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

is meant to destroy you and everything you hold dear!” I yelled back, referring to the prophecy. By the furious look on his face, he believed it to be true. Huh. Maybe there was something to it.

Just as I was getting ready to charge toward the head caster, a loud boom rocked the woods behind him. Something exploded sending debris and casters flying through the air. Xan covered my head as another explosion happened to the right of us.

“Camille,” I told my mates. “It’s Camille! We have to help!”

One brave caster came running at us at that very moment, but Matias caught him before the man even stepped on the bottom step of the porch, ripping the man in two as easily as if he were a piece of paper.

Another came from the side of the porch, caster sword in hand. Xan charged at him, intercepting him in his part shifter form and the two barrelled off the porch. Then within seconds, I heard Xan’s dragon roar and the sound of trees smashing and I knew he had transformed.

Neither one of my bonded mates moved far from me, still in protection mode, but I realized, standing there, I didn’t need them to protect me. Not like they thought I did.

I looked back to where Ironshot was still standing as chaos rained around him. His beady eyes were locked on me as Devlin still floated beside him, but Ronan was nowhere to be seen.

I smiled at the sight of him standing there alone, but not unprotected of course. I wasn’t stupid enough to think he’d be helpless but still, it was much more of a fair fight than having his goons try to take me. My eyes bled to crimson and my fangs descended as hunger for revenge filled my blood.

Ironshot’s eyes went wide for just a second, not anticipating I was part vampire as well, but then he returned back to his condescending expression.

“How about a hug, stepfather?” I asked him, licking one of the sharp canines that peeked out of my mouth.

“Oh I would love that, my dear. Come a little closer.”

I took several slow steps, fully aware of the battle going on around me. My two mates against an army of casters and yet, they were winning. Ironshot had to see that as well, even though he didn’t seem to care. Or maybe he did and he had the best poker face in the world. Either way, it worried me because he either knew something I didn’t or he was too insane to know the difference. Probably both.

I stood about six feet in front of him and stopped. Devlin slowly floated until he was just in front of me.

“Go ahead and take him my dear. If you can touch him, he’s yours I promise,” Ironshot told me. My fingers ached to just reach out, but I knew it wouldn’t be so easy. Nothing ever was.

Instead, I ran around Dev’s floating body and latched my body onto my enemy’s, bringing him to the ground. The moment of surprise on Ironshot’s part made him lose focus on Devlin, and my uncle went crashing to the ground as well. I opened my jaw wide to prepare to take his throat out but instead I was thrown backwards, smashing into another caster.

The foolish caster was battling with my dragon mate, but when he realized it was me who crashed into him, he tried to hold me down. I pulled on one of his arms that dared to touch me and ripped it from the socket using my vampire strength. The man howled in pain and fell to the ground screaming, holding onto where his arm was once attached. He was as good as dead in my book so I turned my attention back to Ironshot.

He was walking up slowly towards Xander who had his back turned toward a small group of casters, his magical blade forming in his hand. He was going to try to kill my mate.

Without a rational thought, I ran at him at full vampire speed and knocked him down again. I learned my lesson from before and didn’t go with the obvious move next, which was to try and bite him. Instead I tried to call my own caster’s blade forgetting my magic was messed up.

Nothing appeared in my hand so when I hesitated, it was enough for Ironshot to get the best of me. His blade transformed into a push dagger and he stuck it straight into my side.

I let go of his shirt and both of my hands went to the spot where he stabbed me, only for him to do it once more, only inches from the first one. He pulled back and tried to stab me again, but he was knocked off of his feet.

“Emelia! Get out of here!” Ronan screamed. He was holding down Ironshot using some sort of magic and his boss was pissed.

I didn’t want to leave him, but I was losing strength fast. If I didn’t get out of there in that moment, I knew I never would. I crawled over to where Devlin was still laying, his hands still bound and I tried to lift him, but even with my vampire strength I couldn’t.

“Matias!” I yelled for my vampire mate. He stopped mid-fight and looked at me, then decapitated the man he was fighting and ran to me. He lifted me up with one arm and Dev with the other. “We need to get out of here,” I told him. “Camille, then get Xan!”

Matias looked around and spotted Camille sitting on the ground, chanting spells and Grayson in his grizzly form fighting off casters if they came too close. Matias ran Dev and me to them and lay us down next to Camille and then ran to where there was the sound of a dragon breathing fire.

I crawled over my uncle and grabbed Camille’s arm. “We need to go!” I said when I got her attention. She stopped chanting