The Marked and the Broken (The Lost Sentinel, #3)
Ivy Asher
Prologue
I rush to insert myself in front of Knox and Bastien as they’re pulled back, and when I see the looks on their faces, it scares the shit out of me. I’ve never seen them so angry.
“You fucking shit bag liar, I’m going to kill you!” Knox bellows over me as he struggles to get out of Aydin and Sabin’s hold.
It’s a good fucking thing he has no idea how to use his Sentinel strength yet, or we would be in some serious trouble. I spin around, focusing on a swollen-eyed, bloody-lipped Enoch.
“What the fuck is happening here?”
“I swear on everything, Vinna, I have no idea how it happened. They just showed up.”
I’m confused as fuck about what Enoch is rambling about. They just showed up? Who showed up? Enoch swipes at the blood on his lip, and everything inside of me plummets as I take in the black marks on his finger.
No. Fucking. Way.
I spring for him, my bloodlust demanding action. The betrayal I feel screaming through every part of me. I catch him with a right hook to the cheek, and he falls back, avoiding my follow up hit. I’m raging inside, but I say nothing as I pounce on him, ready to smash his face in. Kallan steps in front of me, and I move to go around him until I spot what’s on his hands, too. My seething gaze find his, and the only thing that keeps me from killing him is the terror in his eyes.
“How the fuck do you have runes, too?!” I demand.
Arms wrap around me from behind, yanking me away from the people who need to give me answers right fucking now. My Chosen may not know what they’re capable of yet, but I sure as fuck do, and I push magic into all of my limbs and fight to get away from whoever is holding me back. I writhe and flail and do everything short of hitting and stabbing my captor, but fuck they’re strong. Lips press close to my ear.
“I can do this all day, Witch. But if you’d stop rubbing yourself all over me for just a second, I’d like to point something out.”
Torrez’s arms tighten around me, and the shock of his deep voice makes me pause. He pushes a hand out in front of my face and nuzzles my neck.
“They’re not the same.”
His words and silky tone reverberate through me, and it takes me a minute to figure out what he means. I stare at the dark-tan tone of his skin and the runes that mark his entire ring finger. The second rune, the one marking him as mine, sits black and prominent. Its presence pushes the other runes representing my Chosen down, the last rune resting on his knuckle. He moves his palm slightly, and I look through his large splayed fingers, honing in on Enoch’s hand.
He’s right... The runes on Enoch’s finger aren’t mine. So, whose the fuck are they?
1
My eyes run over the runes on Enoch’s middle finger. I trace the details over and over again as if staring at them long enough will somehow unlock their secrets.
What the fuck is going on?
Torrez nips at the lobe of my ear, and the feel of it pulls me from the hundreds of questions surging inside of me. As much as my vagina is stoked that I’m wrapped up in Torrez’s arms, I’m going to need her to keep her greedy hopes to herself so I can focus on the war that’s trying to break out in the living room. I push to break Torrez’s strong hold so he’ll let me go, but his arms around me don’t budge. All I really manage to do is grind my ass against his obvious erection, and unfortunately, the generous bulge in his pants is not what I need to be paying attention to right now. I feel Torrez’s growl of approval rumble against my back, but I refuse to acknowledge what that sound is currently doing to my body.
Not the time or the place, Vinna.
I’m very aware that I need to address the fact that I have a new addition to my Chosen, but I don’t fucking know where to start with that either. I have no answers, a shit ton of unknowns, and more questions than I can keep track of anymore. Maybe I should just focus on Torrez’s hard-on; at least that’s something I can handle…I think. I smack my libido across the face and get my head in the game. I need to deal with Enoch and his coven first, and then I can sort out my new Chosen.
The word Chosen echoes through my jumbled thoughts, and worry tumbles through me like a drunken gymnast. I see my mark, Torrez’s mark, and my other Chosen marks on Torrez’s ring finger, but his rune is nowhere to be seen on me. I turn to my guys and search for any new runes on their hands, but there’s nothing. My stomach sinks. I press down the unease that crawls through me.
Did I mess up somehow and not complete the connection with Torrez?
“Vinna?” My name on Enoch’s lips is both a question and a demand for answers, but I still don’t have shit that I can say that explains any of this. I don’t know how he has runes. Or why they’re different or what the fuck any of it means for me or for them.
I scrub at my face, my hands cold against my fevered skin. I’m fucking tired and reeling from everything that’s going on. I turn back to Enoch and the unfamiliar runes that he and his coven now have.
“I don’t know,” I admit unhelpfully, and the room explodes into a giant argument again.
Aggression and fury whip out from the guys, snapping toward Enoch, Kallan, Nash and Becket. It hits its mark, but Enoch and the others just ball it up and throw it back. Aydin and Evrin are trying—and failing—to get control of either side. Their calm words volley back and forth, only to fall to the ground and get trampled by rage and insults.