Page 72 of Moonmarked

Rune chuckled. My own lips pulled up in a smile automatically and I was glad to get that look of pure desperation out of his eyes—but I felt it, too. I’d thought my life was over for real so many times, and all of that trauma didn’t just go away. It remained. It stuck around like an invisible scar.

“We will figure it out,” Rune finally said. “I’ll ask questions. I’ll read. There must be an explanation as to why you didn’t die—or shift.”

“I’m the prince’s Lifebound,” I said reluctantly. “We both know he transferred his magic to me somehow when he bound us. That’s why I didn’t die or shift.” At least to my very human mind, that’s the only thing that made any sense.

“No, Wildcat. Fae cannot transfermagic into anyone. That’s not how it works.”

My gut twisted. “Maybe it does, and people just don’t know it.”

Rune closed his eyes, kissed my shoulder. “Maybe,” he said, but he didn’t mean it. He didn’t believe my explanation for a second—this had nothing to do with me being a Lifebound.

Suddenly the face of that old man chained to the altar came in front of my mind’s eyes, and I closed my own eyes. Breathed.

I thought I was very subtle about it, but… “What? What is it?” Rune asked.

Fuck, I didn’t want to talk about that at all, would rather try to convince myself that that hadn’t happened, even though Maera had been there, too, had seen the whole thing. That’s why I hadn’t even thought to tell Rune about it until now.

But I knew that it was wrong.

“There’s something else I forgot to tell you.”Forgotbecause I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it at all.

But now I remembered. I remembered it in detail.

“What is it? Talk to me, Wildcat,” Rune urged me, and I did.

I told him about the altar, and about the man with the glyphs on his chest, and the chains around his wrists. How he’d looked at me with those dark eyes. How he’d coughed blood.

How he’d called mehis queen.

As I spoke, chills ran down my back, and even the warmth of Rune’s body couldn’t stop them. The memory was too fresh. Too vivid still.

“A sorcerer,” said Rune in barely a whisper. “They build their altars and make sacrifices all the time—that’s how they gain more power. Some have gods, too, and some believe in thin air.” He looked up at me. “Some in fae. Especially in fae royalty.”

I shook my head. “Maera said that frostfire is a thing of the Ice fae, like the final level of magic or something. So, what the hell does that have to do with me?”

Rune thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know, but historically, sorcerers were always more tied to the Frozen court, and Ice fae royalty had better relations with them than with the other courts. It’s why they gifted them Mysthaven, which borders the Frozen court beginning to end. But as far as we knew, there haven’t been anysacrifices made to the Ice fae since the death of the Ice queen.”

My stomach fell and fell.

“Right—the woman you were framed for killing when you were six years old and got banished because of it.” He smiled and kissed the tip of my chin. “But seriously, Rune, he was surely just fucked up in the head. He’s probably dead by now—you should see what he looked like. A fucking corpse even when he was breathing.” I shook my head to rid myself of the memory.

“Possible,” he said. “But you still smell different, Wildcat. And I’m going to find out exactly what that scratch did to you, and why you seem to have moon magic in you now.Andwhy you can hear me through my shadows, even though you’re not Midnight—or fae.”

Well, fuck. When he put it like that…

I closed my eyes, took in a deep breath as if I knew exactly what he was going to say next.

“You don’t…feeldifferent, do you?”

Yeah, that might have been another thing I’d forgotten to tell him because I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it at all. I hadn’t even allowed myself to think about it.

“Wildcat?”

Oh, he knew. Just the tone of his voice said so as he pushed my head up by nudging me with his nose.

“It’s just…” I shook my head. “It’s justcold.I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Cold,” he repeated, as if he wanted to make sure that he’d heard right.

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