I’d been wondering what those marks on Lucian’s back were. He didn’t know I’d seen them, but I had.
He left my room after we had sex. He didn’t sneak out ... he walked out through the door like he wanted everyone to see him leave.
I didn’t follow him, but I hoped nobody had. Even if he was the king, I didn’t want anyone knowing he’d come to my room to fuck me. I didn’t trust anybody, and I didn’t know who was who anymore.
After cleaning myself up, I got ready to head to the library. Some part of me was hoping the answers to my questions would just come find me, because I had no idea where to start looking. Damn. Everything looked like a web of shit designed to drag me further away from the truth I was chasing.
Could Lucian be the nemesis Nara had talked about ... the one who’d bring everything she’d said before she died to pass? Maybe Lucian was the one marked for destruction. Or maybe that mark meant he and all of Morvaine were marked for it.
I was so deep in thought, walking the road to the library, that I didn’t see Tessa until she grabbed my hand.
"Who the fuck is holding me?" I snapped, before I realized it was her.
I turned to look her in the eye. She looked as corny as ever.
"Hey, Tessa," I said, trying to pull my hand free.
"Hello, Seleneeeee," she said, flashing a deadly smile.
"Let go of me."
"I know what you’re doing, Selene. Nothing goes on without my knowledge." She gripped my hand tighter.
"What is it? What did I do?"
"I know you’re fucking the Alpha. I know, whore." She said it so loud I had to look around to make sure no one had heard.
"You didn’t see anything. Besides ... the Alpha’s the one fucking me, if we’re being factual," I shot back.
I braced myself, half-expecting her to order me staked on the spot.
"That path you’re walking is dangerous. If you get too close, you’ll get bit ... and like venom, it’ll travel straight to your heart and knock you out before you even feel it. Stop it. You won’t survive," she said, yanking me closer.
Was that supposed to be advice? From a bitch who couldn’t even get her own mate to mark her?
I didn’t say a word. I just stared into her eyes while she talked, and somehow, no one walked by the entire time. She let go of my hand hard enough to sting.
I turned to keep walking. "Don’t let it come between me and you, Selene," she called after me.
I heard it and kept moving.
Tessa wanted beef. She was a fucking bitch, and I wasn’t about to let her put me in the ground the way she’d wasted Leah and Freya. Their ghosts were probably still haunting her ass. That was enough. What she had coming would catch up to her eventually.
I reached the library and found Ms. Ashlyn at her desk. If I told her what I’d seen, I doubted she’d even believe me. Or maybe she already knew and just didn’t want to land herself in trouble with the Alpha. Everyone who’d ever fucked him ... every breeder he’d had ... must have seen that mark. But they wouldn’t have understood what it meant. Not the way I did.
"Ms. Ashlyn," I called out, fidgeting.
"Yes, Selene. Hope you slept well. What’s the update? Any progress on your search? New questions?" she asked.
Should I tell her? Should I not? The questions flooded my head so fast I couldn’t land on an answer in time. So I just said, "I’ll keep researching, ma’am."
"Hmm, alright. Good luck!" she said, smiling.
I dug back into the mark I’d seen on Lucian’s back. It was a cult mark ... the mark of the cult once responsible for delivering justice to offenders. They weren’t of royal blood back when they were formed. They’d been hunted down and wiped out in the War of Morvaine.
So why the hell was that mark still sitting on Lucian’s back?
Who was Nara? Why couldn’t I get a single straight answer? If she’d been reborn, whose body was she wearing now?
I read, thought, and turned it over in my head until I finally fell asleep at the library table ... for the first time ever.
What I got instead of rest was a surreal, twisted dream I never saw coming.
I saw Tessa choking me while Lucian stood right beside me, unable to do a damn thing about it. What kind of dream was that? I felt so helpless. Tessa couldn’t dominate me in real life and in my dreams too ... for the goddess’s sake!
I screamed for help, over and over, and even with Lucian standing right there, she nearly choked the life out of me on the floor.
"Nara is your nemesis," was the last thing I heard, in Tessa’s voice ... except her mouth never moved. I only recognized the voice.
I woke up gasping, like I’d actually been choked.
What did she mean, Nara was my nemesis? My head started pounding like something was hammering it from the inside. I couldn’t stay lying down. I had to get to Ashlyn.
"Ma’am, my head is banging. Please, I need something to cool it down."
"How come?" she asked, surprised.
She handed me water and a couple of pills from her drawer.
"Take this and rest in the room to your left, straight down the hall," she said.
I couldn’t even walk straight after swallowing the pills. The whole world tilted sideways. I tried to walk and ended up falling.
"Should I help you?" Ashlyn asked.
"No, I’ve got it. I’m fine," I said, and crawled the rest of the way to the room she’d described.
I found a bed and collapsed onto it.
"Hey, Selene," a sharp voice cut through my head.
I startled. "Who said that?" I asked, panting. No one answered. It took me a few seconds to realize the voice hadn’t come from outside ... it had come from inside my head.
"Who was that?" I demanded again, louder this time. Still nothing.
"It’s your nemesis, Selene. I already told you ... don’t be that dumb," the voice said again, and I dropped straight to the floor off the bed. The voice hit with a weight too heavy to stay upright through.
My nemesis was calling.
"I’m Nara. Can’t you understand that?" she finally said.
I rolled on the floor like I was about to lose my mind. This was insane ... a voice, in my head, talking to me. I’d never experienced anything like it.
Then the whole building shook.
A bomb blast, followed by gunfire. The last thing I remembered was watching the building start to collapse ... the walls in the room cracking, crumbling around me.
Then everything went black.