Marked by Blood: Book 2 of The Marked Series by Ford, Rinna (top novels of all time txt) 📕

in the exact spot I planned on, so at least that part worked out. Hopefully everything else about the trip would work out that way.

We all looked around in all directions, hearing and seeing no one, so we all felt it safe to approach the cabin. It looked so small, so abandoned with the porch sagging to the side and the front door completely ripped off.

Xander walked up first, testing out the porch’s stability then when he deemed it safe, he motioned for us to follow. Walking into the cabin was devastating. Everything was thrown about, ripped to shreds, or blown to pieces. The kitchen cabinets hung open and all the plates were smashed on the floor. The couch was overturned and half into the fireplace. Looking up, I saw a large hole in the roof of the house. Whatever made the hole, destroyed the bottom half of the stairs as well, making it almost impossible to go upstairs. I had wanted to look in my room and Dev’s for clues, but seeing the state of the stairs, I didn’t think that was possible.

“We should probably split up,” I said aloud.

“Yeah, probably a good idea,” Camille agreed. “This place gives me the creeps. No offense. I mean, I bet it was nice, once…”

“Xan, I think you, Camille, and Grayson should look through the front rooms and Matias and I should go back to Dev’s study.”

“Emi, I’m not leaving…” he began to argue.

“Xan, besides me, you know this place better than anyone else here and Camille will know what kind of things to look for. Please, just stay with them. I promise, we’ll be just down the hall.”

He breathed out through his nose in a huff but then leaned down slowly to kiss me only once.

“Stay out of trouble, please,” he said.

I pecked him again then grabbed Matias by the hand and we ran down the hallway toward the study.

I didn’t know what to expect when I walked into the room, but to see it perfectly intact wasn’t it. When I stepped over the threshold, the walls shimmered as if I deactivated a spell. Dev must have preserved it somehow.

“Why didn’t the casters from the Council ransack this room too?”

“I don’t know, but I think your uncle made is so you were the only person who could come in here.”

I nodded my head because it sounded like something Dev would, and could, do. I walked further into the room and went straight for my uncle’s desk first while Matias started looking through the bookshelves. The map was still laying on top in the exact spot he left it when he told me to run away. My fingers traced over the details as I remembered the moment.

I shook my head, trying to bring myself back to the present and began opening drawers. I found random papers and notebooks filled with Dev’s writing, immediately stuffing them into my backpack. The bottom drawer was locked and I tugged on it a couple of times getting nowhere. For some reason, I had the urge to lay my palm on it. After a second of touching the wood surface, the lock clicked and the drawer popped open.

I glanced up at Matias, who was watching me then back down toward the drawer. Books. Spellbooks, in particular, were stacked on top of one another. I grabbed those and lay them on the desk. There was a long rectangular box in the very back. I pulled it out and saw that like the drawer, it too had a lock on it. I lay my hand on it, hoping for the same outcome as before, but nothing happened.

I called Matias over and asked him to put the box in his backpack while I fit the spellbooks into mine and we continued searching. We had gotten through one whole bookshelf when Xan and the others walked in.

“Whoa. Jackpot!” Camille smiled and ran straight for the far bookshelf.

“Did you find anything?” I asked my dragon mate.

“Camille grabbed some stuff from the kitchen and living room, but I didn’t see anything I thought we could salvage, I’m sorry, baby.”

“Yeah! I found some ingredients for potions and spells! Good stuff too!” She was hastily pulling out books and flipping through them before shoving them back into their places.

The rest of us were going through things with a little more care. Xan, Matias, and Grayson because they didn’t know exactly what to look for and me, well, I wanted to savor everything I came in contact with.

It was all Dev’s stuff. He spent years putting things on those shelves exactly as he wanted them. To me, that meant I should respect it all even though I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. The room may have looked exactly like the day I ran away, but I knew it wasn’t exactly as it all seemed.

“Emelia Stratton!”

We all stopped whatever we were doing at the sound of my name spoken over what sounded like a megaphone.

“Emelia! We know you are in there, darling. Why don’t you come on out and have a talk? Hum?”

I looked at Xander, than Matias, my blood running cold. Trouble had found us, just like my father said we would.

Chapter Thirty

“What should we do?” Grayson asked. He had moved over to stand next to Camille, between her and the door like any good protector would. My mates did the same thing to me without realizing it.

I looked between the two men whom I loved and took a few breaths in and out, calming myself. A calm Emelia was a smart Emelia.

The loudmouth outside was obviously someone from the Council, but I knew it wasn’t Ronan, thank fuck. I knew I would know his Scottish brogue anywhere.

“Camille, do it.” I told her. We decided before we left that if we ran into trouble, Camille would cast a spell protecting the shifters so they can still shift. Taking away a shifter’s beast was cutting them off