What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(110)

“The rumors are true, then. He does have a human mate,” the Fae said to me, his voice sympathetic as he took the first step toward us. “I don’t imagine the Queen of Air and Darkness will be very happy when I deliver you.”

I swallowed, trying not to think of the implications of that statement. What did the Queen of Air and Darkness have to do with me? My Mark seemed to tingle with awareness, humming against my skin as if it could feel the threat in the Fae male’s words.

“We have the same Mark,” I whispered, the words hovering between us. The Fae narrowed his eyes on Caelum’s Mark for a moment, cocking his head to the side as he considered him.

“So you do,” he said, a menacing smile tipping his lips up.

“Go,” Caelum ordered, reaching behind him to push me back down the alley. He might have been able to fight off a cave beast with the power of his Viniculum, but they didn’t protect against the Fae themselves. I couldn’t leave him.

I wouldn’t.

I drew the dagger from the sheathe on my thigh, staying behind Caelum as the Fae strolled up to us without a care in the world. Caelum pushed me farther behind him, blocking my view with his broad form.

His body moved forward, meeting the Fae male’s strike with one of his own as their swords clashed together. With Caelum taking the steps forward to fight with the Fae, I watched as he moved his body in tandem with the other.

Whoever had taught him to fight, they’d taught him well. He moved with a fluid grace that I’d never seen from the Mist Guard, knifing through air with dangerous beauty. His blade caught the Fae male on the arm, the skin surrounding the wound sizzling as the cut didn’t heal immediately. My mouth dropped open in shock, breath frozen at the realization that Caelum’s stunning sword with the intricate golden hilt had iron blades.

“Now where did you get a warded iron sword, boy?” the Fae asked, taking a step back as he grimaced at the cut on his arm. He watched Caelum with far more respect, as he studied his stance and the hold he had on the hilt of his weapon.

“My father,” Caelum answered, lifting his chin high as he struck for the Fae male’s chest. The male sidestepped it, barely avoiding Caelum’s sword. I moved in harmony, twirling around Caelum’s legs and cutting the Fae through the fleshy part of his thigh, then withdrew. I ducked away before he could shift his attention to me again, retreating behind Caelum as the Fae stumbled back a step and paused to look down at the blood that spurted from his leg.

The bleeding slowed within seconds as I watched, the flesh beneath the fabric of his trousers knitting itself back together because my blade wasn’t forged from iron.

Caelum took the opportunity of the Fae male’s distraction for what it was, spinning to me and grabbing me under the arms. He hauled me to my feet, running at my side as he urged me in the opposite direction down the alley. We ran at breakneck speed, winding through the streets and trying to keep to the darker ones when we could.

A hand closed around my mouth and someone hauled me into the alleyway beside us. Caelum grumbled at my side, falling into the dark path alongside me. I shoved my elbow into the stomach of the man who’d touched me, spinning to point my blood-stained dagger in Jensen’s face as he and Melian stared back at me.

“There’s a Fae,” I said, my breath wheezing as Caelum wrapped a hand around the back of my neck. It felt like a possession, but one he needed to know that I was safe with him and not at the mercy of the male who…hadn’t seemed at all interested in Caelum aside from him being in the way.

“The city is crawling with them,” Jensen said through gritted teeth.

“Is that normal? I can’t imagine the city isn’t heavily guarded,” I said.

“I hadn’t expected them to be here, no,” Melian answered. “We wouldn’t be passing through here if I had, no matter how many Marked are trapped in Calfalls. We would have gone the long way.” She glanced over her shoulder at Beck.

“We need to get out of here,” Jensen said, looking around the mouth of the alley and waiting to see if our Fae friend had followed us.

“Lead the way,” she agreed, her face a mask of pain.

“What about Duncan?” I asked, looking around for the other man who was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t Marked; wasn’t valuable to the Fae searching the city.

“Dead,” she said, touching a hand to my shoulder and pushing me to follow Jensen. Caelum moved at my side, and there wasn’t enough time for me to stop and ask what had happened.

If Duncan was already gone, it could wait until we were safe, even with the anguish written into the lines of Melian’s face. I stumbled over my own feet as I followed Jensen, my ears ringing in my head with the way that Fae had looked at me.

With the way the Mist Guard and the Wild Hunt had looked at me.

“Are our marks unique to the Fae?” I asked, searching through my memory of the others in the tunnels, trying to recall another with the same colors. There had been white marks. There had been black marks, but Caelum and I were the only ones where the white and black intertwined.

Caelum took my arm, guiding me to follow at Jensen’s back as Melian and Beck followed behind us. “Not the time. Let’s go, Little One,” he murmured, using his hand on the small of my back to keep me moving forward.

I hadn’t paid close enough attention to the marks on the Fae in the Book of the Gods, too concerned with studying the ethereal lines of their face, but one stood out in my mind. Denial coursed through me as my legs felt like they might buckle under me.