before pulling his phone out. He pushes a few buttons on it then puts it away. He turns to face me, expression serious. "Cherish, you need to stay behind me, and whatever you do, don't wander off. No matter what we find, if we even find anything, you need to stick close to me."

  I glare at him. "My family is in my house, Kade. If they need help, I'm going to help them."

  I move to step around him, but he grabs my arm and pulls me back to face him again. "No," he clips. "We cannot risk your safety."

  "We aren't doing anything. I'm more concerned about my family. I won't let them get hurt because of me." I wrench my arm out of his grasp, and he sighs.

  "Just stay close, please." He reaches behind his back and pulls out a gun, holding it out for me.

  I tentatively reach for it, still not one hundred percent comfortable around guns, but with Andrei's help I've been getting better. At least, I know how to shoot sort of accurately. I hit the target about seventy five percent of the time, anyway.

  Kade takes my hand and pulls me after him in the direction of my house. "I'm not sensing anything or anyone outside, that doesn't mean they're not there but all the same they could be inside, Cherish," he warns in a hushed tone. "Was your family supposed to be home?"