Chapter Twenty-Two- Marked
“There is something I must do. Before we go into the Antechamber,” Thorne informs me as he dresses himself.
“What is it?” I ask, stretching my tired limbs like a cat.
His eyes skate over my body, concealed only by the thin sheet I’m wrapped in. I wish I could save the image of his unfiltered lust and longing. He does not hide it, the way he craves me. The way I crave him.
“I’ll be quick,” he promises. I almost push him for an answer but he comes to my bedside and kisses me.
It is the most bizarre thing, this moment of domesticity between us. So I grab his face and ensure he feels this passion for him I’ve hidden for so long.
Perhaps he is going to kill someone, perhaps he has something to tend to regarding his position as a crown prince. I decide I don’t care when his tongue meets mine and he places his arms on either side of my body.
“If you don’t leave now, I’m never letting you go,” I smile against his lips.
He grumbles as he removes himself from above me. I am wrought with an all-consuming need for him. Wretched Prince. I savor the image of him leaving my bedroom, ignoring the fear that it may be the last time.
Crowley hops over to me, questioning if he should follow the Prince.
“No, no,” I shake my head and hand him a shiny earring from my bedside table. I found it ages ago and I keep forgetting to give it to him.
He hops around excitedly with it in his beak, the jewel swaying to and fro. He takes it over to his perch by the window with a delighted squawk and I grin, my heart fluttering with his excitement.
When I see the silhouette of another bird land on the other side of the stained glass, I know Fable has come to see her mate.
What a bizarre idea, Thorne and I’s familiars being mated.
I recall the way they danced in the rafters above me, above Thorne’s body that night.
It was as if Fable knew her person was on his way back to the land of the living just as she knew she had found her mate.
I watch the two hop around on his perch, chirping and tossing the shiny new earring around between their beaks. I can’t help but to smile.
I don’t feel Thorne the way I feel Crowley; whereas Crowley is tethered to my well of magic, Thorne is tethered to my soul.
I sense Crowley’s emotions, his needs, and I can communicate with him.
But with Thorne it’s like the lines have blurred between his essence and mine…
forcing us to share pain. But more than that…
there’s this thumping inside of me as if I can feel the steady thump thump thump of his heart alongside my own.
It’s new, taking the shape of him within my arms.
Years from now, when I am consumed by soil and my body is rotting, the maggots will search my skull for a taste of who I once was.
Instead, they’ll only find him, imprinted in my being, his fingerprints at the base of my skull.
He is becoming my soul, my heart, the very marrow in my bones.
His DNA is becoming so much a part of me that nature won’t even be able to pry us apart.
These thoughts hit me like a bolt of lighting, stirring a panic inside of me which I’ve never known.
I’m so fucked.
I am then hit with a familiar nagging need. A habit really, a way of being. Before I have time to stop myself, I whistle to Crowley and bolt out of my room, hot on the heels of the Executioner Prince. Crowley sasses me. He knows I can’t resist.
We find Thorne in the western most courtyard, engaging in a heated conversation with Lord Holt, the High Chancellor. I have climbed and perched myself behind a gargoyle on a terrace. Fortunately, the ballroom behind me is empty at the moment.
“Dreadfall Moor is gone, you are wasting your time!” Thorne reasons.
The name crashes into me, nearly knocking me off my feet.
I’m taken back almost a decade, to when I was seventeen.
One of my proudest hits, an entire guild of assassins.
Six to be exact. There is no regret for what I did, not exactly.
But a feeling of wretched hypocrisy. I killed them for doing what I do, simply because I was paid enough.
I was young, I hadn’t established values or integrity yet.
Besides, it’s not like I can take it back.
“Dreadfall Moor is very much still standing. There are whispers that the assassins have returned.”
I hear Liz’s screams then as I flayed her arms open for information. I shake the thought away. Her death was not quick.
“Returned? They died!” Thorne huffs. “Even if they were rising again, I am not going to go kill an entire guild of assassins. Are you insane?”
That would be insane. Who ever would do that? I smirk to myself.
Then I remember the unspeakable things I did to them.
Our bodies can sustain so much trauma before it dies.
I bled Corvin and Dane like pigs in a slaughterhouse.
If I focus hard enough, I can still feel their blood seeping into my boots.
A sweet sensation, for they had ties to Lord Jensen’s trafficking ring—I delighted in their deaths.
When Thorne tries to brush past him, Lord Holt grabs his arm.
"The King simply wants you to investigate,” Lord Holt demands. I feel his nails digging into Thorne’s arm, into my arm. I bare my teeth at the man and Crowley flaps his wings to get closer. I still him, wondering distantly where Fable is.
When the other three assassins discovered what I had done, they were already well and truly within my trap.
I graced them with my venom upon the end of arrows. They struck true and it took only moments for the remaining assassins of Dreadfall Moor to draw their last breath.
They were like a family as they died together, handed over to Xeusis in the same evening. As far as I know, no one was left alive with knowledge of them. Save for perhaps people that hired them for hits. Still, that’s a far cry from having the knowledge to raise another guild of assassins.
“I will not investigate this. Send someone else,” Thorne turns on his heel and storms away from Lord Holt.
Good.
For a moment I think he glances up at the terrace I’m on. But surely I’m mistaken. I traverse the wall of the palace, finding my footing on the roof’s edge and creep in the shadows just behind him. I instruct Crowley to stay away, I don’t want Thorne to notice the bird.
To my abject confusion, he makes his way into the Northwoods. What could he possibly be doing right now? With war shifting to favor our lands?
