Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Idon’t even feel Zyran leading me out of the meeting room, away from the shouting and arguing after Blackfire’s truth.
I only feel Zyran’s hand touching my back softly but firmly and my heart racing a million times a minute.
I vaguely hear Illyia asking how it can be true that I am married to Blackfire, the brutal heir of the Crone Pack.
Zyran finds an empty room and slams the door shut behind us before lifting my hair off my neck. “He really did it. The bastard.”
“How do I break it?” I feel like heaving. Luckily, I decided I was too nervous for breakfast this morning. “I never… I can’t be married…”
Zyran sighs low, pulling me into his arms and holding me tight. We stand like that for a long moment until my heart finally starts to slow down and I can actually breathe again. “This changes nothing. I’m here,” he soothes. “What do you know of marks?”
“Er, something about mate and marriage marks. I wasn’t taught much about them,” I mutter into his chest armour.
Illyia clears her throat and I turn to look at her. “Bane told me about the mate marks if that helps. There are two, one is drawn and one is given by the goddesses to fated mates who find each other. The drawn mark for mates needs conditions, but I don’t know them.”
Zyran kisses my forehead just once. “Illyia is right in what she has been taught. Normal mate marks and marriage marks are drawn onto the skin after certain conditions are met and feelings are shared. It is done to bind people who are not fated mates but who love each other so much that it doesn’t matter to them.
Fated mates? They find each other only when love is shared and one of them is at risk of dying.
Life-and-death is the only trigger for a true mate mark and bond.
” He looks down at me. Feelings? Love? I hate Blackfire…
don’t I? “Marks like this cannot be broken unless one of you dies. They are concrete things, once given, and they link you forever. There is no undoing this now, only dealing with the consequences. He shouldn’t have—”
The door opens again, and Zyran moves straight in front of me, shielding me with his huge body as Reed and Orion walk in.
It’s very hard not to look at them, not to give them any attention, when they’re right in front of me.
Goddess above, this hurts. I trusted them, began falling for them…
and they fucked up so much there isn’t a way back for us.
I don’t know what’s worse—the bubbling anger building in my throat, the resentment, or the sheer appeal they somehow still have, as they look ridiculously attractive.
Though Orion looks like he’s seen better days, with his messy dark hair and equally dark circles under his eyes.
What’s wrong with him? I’m fairly certain I can smell alcohol wafting through the room too.
The mark on Orion’s neck, a crown of green vines, begins to glow.
As does Reed’s water crown of ice on his neck, but his glows blue.
Reed’s eyes lock with mine as I turn and move around Zyran. “Little human…fuck, I missed you.”
My heart clenches at the nickname. I’m not human at all now. I huff. “Did you know about the marriage mark? Did you help him do it, or—”
Reed puts his hands in the air in surrender.
“We knew nothing about it until it was long past done, and it’s between you and Blackfire to argue about, don’t you think?
I don’t agree with what he did, but I get it.
I would have done the same if I had half the chance of keeping you as my wife.
” He smiles at me, all charm. It might work on other girls, but I know him.
I’ve seen past the beautiful face, the perfect body and pretty eyes.
I’ve seen him lie to me. He looks up, over my head, and his eyes harden.
“We need to speak alone about what happened out there. Perhaps your companion can wait outside.”
The way he says companion is not nice. Zyran laughs. “Make me, water prince.” Zyran’s arm runs around my waist, his hand flat against my stomach as he tugs me against him. A growl builds low in both Orion’s and Reed’s throats and echoes around the room.
Illyia takes a few steps back. “Maybe I should go—”
The door opens again and Blackfire walks in without a trace of guilt on his masked face. The wolf mask never did much to hide his expressive eyes from me, and as they find mine, his eyes tighten. “I suggest you get your hands off my wife, bat,” he snarls at Zyran.
“I never agreed to be your wife,” I snap back before Zyran can say a word. “You don’t get to tell me what to do because you forced a mark onto me. You’re just as bad as your uncle.”
Blackfire takes a step back like I’ve hit him, and I almost want to take the words back, but I’m angry, hurting and in shock. For a second, his eyes widen, but then he glares, shaking his head once. “I am not him.”
