The Mark of Fate: Book 3 of The Marked series by Ford, Rinna (romantic love story reading .TXT) 📕

“You doing alright?” he asked, giving me one more kiss before taking the chair next to me, across from Matias.

“Yeah, I think so. I just, it’s all too real. Everything. Do we know yet what they did to him? Why were they experimenting on him?”

“We don’t know,” Xander said. “Ainsley didn’t even know what they were doing to him other than it always hurt.”

I closed my eyes at the last two words. For Ainsley to admit that, it had to be bad. He was never one to bring others down and always downplayed things when they were bad.

“Well, they weren’t trying to make him a super soldier, that’s for sure,” Matias said in a low voice.

“Why do you say that?” I scrunched my eyebrows and asked, trying to figure out how he knew that.

“They cut off his legs,” Matias replied. “He said he tried to escape once so they cut them off. They wouldn’t do that if they intended on using him in battle, especially with him being a shifter. He can’t do magic, so he’d be useless to them.”

The back door opened and Amos stepped onto the back patio.

“There you are,” he said, looking at me then to Xan and Matias. “She’s awake,” he told them.

“Who’s awake?” I asked and swung my legs around the side of the chair, ready to rise.

“The scientist Matias saved,” Xan told me, clenching his jaw. He didn’t explain further, so I looked at him inquisitively. What scientist? The scientist from the facility that he got to before I could? He didn’t kill her?

My eyes shot to my vampire mate in anger.

“You saved her?” I growled, and slowly began rising from my seat.

“Calm yourself,” Matias commanded but didn’t get up. His voice was steady and strong, but he didn’t want to fight, not with me. “I saved her for you because even though you wanted to destroy them all, I knew you’d want answers even more. It’s easy to give in to the bloodlust and murder everyone who has wronged you, but you can’t let it consume you without thinking it through.”

I broke eye contact and swallowed, feeling a little sheepish for doubting him. He was right and I knew it. With her being alive, we could find out exactly what they were doing and why they were doing it. Then, when we had everything we needed, I could kill her. Slowly. Painfully. That was, if she actively participated in the torture of my uncle and the other supes. If she hadn’t, then I’d let her rot in a cell. I wasn’t a total monster, after all.

“Well, let’s go talk to her.” I took a step toward the door and all three men jumped in front of me, holding out their hands to stop me. “What are you doing?” I inquired, crossing my arms over my chest defensively.

“We think it’s best if you aren’t involved in the questioning,” Amos told me.

“You don’t think I can control myself?”

“Well, we…” Matias began to say something but Xander cut him off.

“Baby, you know you won’t be able to keep from ripping her to shreds the moment you walk into the same room with her. Besides, she’ll be scared shitless if she knows what’s good for her, even without you in the room, and we’re hoping she’s smart enough to know what’s good for her and tell us the truth of what they’ve been up to.”

I furrowed my eyebrows because dammit if he didn’t make a good point too. “Well then, what am I supposed to do?”

Xan relaxed his pose and weakly smiled at me. “We can try to find Devlin?”

“We? You’re not going to be interrogating her?”

“Nah. It’s not my expertise. Now, the Butcher? He’s exactly what they need to try and get the right information out of her.” Xan motioned with his head toward Matias and the vampire weakly grinned in response. I could tell he was uncomfortable with the sentiment, but didn’t deny it.

Matias hadn’t told me about his past, at least not yet, but I knew he wasn’t proud of it. Even so, it didn’t get in the way of living his life or doing what he needed to do. I admired him in so many ways, but especially because he would take up his Butcher mantle for me if I needed him to. I wondered if he knew I’d do the same for him. I mean, I didn’t have the wicked nickname or the reputation to match, but I’d destroy the world for him if I had to. For both of them.

I walked up to Matias and pulled on the front of his shirt so he bent down ever so slightly and kissed him once on the lips. “I love you,” I told him.

His smile was radiant. “My mate, if you only knew how much I love you right back,” he whispered and kissed me back.

“Ahem.”

Amos and Xan were both looking uncomfortable for different reasons so I kissed Matias once more before gently pushing him away.

“Have fun torturing the sadistic bitch!” I called out and waved as he and my grandfather walked into the house to wherever they were keeping the scientist.

When I turned back around, Xan was eyeing me speculatively.

“What?” I laughed. “What’s with the face?”

“You okay with what just happened?” He seemed worried, so I decided to mess with my serious mate.

“You mean the way I kissed Matias?” I sauntered a step closer to him and smirked.

He blew out a breath through his nose and looked up. “Stop being cute. You know I meant questioning the scientist.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess I have to be. Right?”

It was true. I was angry she still breathed the same air I did and that I wouldn’t be there to make her scream for mercy, but I understood what they had told me. In that case, I was unreliable because of my bias and I probably would scare