MARK OF LOVE (Lovemark #3)

Prologue-1

Prologue

Quilla

THE TENTH REAPINGI clapped my hands over my ears as another scream echoed down the hall, this one louder and closer than the last. It sounded like Mama.

When the cry stopped abruptly, I gave a thick swallow, tucked my knees up to my chest, then squeezed my eyes shut, rocking myself slowly back and forth.

I guess Mama was gone now. Just like Grandpa, Grandma, Daddy, my brother Quatro, and a handful of cousins.

I had just seen them all die.

I’d never witnessed murder before.

And I didn’t want to ever again.

Huddled in the dirt behind the main staircase, I swiped the back of my hand across my upper lip when the slow trickle of something wet slid from my nose. My hand came away red and sticky.

Blood.

Bleeding made sense. A hailstorm of debris had hit me when Grandpa’s brother’s family had invaded the great dining hall by blowing out one of the sidewalls I’d been sitting near.

My palm trembled as I prodded my hair, checking for more wounds, and rubble dust fell from the ratted strands, landing on the frayed and grimy hem of my dress. As if they were lethal, I kicked the chunks of wall away with a bare, scraped toe before I tucked my leg back under my skirt and returned myself to the fetal position, hugging my knees and rocking again.

Distant bellows and shrieks began to fade further away. I hummed to myself—just inside my mind though, so no one else could hear it—to block out the rest of the world.

But that didn’t help. Jolting when a shout sounded from nearby, I sucked in an involuntary gasp. Boots pounded closer. I tensed, fearing I’d been discovered. But the clanging of metal and swords slamming together told me the runner had been fleeing from someone else, and they weren’t coming for me.

I had no idea who was fighting this time. Honestly, it no longer mattered. As soon as my grandfather’s brother Orick and his family had invaded, everyone had turned on everyone else. It was impossible to know who to trust anymore. To know who was good.

One minute, Grandpa Obediah had been raising his goblet with a toast and smiling to celebrate Grandma’s birthday, then a loud boom made my ears ring. Dust clogged my vision, and the next thing I knew, Grandpa’s head had landed on the floor, no longer connected to his body.

Utter madness followed. Brother turned against sister, husband against wife, mother against son.

I’d been so stunned watching my cousins Queen and Quote stabbing each other to death, I hadn’t even noticed my own brother Quatro charging toward me with a raised dagger until Mama screamed a warning. I’d turned just in time to see her thrust a sword into the center of his back to stop him.

Frozen, I gaped as the blade emerged through the front of his chest and blood bloomed across the cloth of his tunic. My mother had murdered one of my brothers. To save me.

I would’ve remained stupefied even longer, trying to process what was happening, but Mama had roared, “Run, Quilla, run!” just as Daddy rushed at her from behind, spear raised, only for Uncle Palmer to slay him with a battle-ax before he could reach her.

A whimper filled my throat. My entire family had gone insane. It could only mean one thing.

Another reaping had begun.

Grandpa had taught us all about the reapings. He’d survived one already, back when he was twenty-nine, he claimed, before he’d met Grandma or the rest of us were born. Before even Daddy was born.

With the curse that had plagued our family for centuries, the bloodlust for power and magic would sometimes seize a member of House Graykey until they could no longer control the insatiable thirst for more, and they attacked the rest of the family, intent to consume their abilities and take them for themselves.

From the moment that first strike in a reaping came, a struggle for dominance and control took hold of the rest of us until only the strongest survived. Just a rare few Graykey members were able to avoid that unquenchable hunger for more power whenever a reaping began. Grandpa Obediah claimed to be immune. He was still a carrier, though, so he had passed the curse down through the generations to the rest of us.

I slowly twisted my wrist until I exposed the smooth, hairless inside of my forearm where a light blue vein ran through the center of the tattoo I bore. I’d been born with the pentagram with the letter G in the center, a mark that signified I came from the Graykey line, and therefore I carried the Graykey curse.

Meaning I should be filled with bloodlust right now, too, murdering the rest of my family like everyone else.

But I didn’t feel like killing anyone. Especially anyone in my own family, who had raised me and protected me and nurtured me my entire life. The idea actually turned my stomach sour.

Did this mean I was immune to the bloodlust too? Just like Grandpa Obediah had been in the last reaping?

I hoped so. I didn’t want to become feral.

“Why won’t you just die already?” a man roared over the sound of clanging metal.

I knew his voice. Daddy’s middle brother, Uncle Palmer, had always kind of scared me.

After seeing the way he’d cut down my father only minutes ago, that fear wasn’t going to fade anytime soon either.

“You first,” a woman answered, straining and panting from the effort she must be putting into fighting him off.

I sucked in a breath, also recognizing her voice. Uncle Palmer’s wife, Taiki, was my favorite aunt. She always took the time to pause whatever she was doing to teach me something new and interesting. And she smiled and laughed when she did it, as if she truly enjoyed my company. Usually, I just annoyed everyone with my relentless questions and curiosity. But Aunt Taiki called me refreshing.

I bolted upright when she cried out after a particularly loud thump.

If Aunt Taiki died, who would be left?

