The Queen's Mark Page 15

  “Once I go, you will use my energy. You’ll have a small window but you can do it. You’ll have to wait just after my last breath, when my heart’s still beating.”

  I blinked down tears. “No. No! You said…” I sniffed. “You said we can’t. You said our people can’t do that. We can’t take life like that.”

  “I’m granting you permission, my queen,” he said, his thumb pushing away my tears again. “I’m allowing you to use my life to strengthen yours. We told you we make you stronger. This is how. You use my energy and you can short-circuit this place. You use it and nothing can contain you. You’re free and the others can find you no matter where you are.”

  “And you!”

  “It’ll be too late for me by then,” he said choking on more breaths. “You must leave me when they come. Don’t stop. You get out. You get yourself free.”

  “Lucas—”

  “I won’t fail you like I have,” he rasped, bringing me close and pushing his face into my hair. “I won’t, so you must do this for me. This is my job, Arden. My job is to protect you. Not the other way around. You will save yourself and you will get out of here. No negotiations or bargains.”

  He pressed me so hard into his chest my thoughts of that adrenaline came to pass again. He was giving me his last signs of strength, his last signs of energy.

  Before the next step.

  Twenty

  Arden

  There was no point of sleep anymore, not with thoughts of dying or the end. Together, we merely lay until Lucas’s hold loosened, until his arms held no power and I heard no more choked breaths behind his chest. I was essentially waiting for him to die, but I was all cried out, my only sense of peace listening to those rasps.

  Because from the distance I heard something else, a gentle beat that told me of hope and that was all I needed. I needed his heartbeat to gain control of my sanity, ironically, the exact thing I had to listen for to do what I promised him in the end.

  His dying wish.

  I looked up when a sensation brushed my hair across my shoulder, Lucas’s fingers dancing along my skin. Blue eyes on me, he watched me with a sense of peace I actually felt within my skin despite these walls that contained him. I was feeling his energy again, his peace and that only made sense with the smile he granted me with. Cupping the back of my head, he brought me close, the smile still there as he pressed his lips to my forehead.

  “It doesn’t hurt anymore, my queen,” he whispered, brushing his thumb along my jaw, then into my hair when he pushed in. “My sweet, sweet Arden. I feel no pain.”

  He felt no pain because it was coming, his ultimate end and a finality he was forcing me to be okay with. He wanted me to be okay with him dying, but I wasn’t okay.

  I was pissed off.

  He told me to stop before my lips touched his, a final plea with the last of his strength he didn’t have. He used more of it in his attempts to hold me back, my body pressing against his and rolling him underneath me.

  I wouldn’t stop and I didn’t want to.

  “I love you,” I whispered, pushing my hands into his hair and opening his mouth in an attempt to urge him to do the same, to not give up.

  To fight like I was.

  Something happened in his eyes with the words, something that glowed them bright and showed the first signs of any power besides these electrified walls around us. The power was within him, vibrant and luminescent and when his bicep lit up my mark did the same, Lucas’s lips guiding open mine now.

  “I love you, Arden,” he breathed pressing his hands to my cheeks, and soon, he wasn’t fighting me anymore. He was touching me in ways I wanted to be touched and guiding my bottom to rock against the hardness that suddenly pushed between my legs. He had an impenetrable energy suddenly within him and his hand on my mark, he summoned me to have that same energy.

  Sparks lit the room around us, literal sparks that left us in the dark when the walls shut down. We turned out not to need it with our own light, our combined forces of energy via the mark of our people. It was what made us, us.

  It was what made us strong.

  Holding each other, we froze in the soft illumination of the room, our marks lighting it up, lighting each other. The energy around us traveled in bounds, tiny electrodes buzzing through the open air.

  It also buzzed through me.

  My hand glowed with thick, translucent light and I used it to push toward Lucas, guiding his bandage away before pressing my hand to his side.

  He sucked in a breath at the touch, holding my hand there while he closed his eyes. Torn muscles and severed flesh pulled together, his eyes opening as his skin formed bonds beneath my fingertips. No poison was felt. It had somehow disappeared, but this open wound remained.

  His open wound I healed.

  He let me. He trusted me as he pushed his hand beneath my arm. The connections completed and I let my hand fall away, Lucas bringing it to his lips.

  “This should only happen in death,” he whispered, his eyes closing at a soft kiss. He opened them. “We were told of this power, the capabilities of the bond…”

  He pushed his hand to my cheek, cupping it. “I can protect you in death.”

  And that may have been true. Death could make it true, but maybe that wasn’t the only way.

  Maybe there was something they all missed.

  Lucas’s hand fell down to my mark and at the same time, I touched his, his roar into the air I felt in my soul. I honestly had to keep myself from calling out it was so intense, this man suddenly an extension of me. I couldn’t figure out where I ended and he began and the draw to him only broke because the sensation suddenly completed. Like multiple pieces to an intricate puzzle formed around us. It made us whole, made us bright and the room filled with the blast of it. Soon, Lucas wasn’t the only one I felt. Three more extensions came closer and closer.

