Dragon Marked_ Supernatural Prison #1(91)

I bit at my lip. “Well, the power is too strong for Louis to lock away again, so he put like a cloaking around me. Hopefully it’s enough.” As long as the dragon didn’t decide to burst free.

Jonathon ran his eyes over me, and then reached out and touched me. “I can’t sense anything unusual about you, but then I don’t have the tracking skills of the Four. I hope Louis knows what he is doing.”

Lienda gripped his forearm tight enough that every knuckle stood out on her hand. “I don’t want to risk it. We need to run.”

Jonathon pulled her closer. “If we run, they will ask questions, and then the Four will come for us and they always find those they hunt. We need to play the game and stay calm.”

I wondered where the Compasses were. Usually they would be front and center during something like this.

“Are they bringing in someone to replace Kristoff?” I asked Dad.

He was staring out over the crowd, trying to keep an eye on what was happening.

“Not until after the trial. He can’t be stripped of his position unless he is found guilty.”

Slimy bastard would probably find a way to get out of this one too.

The noise started to die down around us, and even craning my neck gave me no better view of what was happening. I was tense, my hands clenched into fists, my nails biting into the soft pads. Where were the Compasses? And what had Louis taken off to do. I felt as if I was getting bits and pieces of a story and the ending was going to shock the shit out of me when it came. Silence was descending across the thousands of Stratford residents crammed into the town center. The Four were coming, I could feel their power moving along the wind.

Then they were there, standing atop the lip on the fountain, heads above the crowd. I couldn’t stop the gasp which fell from my lips. Thankfully, I was just one of many who either gasped, screamed, or coughed at their appearance. So no attention was drawn in my direction.

Unlike the Compasses, these quads were identical, from their dark red hair right down to their stormy gray eyes. They were dressed similarly, in black military style clothes and thick shit-kicker boots. They wore identical cold, hard expressions. Could their parents even tell them apart? No wonder they were known as the Four, there seemed to be no individuality about them at all.

And they were mutha-effing-scary.

They stood there and stared out into the crowd, all four sets of eyes scanning us. Silence echoed around the space, minus the thousands of hearts beating and the rapid breathing thing that Mischa seemed to be doing. The girl was about five seconds from hyperventilating.

Number Two opened his mouth. “We are here because there have been reports of dragon marked in Stratford.” The gray eyes continued to bore into the crowd. “If you are harboring these fugitives, you need to stop. Now.” There was a crap-ton of force behind that last order.

Three took over the speech. “The council wants to keep from you the fact that the recent prison breakouts were dragon marked. Every single one was a marked. They are free now to bring about the rise of the king. We cannot let this happen.”

Angry chatter started around the residents. Now I was seeing where all the rumors had come from. I’d wondered how all the prisoners and guards had seemed to know the breakouts were from a secret room and that they were marked. The Four had been making sure everyone knew; they wanted people to rally against this. They were trying to stir up trouble so no one would keep the marked a secret.

Number Four had a low, strong voice. “You are all probably wondering why the marked are imprisoned and not killed. The simple fact is that we are yet to find a weapon that can kill the marked. For all intents and purposes, they’re immortal, which makes it doubly important that they are locked away again.”

I choked on my tongue or something like that. I had to cover my mouth to halt the harsh barking cough trying to flee.

Immortal. Mischa and I exchanged glances. Well shit, sounds as if I don’t have to worry about death anymore. Wish I’d known that when Vlad had me.





Chapter 17




It was time for Number One, who looked to be the hardest of all, to speak: “There are two female dragon marked, very old and very powerful, breaking free marked from prisons worldwide. They’re searching for the two to match them. Together these four will mark the points on the compass that will free the king.”

Compass points. Was that part of the ritual?

Number One stepped a little in front of his brothers, the first time they had broken rank from their stance. “We cannot let these four join together. We cannot let the king rise. He will have a legion of immortal soldiers at his beck and call and he will destroy us all.”