Page 18 of A Clash of Stars

“We need to talk to you about the Variance. Something has come up that we feel concerned about, and we have been trying to decide how to tell you for a while now.”

My face expressed great anger that they had kept this from me until now, especially Luke.

“Who exactly are you protecting me from?” I said with fierce determination.

Madok sighed and said, “Evander.”

What the Fu—

“Before you freak out and start yelling. We need to tell you why we have come to this conclusion,” Luke said with some bullshit calmness.

“Then speak. Now.”

Madok lowered his gaze to me, then he spoke.

“During my trip with my father, I learned a few things about your future.” He paused, glancing at Luke with an apologetic look. “I was told that a vision had occurred of your future. We were in the woods searching for the Relic of Claiborne during the Variance…and I came across you. You were on the ground, bleeding with a stab wound.”

Madok shuddered at the thoughts as his eyes passed quickly over mine before returning to the hands he was rubbing together. I could see the power marking on his arm just like mine. Warped and woven together in a combination of curvesand unrecognizable symbols blurred together. Madok inhaled and stared directly into my eyes as he spoke the next portion of the oracle’s vision.

“You looked at me and said, ‘Evander, where did he go?’ Then you were unconscious.”

A chill crept up my spine as I tried to imagine what this vision looked like. Why would I be looking for Evander, and why would anyone want to hurtme?I was simply a princess in a Kingdom of happiness and contentment.

He continued, “Once the Variance was confirmed at our parents’ meetings, I immediately thought I needed to talk to you. That’s when Luke came into the picture. Unknowingly, he was simultaneously learning everything I had learned from the dream.”

Madok glanced, annoyed, through the sides of his eyes at the tall blonde man on the balcony with us.

I asked, “Luke, what else do you know inside Madok’s head?”

Luke eyed Madok and smirked before returning his gaze to mine. “I’m not privileged to say, Clara.”

“Seriously? I don’t understand all of this. It’s so sudden, and, Madok, how can I trust that any of this is even true? You haven’t given me a reason to trust you, so why should I? And Luke, fuck you for lying to me.”

I stood quickly and started to walk back and forth slowly in front of them. I could feel my dress whipping behind me in the wind as I finally heard Luke cough, and I turned to him.

“I know you have other information you aren’t giving me. It is undeniably my right to know it if it is about me. If I’m going to die in the Variance anyway, shouldn’t I get the chance to know what little of my future I have left?” I said so softly I knew I impacted him as his cheeks flushed of color, and he flicked his sight between Madok and me.

Luke’s flustered appearance seemed to enact some side of him I had never seen. Probably for the first time, he looked unattractive because of his flustering lackof self-control. He ran his fingers through his hair, ruining the perfectly polished strands, and let out a frustrated growl towards Madok.

Whatever information Luke knew from Madok changed whatever plan the two men created to prepare me for the Variance.

“Clara. I know that you—”

“No! You can’t tell her, Luke. It is forbidden to know,” Madok shouted.

Madok stood quickly in front of Luke, blocking his view from me. I saw the broad shoulders of Luke appear across from Madok as he was only slightly taller than him. He pressed his hands into Madok’s shoulder, pushing him slightly backward, causing Madok to lose his footing.

“She must know, Madok,” Luke grumbled under his breath.

Madok growled under his exhaled breath, “No. It isverboten.”

I saw his eyes, crystal blue, surveying my uneasy expression about this confrontation. Almost deciding whether he would go against the risk of breaking the rules of nature and telling me or leaving them intact.

He inhaled and exhaled slowly. Then, he spoke.

“It is unclear exactly who it is, but I sense the mark on her neck. I can see the gold pulsating, but it has not appeared. When her mate’s mark appears, so will hers. Neither knows they are each other’s inamorato.”

I took a deep breath and realized precisely what he was saying. I have a mate.

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