“You still did this,” I whisper softly.
Blackfire comes towards me, and I know it is not going to end well when Zyran turns me around to his back.
The two of them slam into each other like massive logs of trees hitting the ground, and I wince as they smash through the huge table in the room.
Reed and Orion walk to me, and it’s clear they are going to make me leave with them… until we all freeze.
The room goes deathly cold, and darkness sweeps in from the windows, the door, and echoes around our feet.
My world pitches sideways as I feel my legs growing weak and the floor falling out from beneath me.
“MERE!” I hear Zyran’s shout before I collapse backwards, and everything plunges into pitch darkness for a long minute.
When I open my eyes, I’m no longer in the Crone Palace…
but somewhere new. I think it’s a dream world, like what I shared with Zyran at times.
Except he’s not here. But I’m not alone.
Grey clouds swirl around my legs, and the sky is nothing but pitch black in every direction.
No stars, no light, just endless darkness.
Reed, Orion, and Blackfire are also here, standing nearby—too close for my liking but at my side.
But I’ve been in this dream before, and I don’t think we’re alone. At the end of the Folkland…there was a man’s voice… In the blackness, something dark moves in front of us. I can see someone.
Blackfire touches my arm, and I’m too scared to move away. “Are you okay? Why did you bring us here?”
“I didn’t do anything. I don’t have powers like this,” I whisper back.
The creature, whatever he is, soon makes it clear who made this dream place.
I’ve heard him before, like this, in dreams. He looks like nothing but a dark shadow outline of a man, tall and strong, but I can’t make out a single feature.
I glance at Reed, seeing him staring at me instead, his eyes full of worry.
Orion is frozen in place, staring away at the darkness.
“I am the dark god, the God of Oblivion, and there is no danger here if you do as I ask. It has been many years since your birth, Princess Meredith Duskmore, since I stood outside your castle and watched in another form. They say darkness rose for you, the sea danced for Prince Reed, the dark fire burnt for Blackfire, and for Prince Orion…oh, how the earth trembled and darkened. Each of you owes me for what power lies in your blood and soul, and Meredith owes me a debt far greater than any other. Each of you will help to pay this debt. You made a mistake in revealing your feelings—in showing the world and the gods your love of this dark child.”
My heart is beating loudly in my chest as the air seems to creep around me. I feel like I can’t move. I feel completely frozen. Reed growls low. “And if we decide not to let you coerce us?”
“She stays with me as my queen, ruling at my side, in darkness and fear forever, as it is destined to be.” I want to move, to run away, to use my powers, but I can’t.
“Like fuck she will,” Blackfire snarls.
“Now, Champions of the goddesses, here is a story you won’t be told by your alpha parents.
The three goddesses took something from me a very long time ago, and you will return what has been taken.
Once, the goddesses were just three human girls.
They were nothing. Pointless until the day they found me.
They began to worship me, as all should, but as time went on, they wished to be more than servants to a king.
They wished for their own lives, and they knew exactly how to get them.
There are three keys to my prison, each one a powerful weapon that they used to stay powerful and eternally alive.
” The shadows shimmer slightly. “You are to return them to me, for I cannot leave this space until you do.”
“If they have these keys…how are we to get them from goddesses no one has seen in hundreds of years outside of the Folkland?” Reed demands.
“They are not keys to me but weapons, and you have seen them in the Folkland, yes, but that is not their home. The goddesses can only call on them once a year, and with them, they can absorb enough life from the deaths on the island to keep them alive until the next Folkland.” My stomach turns.
They are feeding on the death they cause in the Folkland?
Did they do the same with Tannith? “They each have something different, but let us start with the heart of the Crone Pack.” I remember the heart, the Crone goddess holding it in her hands.
“You need to find it—each of them—and when you do, call for me. Call for your dark god and present me with your gift. When you do, all your debt to me will be repaid, and you will be free.”
“And you will be free too?” I ask. “What happens then?”
“I get revenge for all my years trapped and locked away. The goddesses will fight back, of course, but it does not matter. We will both have our sides of this war to come,” he answers.
I shake my head. “I don’t want to free you. I owe you nothing.”