Chapter 20

CHAPTER20

Isquatted down near the brook and dipped my fingers into the cold water. Evren and Jorah were packing up our camp and stamping out what was left of the coals in our fire.

I rubbed my wet fingers over my face and tried to clear my racing thoughts. Water dripped down my neck, and I grazed my fingers over the sensitive skin as memories of what Evren had done to me last night flashed through my mind.

There was a snap of movement across the water, and my eyes shot open as I searched the trees and my marks burned against my skin. I didn’t see anything, but somehow I knew something was there.

“Evren,” I said his name softly as I stood, but I didn’t take my gaze away from the trees.

“Yeah?” he called out to me as he laughed at something Jorah was saying. “What is it, princess?”

A dagger flew through the air before I could answer him, and I cried in pain as it sliced through the outside of my left arm before lodging perfectly in the tree behind me.

“Princess!” This time Evren was screaming for me, but I was too busy staring ahead. A group of ten men rose from where they hid beyond the trees, and each one had a weapon raised in their hands.

“Princess has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” The one who threw the dagger cocked his head to the side as he spoke, and I didn’t know if he was talking to me or someone else.

I stumbled backward before reaching down and pulled my dagger from my boot.

“A fighting princess as well. Even better.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Evren roared from behind me before he jerked me backward and shielded my body with his own.

“The queen would like to meet her.”

The queen?

“That’s not fucking happening.” Evren shook his head, and I noted the black smoke that swirled around his fingers. “Not today.”

“I don’t answer to you, prince.” The man looked beyond Evren, and his gaze connected with mine. “I will be taking her whether it’s willingly or not.”

I looked behind me for Jorah, but he was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t know these men, but they didn’t wear the colors of the Citlali guard. Instead, they dressed similarly to Evren. Dark, inconspicuous, lethal.

“Is that what your other men were doing in the Onyx Forest? Coming to take the Starblessed?”

They were of the Blood Court then. The same court as Evren’s mother.

“My men?” The man laughed as he ran his fingers over the blade in his hand. “If those were my men, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

“I won’t let you take her, Calix.” Evren squared his shoulders as if preparing himself for an attack, and I took a small step back.

“You don’t have a choice.” Calix didn’t lift the blade from his hand. Instead, power shot out of his fingers. Power like Evren’s. Black as night and laced with doom, it came for Evren quicker than I could blink, but Evren matched his power with a wave of his own.

Their power slammed into one another, and a crack of sound echoed around us.

I stumbled backward, startled by the power that was flowing from both of them, and I noticed Jorah move through the trees across from us. He lifted his sword before running up behind one of the men who was watching what was happening in front of them, and I gasped when he sliced through his neck as if it was nothing.

The scene caught Calix’s attention, distracting him momentarily, and Evren’s power slammed into him.

“Jorah.” Calix tsked, though his voice was now winded. “I see where your loyalty is buried.”

Jorah chuckled, the sound crazed and cruel. “My loyalty has always been with the prince, Calix. The fact that you questioned that is a testament to your own lack of judgment.”

Calix was still looking to Jorah when his power shot out again, and this time, Evren wasn’t prepared. The magic hit him savagely as if aiming to kill, and Evren groaned in pain.

“Take Jorah,” Calix commanded to the other guards, and they swarmed him so quickly that he didn’t stand a chance. He held his sword in front of him, but he was far too outnumbered.

“Jorah!” Evren’s voice boomed through the forest, and Calix took the opportunity to shoot another band of power in Evren’s direction.

Evren stopped it with his own, and my marks burned like fire against my skin.

“You know she’s coming with us, Evren. You’re only fighting the inevitable.”

“I will kill you before I allow you to take her.” Evren bared his teeth, and fear coursed through my veins.

“You’ve become soft, prince.” Calix shot his power in my direction and Evren dove for me. Panic filled his eyes as the power slammed into his back and knocked the breath from his lungs.

“Evren!” I charged for him as blood dripped from his lips, but Calix was faster.

I could see the defeat in Evren’s eyes as he tried to climb back to his knees. My marks were set afire across my skin, burning more than they ever had before, and I could feel a part of myself breaking.

“This is your mate.” Calix laughed before he gripped Evren by the back of his hair and forced him to look at me. “The bastard prince stuck between two kingdoms.”

He still spoke, but all I could concentrate on was the word mate. It echoed inside me, rolling through my veins, and when I stared into Evren’s tired eyes, I knew it to be true.

This man that was on his knees before me, the one fighting for my life with his own, was my mate. Flames formed in my gut, and my marks felt like they were charring my skin.

“Let him go,” I demanded of him with a growl.

Calix laughed and only tightened his hold on Evren. “This one will be taken back to my queen just as you will, princess.” He spat the name like a slur.

I didn’t know his queen or what she wanted with either of us, but I knew I refused to allow them to take him.

I reached inside of myself, and I held on to that blaze that raged. “I said to let him go.”

Evren shook his head, barely able to manage the movement with his hair still inside Calix’s hand, but I was beyond taking orders.

The power inside of me built, the anger and rage rising and rising until I could feel it along my fingertips.

“You’re lucky I don’t kill the bastard.” Calix laughed, and power shot from within me.

I didn’t know where it came from, and I had no control, but power slammed into Calix unexpectedly. His gaze hit mine as the breath was knocked from his chest, and his hand loosened on Evren’s head. I let my magic loose once more.