I am enthralled by his sure gait, his purposeful walk, the way the late morning sun highlights the silver in his hair.
Draped in shadows and under the protection of the Glyndra stealth spell, I follow him carefully. I probably should be with the rest of the knighthood, protecting the palace from attack. But this is so much more fun.
At least, it was fun. Now I’ve lost sight of Thorne. He seems to have disappeared behind a massive Bloodroot tree with its wide trunk and low hanging red vines.
Blessed Titans.
I urge forward carefully, unsure of what I may have followed him into.
“Lino,” I cast my hearing far and wide.
Only, there’s nothing. There’s no skittering of animals, no wind, and definitely no Thorne.
A wicked pressure in my back forces me to the ground with a thud. I realize too late that not only have I been tackled, but I have been tackled from above.
The wind is punched from my lungs momentarily and Crowley squawks before flapping upward into the tree.
“Are we still playing this game, Serpent?” Thorne wrenches my head back by my hair. I wince at the sensation. He has me pinned on my stomach. Dark magic from the earth below me has tethered me to the ground.
I try to distract him.
“We can play whatever game you want, Princeling.”
It doesn’t work.
His hand drifts down from my hair to wrap around my throat. My entire body comes alive, my cock rising to press painfully into the ground. Not now!
“As much as I’d love to indulge you, we’re kind of in a time crunch,” he bends his head down to whisper in my ear. “Don’t think for a second that I was oblivious to you following me. From Crowley attacking the King to you burning down my bar…”
“How did you—” I grunt as he tightens his grip on my throat.
“I marked you that night too,” he releases me and my head falls forward. Suddenly far too heavy. I narrow my eyes on him. He circles to crouch in front of me.
“Liar,” I struggle against the magic holding me down realizing that it has solidified into roots.
I would have known if I had been marked, I would have sensed it. Assassins aren’t marked. We can’t be. We…
“My darling, I’ve had my eye on you, too,” he tips my chin up with his finger. “But don’t be too hard on yourself, it worked out,” he grins devilishly. Then he kisses my forehead and I could punch him right now if I weren’t bound to the earth.
“Wretched Prince!” I want to sound angry but there’s a certain pride, humor in this revelation.
“Sorry, I can’t have you following me today,” he gestures towards me and I feel more roots of dark magic stretch out over my legs. I thrash violently.
I see him sprinting through the trees, his long coat trailing behind him. The navy blue seems to wave goodbye to me, mockingly.
“Thorne!” I roar. He’s going to leave me here!
Fuck.
I am forced to lay there and wallow in self pity over the biggest failure of my career, while Crowley pecks pointlessly at the vines.
I didn’t know that he marked me. That would mean that he was trained in Assassinwork too, that he has a gift for that niche kind of magic.
The kind of magic that demands self sacrifice, the ability to make oneself empty to hone that magic into a weapon.
It makes sense that he would be so good in his role as the Executioner Prince.
That he’s done it for so long without getting caught.
I groan and thrash against the restraints again in frustration. Wretched, vile, lying, brilliant Prince.
When I finally settle the rage inside of me, I’m able to focus on the magic that I hate using the most.
I send my magic down my limbs, envisioning flames that crawl free from my pores.
I groan, not accustomed to the sensation.
The heat is intense, and I immediately start sweating, drenching my shirt.
But the dark magic curls away from the flames.
Bowing before it, unable to continue its hold on me.
Finally I am free, and I huff aloud at the annoyance of the situation as I pull myself to standing.
Given that I was solidly restrained for at least fifteen minutes, it’s safe to say I lost Thorne. Crowley expresses his relief, hopping excitedly around my legs with a grasshopper in his beak.
“You were no help,” I scold him. He drops the grasshopper and blinks up at me. Then he nudges it at me. “I don’t want that. You eat it.”
I swear he gives me a withering look so I bend down to rub his head. That cheers him up and he goes about eating his bug.
With no idea where Thorne went, I decide to cut my losses and return to the palace. I will not wait for him to return.
Thorne finds me an hour later, conversing with Elm and a few other knights in the training yard. We are preparing for war; it’s inching closer to the palace.
“Sir Darkbloom, a word?” He waves me over. I ignore Elm’s raised eyebrows. “Ready?”
I nod.
As soon as we are alone in a servant’s corridor, I shove Thorne against the wall, his mouth agape in shock.
“You left me there!” I press my whole arm against his chest to keep him still.
He deflates and bites his lip. I see a small tug at the corner of his mouth.
“It’s not funny, Thorne,” I insist.
“It’s a little funny.” He grabs my arms and quickly turns us so that I’m pinned against the wall.
A molten hot need settles at the base of my spine and he knows it. He can feel it.
“Besides, you got out.” He steps into me. He eyes my lips hungrily and I forget why I’m supposed to be mad. “Fable showed me. Clever, using your fire.”
I grip his jaw hard and bring his lips to mine, tasting the sweet forbidden nature of him. He cages me with his arms, trapping me against the cold stone of the wall. A groan escapes me when he rubs his thigh against my erection.
Titans this is insane, we have so much more important things to be tending to. But his tongue dips into my mouth and I can’t help but to claim him with my own. I fist his shirt, greedily keeping him close.
“You can’t possibly believe that!” A servant giggles as she enters the corridor. Thorne jumps backward, forcing me to release him.
The other maid she’s talking to laughs but comes up short as she sees the Prince. I turn to face the wall with my head down.
They exit out of the door beside me and Thorne and I erupt into genuine laughter. I tug him back to me and kiss him hard. I know I’ll never get enough of him, it’s not possible.
“We have to go,” he whispers.