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

what had been done to him. He killed two of our people before we were forced to put him down.”

“Put him down?”

I needed to make sure I heard her correctly.

“We had no choice,” she sighed and sat back down in her chair. It hurt her to admit it.

Everyone at the table sat in silence as it all sunk in. None of us blamed her or the other supes that had to carry it out. It had to be awful to be in the position of having to execute someone you were trying to save.

“We’ve been able to heal plenty of those who were experimented on in the past. How was this case different?” Matias asked.

“We don’t know exactly,” Ingrid answered. “My guess is just that he was further along in the experimental phase.”

I looked toward my grandfather who was looking down at the table thoughtfully as Xander took a hold of my hand and squeezed it. They were getting close to achieving their goal and we were nowhere close to ours. We needed to change our tactics if we were going to win this. But what should we do?

Chapter Fourteen

“What’s our next plan of attack?” I asked as I leaned forward, putting my forearms on the table’s smooth surface. “Another detention facility?”

Another beat of silence passed as the rebel leaders looked around at each other but never at me. They were hiding something, or rather trying to figure out how to break some kind of news to me. The only person as clueless as me was Dev, since we had both missed the beginning of the meeting.

I turned halfway around to look at Xan then the other way to look at Matias. Unlike the rest of the people there, they both looked me in the eye, but with hardened jaws and angry eyes. The longer I looked, I realized they weren’t angry at me though. They didn’t like what was about to happen. It had to have something to do with what Amos wanted to talk to them about.

“What’s going on?”

I narrowed my eyes and willed my grandfather to make eye contact with me. Eventually, he gave in and sighed, looking up at me and clasping his hands together in front of him.

“Our plan of only attacking their detention facilities isn’t working. At least, not as well as we’d hoped.”

“Yeah, I gathered that,” I replied warily and adjusted myself in my chair, sitting up a little straighter. “In the time it takes us to destroy one, a couple more pop up.”

He nodded his head in agreement. “We just don’t have the manpower to keep up with it all. We’re losing.”

I took a deep breath in and let it out evenly, trying to keep my anxiety from taking over.

“So what do you want to do? I don’t think abandoning the detention facilities is a good idea…”

“We don’t want to do that,” Ingrid interrupted me. “We…” she looked around the table then stopped back on my face, “we believe that we need to go back to our original plan of getting the supernatural society behind us as well. We need numbers and if we show the paranormal world what their leaders are doing… and that there’s hope for a better future…”

“Barry, the caster who’s memory Ingrid showed us, is allowing us to use it as propaganda for our cause,” Amos then told me. “We are going to spread the images and our message on the internet.”

“Your message? Which is what exactly?”

When Amos wouldn’t answer, Ingrid did it for him. “That our supernatural government is beyond corrupt and that we have a solution. One that has been foretold… you.”

I inhaled deeply through my nose and held it for several seconds before letting it out through my mouth. They wanted people to see me and who I was. They wanted the people to remember the ancient prophecy that most believed to only be a fairytale, but one they should believe in with their whole hearts because I was a living, breathing manifestation of that prophecy.

If they showed the images of the raid to the supernatural society, there would be panic, but if they gave them the hope of a new leader, one who will bring “harmony and peace” to their broken world...

It was brilliant and it scared the shit out of me. I knew it was coming, but I wasn’t at all prepared for it to happen so soon. To fulfill the prophecy, they needed me to be a leader.

“Won’t the humans catch on?” My voice came out so soft, it almost sounded like a whisper. Clearing my throat, I then said, “You can’t guarantee some of them won’t see it. It is the internet, after all.”

“You’re right, but the ones who do see it, will write it off as special effects or something like that,” Ingrid told me confidently. “We have master hackers in our ranks, casters who can tie magic in with technology and can anonymously post a link to the video. We have the message and now the means to do it. Are you in, Emelia?”

“In for what exactly? I need you to tell me exactly what you want me to do.”

“Love, they want you to show the supernatural world who you are and what you can do. They want to show exactly what you can do to prove you are the one from the prophecy.”

Matias spoke the words, but I could tell by his tone he didn’t agree with them. I glanced toward him to see him looking at the floor in front of him, his lower jaw pushed slightly forward as he deeply exhaled.

I turned my head in the other direction and caught Xander’s eye. He chose not to speak, but instead he parted his lips and shook his head lightly. He didn’t agree with it either.

“I don’t have my caster side,” I said aloud then turned back to face the group as a whole. “My magic is gone. If we wait for it