  “The others,” I said, my eyes burning when I felt them. The first tears fell and Lucas captured them, bending forward to touch my forehead to his.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “They’ve come.”

  Twenty-One

  Derek

  The portal ripped open to gunfire, a literal battleground with various humans shooting off their little “toys” known as guns and my brothers and myself in the middle of it. We had no idea who they were shooting at, but let’s just say, the moment a bunch of supernaturals decided to step out of a manifested black hole in front of them they were directed on us.

  Elia and myself immediately sent out force fields while Wesley went on the defense, able to handle himself with his saber, as well as tackling the gunfire in our periphery when the men behind us woke up and started shooting. We had no idea why the portal opened in the first place, but at the first sign any of us had felt at our missing comrade in nearly half a week we took it, but we didn’t just feel Lucas.

  We felt—her.

  A blast of awareness I hadn’t been able to feel since before our time in this century hit me like nothing else when that portal opened, the draw potent and the energy raw. It came right from that portal, one none of us should have been able to manifest period despite its sudden appearance.

  It’d been Elia who sensed something was upon us all approaching Windamere Castle. We got there, but as we got closer there was no trail to either Arden or Lucas, my military brother well known for leaving himself and his emotions exposed since our queen made it back into our lives. I excused it, as his way of being able to connect with her and actually envied the bastard the moment I lost the feeling of him. He’d gotten time with Arden… time I didn’t have, and once we got the hell out of Dodge thanks to Elia’s knowhow, our immediate plans on how to get our family back became priority. The three of us had been holding down in a safe house near London with no signs of either our queen or Lucas and we’d begun to give up hope.

  That was until the portal appeared directly in front of us.

  Transforming my force field, I sent the wave of its energy into the son of a b
itch who tried to shoot off a bazooka in Elia’s direction. This sent the motherfucker off his feet long enough for Elia to get his shit together and realize we were on a literal battleground.

  “Stay lively,” I called to him, my brother nodding before Wesley led the charge in a different direction. Saber high, he cut at a gunman with no intent to kill, his swipe to the side simply injuring the man but if these people had Lucas, Arden…

  An actual cage couldn’t hold me and I ripped throats out in energy waves, no shots in my direction or my brothers’ possible. Wesley warned me of rage at two more kills, but I told him he didn’t know rage. No one in this motherfucker had seen it if they hurt my family.

  Wesley pushed me back and Elia watched out for us both with a wave of his staff. This sent three guys off their feet and broke the wall of men long enough for us to push through.

  “They’re here!” Elia called. “Somewhere.”

  But where? It was like they were everywhere and beneath, and something, so, so powerful that I’d only felt one other time. It’d been a time so long ago I had nearly forgotten the feeling and never once in this existence or this time. It’d been a time before all this, something we’d all taken though it hadn’t been ours to take. We’d all known that but we’d done it anyway. Whatever was whirling through the air now was the same and so potent, it was hard to focus on Lucas and Arden’s energy waves.

  Wesley called from ahead of me, going right into the gunfire with Elia behind him, but I stopped. I concentrated.

  I focused.

  Behind my lids, I saw no sight but that’d been the point. The eyes could trick but the mind another story. I followed it, the feeling and the shouts of my brothers behind me led me in another direction. It was her direction and I called to them. I felt our queen.

  I felt her in my entire soul.

  I waved them in another direction and, gratefully, they followed me for once. I was leading this charge and discovered there were people running toward something but also away. They were running from something and caught in the crossfire they decided to pursue us.

  Waving people off their feet with a charm, I drew from my energy reserves, our dark capes inspired by the enchanted uniforms we’d worn in the New Realm. My brothers and I got to take nothing with us into this new time, but Elia had been able to manifest some of the materials we used to have. We all carried with us as many items as we could to store emergency energy, the capes of our uniforms one of those ways.

  I used pure energy to blast away a wave of men who’d been running from something and the minute they left their feet and hit the walls of a wide hall I’d seen what they were on the defense from.

  A sheet of pure light had my brother behind it and not far behind that, Arden. She casted her own light, helping him. The moment they realized they no longer needed to hold up the force field they didn’t, their enemies fallen and done so because of me.

  Lucas looked around, the motherfucker half naked and Arden not far from. In nothing but a piece of lace and wearing an oversized jacket, her feet were as bare as Lucas’s were. She was exposed and I couldn’t see straight, the world spinning on its axis. I was losing focus, forgetting where I was.

  “Derek!”

  Until she called me and then… in my arms for some reason. She gripped me, holding onto me so tight for dear life.

  “Derek…”

  She breathed into my chest, arms around me, and getting myself together, I held her back, finding it hard to let go. It always was when it came to her, to resist her and her draw and that had nothing to do with the bond. I’d felt the damn bond and this wasn’t it. This was Arden and who she was, her skin sweetly hinted with persimmons and just as decadent as her taste. I’d known it well as I’d been blessed to have it if only for a short time.

  It had been short, my arms gripping her and I didn’t waste that time I had now.