Only the frightening murderers, that’s who. Certainly no one who’d walk down to the stream with me and try to spot minnows and crawlers in the water. Certainly no one who’d snuggle close to me in front of a warm fire when it was storming outside and tell me funny stories to keep me from being scared. Certainly no one who enjoyed my questions and called me refreshing or could make an entire room seem as if the sun had just come out from behind a cloud whenever they smiled.

Aunt Taiki couldn’t die, too. She just couldn’t.

Since she had married into the family and wasn’t a blood-born Graykey, I knew she wasn’t held under the t****l of bloodlust. Like Mama, she was probably only fighting right now to either defend herself or someone else.

My entire body began to shake. I knew she needed help. But I was so scared. I couldn’t seem to make myself move. If I left my hiding spot, I’d surely die. But if I lost Aunt Taiki on top of Mama, and Daddy, and Grandma, and Grandpa, and Quatro, how could I live, anyway?

Realizing I physically could not handle losing anyone else today, I found the will to move and shoved my way to my feet before darting out from under the stone stairwell.

Uncle Palmer had Aunt Taiki backed into a wall. Her sword lay nearly ten feet away, and blood seeped from a wound on the side of her face as she slipped down to sit on the ground and was barely able to lift one limp arm to defend herself. She looked defeated. Done.

With a sneer of triumph, Uncle Palmer lifted his own sword and reared it back to deliver her death blow. “I’ve wanted to do this from the moment I met you,” he announced.

“No!” I screamed.

Lifting both hands, I spread my fingers wide and—palms aimed in his direction—I pushed the air at him, compelling it to blow until it rushed right into him and shoved him off his feet and away from his wife.

Surrendering to my gift of persuasion, the air made a mighty, roaring wall, flowing up and separating him from Aunt Taiki so he couldn’t reach her again after he regained his footing, no matter how much he hollered and fought against it, trying to break through.

In return, Aunt Taiki scrambled from the floor and snatched up her fallen sword with both hands. Screaming a warrior’s cry, she summoned all the strength she could muster and swung the weapon, spinning her body in a full circle before she let go of her hold and threw the blade forward.

The sword sailed through my wall of air and caught Uncle Palmer right in the chest. He choked out his surprise and clutched the metal before tipping over backward, plummeting to the ground, dead.

“Aunt Taiki!” Letting go of my hold on the air, I rushed to her, needing someone to hold me and take care of me before I fell to pieces.

“Quilla.” Opening her arms, she slumped to her knees and pulled me close, hugging my face to her and nuzzling. “You’re still alive. And unaffected. Glory be.”

“I—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I sobbed, gripping the back of her dress and holding on for dear life. “I didn’t mean to kill him.”

Voice trembling, I pulled my face away from her to glance toward Uncle Palmer’s body. He gaped up at the ceiling of the corridor with his mouth hanging open wide and eyes fixed and glassy with the death stare.

My stomach revolted.

“What? Oh! No, my dear sweet child.” Aunt Taiki smoothed her hand over my hair in a reassuring manner. “You didn’t kill him, baby. I did.”

A shudder worked through me. “But I-I helped,” I argued, feeling wheezy. “I held him back so you could—”

“Did you know what I was going to do when you pushed him away from me?”

I blinked. “Well, n-no.”

I never would’ve guessed she’d do that.

She clasped my face between her hands and looked intently into my eyes. “Then you had no part in his death. Now, come.” Grasping my hand hard, she pushed to her feet, already searching the hall for the best escape route. “We need to get out of here and find—”

“Taiki!”

Aunt Taiki spun toward the call, and a sob rose from her throat. “Lain,” she breathed, her eyes filling with tears. “Thank God.”

Letting go of my hand, she dashed toward the other woman with the long, flaming red hair who was racing toward her, and they met in the middle, hugging and sobbing and then kissing, gripping each other’s cheeks as their lips clung with a panicked but also relieved kind of urgency.

I blinked, dumbfounded, as Aunt Taiki continued to kiss Aunt Melaina. On the mouth. Passionately. When Aunt Melaina pulled away, she swiped her thumb over the cut on Aunt Taiki’s cheek to find that it had been healed.

My mouth fell open in shock, realizing they were soulmates.

I had never known that. I’d just known that both my father’s brothers had not married their wives for love. They bragged about it all the time, in fact. Uncle Palmer and Uncle Pallo had picked women of strong magic who would breed mighty future generations of Graykeys, and then they’d kidnapped them and bound them to our house so they could never leave the family under their own free will.

Uncle Palmer had put a spell on Aunt Taiki that would kill her if she ever tried to abandon him, and Uncle Pallo had done the same, plus used dark, forbidden magic to suppress good emotions like compassion, empathy, and kindness from Aunt Melaina’s soul until she just couldn’t be nice. It caused her great pain when she did manage to feel something sweet and kind.

Which was probably why tears of blood poured down her face when she pulled away from Aunt Taiki. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought—”

“Shh,” Aunt Taiki assured with a gentle smile as she wiped the blood from Aunt Melaina’s eyes with her thumbs. “I’m right here. I’m fine. Now, stop this, my love, before you hurt yourself.”

“Yeah, Mom,” came another urgent voice. “Cut it out. We don’t have time, anyway. Let’s get out of here already. Everyone’s gone flipping crazy.”