This time when it slammed into Calix, he was more prepared, but it still knocked him to his back. His men shifted around him, but not a single one approached me.

“Don’t touch him again.” I stepped closer to Evren, and I saw the fear in Calix’s eyes as he watched me.

“The queen wants him back in the Blood Court.”

“I don’t give a damn about your queen,” I growled at him, and another wave of black power shot from me. Some of his men fell to the ground, but I kept my eyes on him.

“You should.” My gaze snapped up at the sound of a woman’s voice, and I quickly put myself between her and Evren.

She moved around the tree in which she was hidden, and her long fingernails trailed over its bark lazily. She was beautiful with eyes that reminded me of the sea and my father. She wore black boots that went to her knees and covered her trousers that were tucked beneath.

She didn’t look like a queen, but I knew in my bones that this was her.

Evren groaned as he reached out for me, but his hand trembled as he wrapped it around my shin.

“Queen Veda, I presume?”

“In the flesh.” She cocked her head to the side and stared at the way Evren reached for me. “And here I thought you didn’t give a damn about me.”

“I don’t.” My fingertips buzzed with my power, and I gritted my teeth as I tried to keep control.

“Yet you protect my son as if you care very deeply.”

Her words choked me, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Evren’s hand tightened against me, and my marks begged me to let my power flow through me.

“What?” It was the only word I could manage as I tried to make sense of what she was saying.

“He may be the bastard son of King Riven, but he is the firstborn son of the Blood Court. He is our future and our destiny.”

I jerked out of Evren’s hold as she spoke, and I stumbled backward.

“He is an excellent spy and traitor to the fae crown. Apparently, he became an excellent betrayer to his mate as well.”

“Adara,” he said my name, and my gaze snapped to meet his. This man who I thought I loved.

“You lied to me.” The truth shook through me.

“I didn’t.” He shook his head frantically as he tried to climb to his knees. “I told you I was born of both magic and blood. I told you my mother was a vampyre.”

“But not the queen!” I shouted, and my magic surged through me.

Every eye was trained on me as a dim glow gleaned from my star marks.

“I couldn’t tell you the truth, princess. I didn’t know where your loyalty lay.”

Tears flooded my eyes, and a sob escaped my throat. “Is that what you were telling yourself when you were between my thighs? Were you searching for my loyalty?”

Evren rose on shaky legs, but when he took a step toward me, I took an equal one back. “Adara, please.”

“Don’t.” I held out my hand and my magic dripped from my fingers in a dark smoke that was so perfectly matched to his. “Don’t you dare touch me.”

Queen Veda laughed, the sound grated down my spine, and I clenched my teeth so hard that I feared they would break. “It would appear that the two of you have some things to work out, but the Starblessed will make a wonderful queen.”

I jerked back at her words, and my gaze slammed back into Evren. He was pleading with me with his eyes, and we continued to stand there, watching each other while the others watched us.

“Princess,” he whispered, and it almost broke me.

“I will never marry you, Evren,” I said sharply, my conviction sliding between us like a promise.

He took a small step forward, and it somehow seemed to suck all the air from my lungs. His gaze was no longer pleading, no longer begging me to understand. Instead, his eyes darkened and the grimace on his face overwhelmed me. “You will.”

“You’ll have to tie me up. You’ll have to force my hand, just as your brother did before you.”

Evren’s power shot out of him, the black smoke wrapping around me like a lover’s touch. I wasn’t prepared or skilled enough to fight back with my own, but still I glowed, brighter and more intense with every inch he touched.

He moved toward me then when I didn’t stand a chance of moving out of his hold, and he leaned in, testing me as his power thrummed against my skin. “That can be arranged, princess.”

His power strummed across my wrist, and I clamped my eyes closed to force myself to ignore the pleasure that ached under his touch.

No. Evren was not the man I thought I knew. He was as much my enemy as he had convinced me his brother to be, and I was a fool.

“Calix, get up!” Queen Veda barked at her guard, and he stood with a groan as he rubbed his chest. Right where my power had hit him. “We must move before Queen Kaida finds out of Evren’s treason.”

“He’s fed from her,” Evren spoke to his mother, and my back went rigid under his words. “Before he ordered her away, he fed.”

“And what of his powers?”

“I don’t know.” Evren shook his head, and his magic trembled around me, holding my arms at my sides.

“And you?” The queen nodded toward him. “Have you fed from your mate?”

Evren hesitated for a long moment, and I hated how easily they were discussing something that had been so intimate between us. “I have.”

“And?”

“She’s powerful.” Evren looked back toward me, and for the first time since I laid eyes on him in Starless, he looked like he saw nothing but my mark. “I could feel her power the moment I tasted her blood on my tongue.”

“Get the Starblessed.” The queen nodded toward her guards and two of them started toward me. I struggled in Evren’s magic, but he didn’t seem to notice. “We must keep her safe until we cross the border.”

The guards moved closer, and my heart hammered in my chest. I looked to Jorah, but he watched me as closely as every other guard of the Blood queen. He was every bit one of them as Evren was.

“Don’t fucking touch her,” Evren growled, his power slamming into me. “The Starblessed belongs to me.”

But the prince who belonged to two kingdoms was wrong. I belonged to no one.

Want more from the Stars and Shadows Series? Pre-order A Kingdom of Blood and Betrayal coming November 3rd.