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

Ironshot sat in his chair in the corner of the room without saying anything, and when the twins were obviously done asking their questions for the day, he got up in a huff and left the room. I didn’t know if he was satisfied with my answers, but the truth was, most of what I told them was real. Most of that information Ironshot had access to, so there was no point in lying. He had my mother as his mate for crying out loud, not to mention I was sure Alec filled him in on everything he’d not only learned about the rebellion but everything he’d learned about me too. Alec was the perfect Council plant, and I wondered if there were more like him, hiding inside the rebellion. I shivered at the thought.

I told them what I felt they already kind of knew, only changing the stories a little bit depending on the point of view, and lying about things I felt they had no right to know about, like some of the things that happened in my human life.

Kenny and Harris took me back to my cell, leaving me with another biscuit and a bag of blood, while Ronan was awake and pacing in front of his cell door. When he saw me safely back in my cell, he relaxed and sat on his mattress.

He looked exhausted. By the look of him, I knew he’d walked back and forth from one corner of his cell to the other over and over again the entire time I was gone. I’d been gone for at least three hours.

I broke the biscuit in half and shoved one piece of it toward him. “Please, eat,” I requested.

He shook his head and looked toward the stairs. Like the biscuit from the day before, I ended up eating Ronan’s half too. I didn’t know if he was trying to protect me or if he was just too proud, but it concerned me and pissed me off at the same time. But what could I do? I couldn’t reach him to make him eat it.

That was how the next three days went. Harris and Kenny would collect me in the morning and take me to the caster’s lab where the creepy twins would ask me questions while Ironshot watched and listened silently. They did examine my back, several times in fact, and I hated every second. It took every bit of my willpower to not kill them for touching me. But besides the questions, that was the only thing they did. No experiments, no potions or spells. I honestly left after those four days more confused than anything.

I expected to be tortured, not asked about my life. I didn’t think he’d care about something like that. But I’d underestimated Michael Ironshot before and I wouldn’t count him out after four days of just answering questions. Everything he did was for a reason. We all knew it, I just needed to figure out what it was.

Chapter Twenty-One

The next morning, just like the previous four days, I expected to be taken to the casters’ lab but that wasn’t what happened. The asshole guards showed up like usual, but instead of coming empty handed, they each carried food and bags of blood. I was used to getting a single bag of blood and a biscuit, but this time Kenny handed over a plateful of food-bacon, eggs, sausage, and biscuits while Harris threw three blood bags into my cell then turned to walk away without a word.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Where’s Ronan’s food?”

“Emelia, it’s okay, lass…”

“Ronan?” Harris questioned, a smug smirk on his face. “Why would we give that backstabbing traitor anything?”

Ronan stood up from his mattress and approached the bars, his nostrils flaring. Harris, knowing he had the upper hand, walked to just the other side of Ronan’s cell and stared him down. It was obvious that they were, at one time, considered friends because Harris was beyond bitter. He was itching to harm Ronan, to put him in his place.

“You’re an asshole, Harris! Leave him alone!” I screamed at him, trying to turn his attention to me instead.

“Or what?” he laughed. “What are you going to do? What can you do? You’re worthless.”

“Don’t you fucking…” Ronan growled out a warning between his teeth but I cut him off.

“I’d like to see you come in here and say that to my face, you piece of shit.”

Harris cut his eyes toward me, his smirk turning sinister. “You would like that, wouldn’t you, freak?”

He turned on his heels and stalked toward my cell, all while Kenny watched on and Ronan yelled his own insults to get Harris’ attention back on him. It didn’t work, at least not the way Ronan wanted it to.

Harris put his hand on the lock, and I prepared myself as much as I could without my supernatural strength. As the lock clicked open, he smirked back at Ronan and opened the cell door.

“I’ve been waiting to do this for days…”

He was on me in a flash with a backhand that sent me flying into the side of the mattress, pushing it aside. My head cracked on the concrete, making my mind spin, but I was still able to see the cork of the potion bottle sticking out from under the mattress. I’d put it there after the first day of questioning when I realized the twins would want to see my back or worse, so I decided not to keep it on me. The mattress was the only place I knew of that I could keep it safely hidden, so that night I ripped a small hole in the bottom with my fingernail and slipped the bottle down into it. No one ever went into my cell but me so I thought it would be okay. I should have really considered that when I challenged Harris.

Before I could do something to hide