Page 98 of Marked

“Emi?” Ace called out.

I followed the sound of his voice and stumbled from the building.

“Come on.” Orion grabbed my upper arm, careful not to break my grip on the arrows, and hauled me toward the path where Ace waited. They both wore grim expressions as they turned away from the flames.

Without a backward glance at my home going up in flames, I followed Ace into the forest.

I’d lied to both of them. The arrow had been laced, but my body didn’t react to the poison—at least not like it had before.

This time my body absorbed it. I only had two explanations. Either my body had developed some sort of immunity to the poison, or I shared the same bloodline used to create this poison. That could only mean…

An immortal killer.

A pure blood.

A…

I shook my head at the possibility and swallowed.

Did he try to kill you with his blood? Sley had asked me. I heard somewhere that’s how phaanons killed galeons.

Ace and Orion were right. We needed to run, but my reasons were rapidly changing. We needed to run because I’d figured out something they hadn’t.

It wasn’t that my brother might be the mastermind behind these attacks, though he was involved somehow—I knew he couldn’t be responsible for targeting me. He would never harm me.

It wasn’t that Paul and I were pure blooded galeons, which is what Ace, Orion and the queen suspected.

Which is what I suspected until tonight.

What I tried to keep hidden and secret all these years.

No.

Cuts on your face, arms, legs. Even your ears…

It took every ounce of self control not to reach up and touch the tips of my ears.

The curse of immortals.

A more dangerous secret lurked beneath the surface of my skin and if anyone ever dared to look, dared to question, my life would be forfeit even though I had nothing to do with the killings.

My life, my familiar and everything I’d built over the last twenty-five years would be gone.

Because I was a pureblood phaanon.

And someone was using my blood or that of my brother to kill immortals.