AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But as soon as she tried to pull away, Brentley sucked in a breath and blinked his eyes open.
“Brentley?” Nicolette cried, leaping forward.
“Yeah?” he answered, groaning as he sat up. He lifted his hand to his collar line and rubbed. “Damn, my neck aches like a bastard. What the hell happened?”
“Yasmin broke it,” Allera said, sitting back on her haunches so she could blink at him as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Brentley stopped rubbing his throat to squint at her. “Come again?”
“Yasmin killed you,” his wife repeated, shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe her own claim. “She snapped her fingers, and it broke your neck. You fell to the floor, dead.”
He blinked slowly. “I…died?”
“You did.” Allera nodded, her eyes wide.
Squinting, he tipped his head to the side. “Then how am I alive now?”
Nicolette laughed and clapped her hands madly. “Because of true love’s kiss, of course.” Hopping up and down in glee, she pulled Anniston up so she could kiss the baby all over her face, making my daughter giggle along with her.
“True love’s…?” Eyes flashing wide, Brentley gaped crazily around the room. “But who kissed me?”
“Hey!” Smile dropping, Allera swung out to slap the side of his arm. “I did, you buffoon.”
“You?” He swung back to her, his eyes wide. “But… How? You already had a one true love. And your mark… It’s gone.”
A sly grin took over her features. “It’s not unheard of to have multiple true loves, you know. Rare, but not impossible. Losing Jazon might’ve made my mark disappear, which in turn didn’t alert me to you when we met, but the power behind true love doesn’t stop just because there’s no mark.” With a shrug, she sent us all a bemused grin. “And here, I always thought it would be cool to have more than one true love.”
“God, Allera,” Urban groaned, leaning against me to bury his embarrassed face into my neck. “Only you would be so greedy.”
As Nicolette giggled, Brentley gazed at everyone in confused question before turning back to Allera. “So, we’re… We’re really…?”
“Yes,” she cried, throwing her arms around him to hug and kiss him forcefully.
My shoulders shook as I laughed in delight. Leaning against Urban, I touched his arm, grateful to still have everyone in the room who had survived.
As if sensing my thoughts, Urban shifted his mouth near my ear and asked, “Is this the wrong time to ask what happened to your sister?”
When I looked up at him, he glanced around the room with a slight frown, probably looking for her body. But the only dead visible were Soren and Caulder.
“She didn’t get away, did she?”
“No,” I said. “She’s definitely deceased. Nicolette threw something in her face, and she… She withered into dust. There.”
When I pointed, Nicolette moaned, freshly reminded of what she’d done. “Oh God.” She spun back toward the puddle of ash on the floor. “Did I really kill her? Are you sure she’s dead?”
I eased away from Urban so I could take Anniston from her. “Yes,” I said, bringing the baby close. “I’d say she’s quite dead.”
“And thank God,” Allera swore. “If you hadn’t come in when you did, we’d all be gone right now.” Shaking her head, she let out an impressed whistle. “I just want to know how the hell you did that. It was freaking awesome.”
“I don’t know,” Nicolette insisted, shaking her head adamantly. “I… It was the High Cliff priestess who tattooed my love mark. When she told me I’d been touched by someone with dark magic, she gave me this leather pouch. She said not to open it or lose it, but to keep it safe until I discovered who was infected. Then all I had to do was throw the pouch at them and recite a couple words she made me memorize. She said it would destroy the magic. I didn’t know it would kill the actual person. I never liked Yasmin and don’t mind her being dead, but I certainly didn’t mean to be the one who killed her.”
“Never fear, my child,” a new voice spoke from the doorway. “It wasn’t you who killed her. She killed herself.”
Chapter 42
Urban
“Who the hell are you?” Allera asked as Vienne’s grandfather stepped into the dining hall, hobbling toward us with his wooden staff in hand.