  “Wear this,” I told her, unhooking my cape and placing it around her shoulders. The jacket she had on would do, but the cape was enchanted and could defy the strongest wind.

  I had no idea why she was dressed this way, nor Lucas but at the present I didn’t care. It became all about how this woman was looking at me the moment she saw me. Like I had been the one she’d chosen again and we were in another time.

  “You touched her,” I told Lucas, his smile on me when I looked up at him. We’d all felt it, the charge of the bond and I had a feeling that had to do with why the portal had suddenly opened for us. We were doing too much with our eyes and not enough searching within ourselves. Lucas had always been one to make that connection.

  I hugged him before he could even respond to my question.

  “Thank you,” I told him, never so happy for him not to listen.

  Maybe we should all stop listening for once.

  Arden

  They came in sans white horses, but just as powerful, three knights completely donned in black from their boots to their capes, a cape so warm and I currently got to wear it over my shoulders. In transition and through heavy gunfire, Lucas’s ax was tossed back to him, retrieved in some way by his brothers.

  He led the charge after that, a newfound strength I thought they all were feeling, four men who wielded incredible power.

  And were doing so to protect me.

  “Together!” Wesley called and they were forming a circle around me, crowding me in and making me feel so secure. I was still under Derek’s arm, unable to let go and he actually smiled a little at me before looking up into a sudden light that formed its way around us. They were creating it, an energy wash that became so bright I shut my eyes.

  I let it take me after that.

  Twenty-Two

  Arden

  It was as if the world cut open, and soon, there was no more light but just darkness. Closing my eyes to it, I wasn’t afraid because I felt them, these powerful men around me.

  My guardians in shining black armor.

  They had worn hard metal in cuffs around their forearms and legs, a shield guarding their chest as well and even in the darkness, I felt them, the light coming in and all at once, a simple living room opened before us. Four hands guided me into it, the world somehow flipped and stable when I stepped forward.

  I pressed feet on solid ground and behind me, the same, four men coming out what I assumed to be a portal.

  Turning, they watched it close together, maybe making sure the darkness stayed inside.

  I knew I was.

  So focused, none of them anticipated my hug, but I gave it to them anyway.

  I embraced them, each of them as a whole because that’s what I needed and the way they drew in, their protective circle once again, I had a feeling they needed it too.

  I heard lots of “Thank God” in my ears and a hold that spoke just of the same. They were as happy to see me as I was them, Wesley the one with the drive enough to break it up.

  “Tell us everything,” he said.

  And so I did.

  I did it over dinner, the meal Elia prepared that night. He made us all papaya salad and I knew that only had to do with me. He wanted to please me and the others, the same.

  Especially, Derek.

  I noticed he had been the one tending to me the most when I’d hurt myself that day back in Vermont. This new house hinted of somewhere different and I figured we were in another safe house. Derek was just as interesting now as he’d been during that time in Vermont, close to me and never more than a touch away. I still felt a little bit of a wall up around him in conversation, but that was okay. There was more to him than met the eye and I felt compelled to bring truth to that summation. I felt I owed it to him in some way. Like I needed to show him he was worth the effort.

  The men sat quietly through Lucas’s and my rehash of the events with Gabriel, and even though their expressions were steady, the power of the bond let me in on their thoughts. It was more powerful since we got back and I thought all of us were having a hard time controlling it.

  “So you
don’t know why you both suddenly gained power? Or how you were able to kill off the effects of the room?”

  “And heal yourself?”

  The questions came in quick succession, Wesley, then Elia’s but Derek wasn’t without his own. He too had questions and a fair amount of them surrounded those last moments in our cell.

  Lucas panned to me.

  “The healing of the wound was our fair queen,” he said, his eyes warm on me before facing the group. “But Gabriel’s poison was already gone before that. I’d gotten very close to death, but in the end, it hadn’t taken me. As far as the room it just shut itself down. I believe it was the bond.”

  “But without a sacrifice?” Wesley asked him and a noticeable jump made it into Lucas’s throat. I didn’t understand it, but I also noticed he didn’t look at me again.

  “I believe it was the bond,” he stated again and this time, the others looked at me. Their gazes were intense, powerful and just as potent as everything that revealed at this dinner table. The men weren’t happy.

  My guardians were uneasy.

  Not much more came out over that meal, but enough where the tone of the room didn’t change. If anything, it managed to gain more thick with anxiety, worry, and I was happy by the meal’s end.

  “I think we all need to start getting our things together,” Wesley said to the group once finished and because the men respected him, myself included, they listened. “And I’d do it as quickly as you all can.”

  “We’re leaving?” Derek asked, confused as the others were when they exchanged glances.

  Wesley nodded. “Because if what Lucas and our queen stated is true, someone is helping our enemies. Gabriel’s people and ours once fought for the same thing. We came here for the same mission, so if something’s changed, if Gabriel’s changed we’re dealing with something else. Someone in this time is doing something to deter the movement of the prophecy and until we know who or what that something is or their plans…”