Kiss of Fire (Imdalind, #1)(59)

The flash of blue, the glitter of wings; I remembered seeing both before the pain had hit. I had seen the little creature right before he bit me. I hadn’t been paying close enough attention; I didn’t know what I was seeing. If I had known what it was, would I have recognized it? Would it made anything easier? I doubt it.

“Vil?s have not been seen in more than two hundred years, which is why, when your father found me in Prague, we came right to you. We would have taken you with us right then, grabbed your mother and ran, but there was a complication.”

My forehead furled; I hoped that my silent question was obvious for him. He only stared at me though, his blue eyes deep and troubled.

“What… complication?” I tried to keep my face calm; I wanted to know more, but was afraid he would stop.

“In all things in life, there is a good and a bad, a light and a dark.” He paused and I couldn’t help but realize that his voice had deepened. The change scared me. “Your kiss is one of those things that possess a dual nature as well. My life has been consumed by this purpose; in many ways it is the sole reason I stay on this earth. Myself, and all those within my family, have spent our entire lives seeking out and protecting the Chosen Children who have been kissed by the Vil?s. For centuries, I have sought them out and protected them…”

“Centuries?” I cut him off, although my voice was a squeak, but he still sputtered to a stop at my words.

“Yes, Joclyn, centuries. I am very old, much older than I appear.” His lips turned up in a curious half-smile. “I wasn’t lying to you when I told you I was born in the 80s. It just wasn’t the 1980s.”

“When?”

“It was in the tenth century, Joclyn.” His voice was ashamed, like he was worried about my reaction. He had every right to be, too.

I struggled to keep my head, but after everything he had told me, what was one more impossible thing? I held my breath in an attempt to keep myself under control, unsure if I would be able to accomplish it. Thankfully, he continued anyway.

“The kiss on your skin is unique. There has not been a child who has been given this mark in more than three centuries. And the ones who had received their kiss before then have all but disappeared. This is why we had to come right to you. This is why we lied and hid; you are that important. You are the last of the Chosen Children.”

He spoke as if he were done and had told me everything, but he hadn’t. What about the bad side he had spoken of, what about the complications? I looked at him skeptically as I gathered strength to speak again.

“Bad side?” I said. Ilyan just looked at me before looking down at the couch. I waited for clarification, but none came. My heart skipped a beat in fear; was the bad side really all that scary?

“Complication?” I tried again, the longer word feeling like acid in my throat.

Ilyan looked away from me to focus on a spot on the blankets that covered me.

“There are those among my kind, and among the Trpaslík, who believe that the kiss is a gift, a sign of royalty. For four hundred years, they have systematically exterminated, not only the children who bare the kiss, but also the Vil?s who are the sole reason the marks exist in the first place.”

“Extermin…” My voice caught; I couldn’t even bring myself to say the word.

“Yes, Siln?, they kill them. The men who attacked you in your apartment were there for that reason.”

I knew the men were trying to kill me—they had made that blatantly clear—but that wasn’t why I found myself hyperventilating again; it wasn’t why I found my vision fading in and out so fast my eyesight was almost a flicker. There were others who had wanted to kill me beside those men, and if it wasn’t for Ryland, they would have. If it wasn’t for Ryland knowing about the mark, and what it meant, they all would have succeeded.

“Ryland,” I gasped, my weak voice shaking even more.

“I am not sure we should go over this right now,” Ilyan said.

“Ryland!” My strong voice bounced angrily around the room. Wyn said something, but I didn’t bother to look to see if she had woken this time. I didn’t dare let my eyes leave Ilyan. Ilyan sighed and looked hard at me as my breathing and heart rate continued to increase in tempo.

“Wyn’s brother is Cail. Wyn’s father is Timothy. They both follow the man who gave the extermination order for the children who bear a kiss on their skin; the man who bears the first kiss ever given—Ryland’s father, Edmund LaRue.”

Somehow, I knew; I had known from the beginning. I knew from the moment Ryland saw the mark on my skin. I knew when I saw his own mark, standing out so vividly on his back. I knew, but I simply didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to accept it.

My breathing reached a rate that couldn’t possibly keep me conscious. I looked into Ilyan’s pained face for only a moment more before my vision went black. The warmth from Ilyan’s hands filled me at an alarming rate, his magic seeping into me and allowing me to slip into sleep.





Nineteen


The sunlight streamed innocently in through the open window, saturating the faded carpet and white walls with the golden light of morning. A light breeze blew through the open patio door, bringing a sweet smell of flowers and grass into Wyn’s living room. My face was warm and felt swollen as if I had been crying the entire time I had been asleep, which I wouldn’t doubt, given the reason I was sleeping in the first place. I shifted my weight under the heavy blankets that covered me, surprised to feel only a slight ache in my joints.