Chasing Faete (Beyond the Veil Book 1) by Sarah Marsh, Elena Kincaid, Maia Dylan Read Free Book Online Page B

mother’s direction. The guard behind her mother gripped her hair, arching her neck and began to draw the blade with deadly accuracy across Raelyn’s throat. The arc of blood was the last thing Erica remembered of that day, before she fell into unconsciousness, the grief of watching both her parents killed in front of her too much to bear for a child so young. The soundtrack playing in the background was her own screams of horror.
    “Shh, child,” Corrine murmured gently, bringing Erica out of her memories and back into the present. Somehow she had been led further into the house and now sat on a couch, still held tightly in Corrine’s arms. “You’re going to make yourself ill, and from the looks of concern and anger on the faces of your young mates here, I think that might just throw them over the edge and into insanity.”
    With a small hiccup-laugh, Erica raised her head to look for her mates. Ben sat beside her, gently stroking his hand down her back, and Leo knelt on the floor in front of her. Corrine was right. Both of them looked anxious and ready to kill at the same time. “It is so good to see you, Quenya. For the longest time, I thought you were dead. When Leo and Ben spoke of a Fae woman with a seer’s gift yesterday, I just knew they were speaking about you. I felt it in my very soul.”
    Corrine made a tsk sound and reached up to cradle Erica’s face in her hands. “You should have known better than to doubt me, child. I am a survivor, just like you.”
    Erica nodded and smiled. Corrine had been more than just her nanny. She had also been her mother's most trusted advisor. The gods would share visions with her of what would or could happen in the future. If her visions were meant to be taken as a warning rather than prediction, then they were sometimes given time to change the path to ensure a different outcome.
    “After I was unable to save your mother, Alefric had me taken to the dungeons. He knew of my foresight ability and wanted me to advise him. I stayed for a while, simply feeding him the information he wanted to know. I knew that with Raelyn dead, his attentions would turn toward you.” A low continuous growling filled the room. “And well may you growl, wolf mates to my princess. There are a large number within the Fae that look to him as their leader, but a growing faction awaits the true bloodline of their Fae royalty to return. The only chance he has of uniting the two is to take our Erica as his mate. I told him that Erica must not be mated until after her twenty-first birthday.”
    And wasn’t that just a delightful thought. Erica shuddered at the thought of being mated to the narcissistic asshole and barked a humorless laugh. “Well, that explains why he came to me the day after my birthday.”
    “He what?” Leo asked his voice deadly.
    “He tried to get me to cooperate . Gave me twenty-four hours to think things over.”
    “He dies, hard,” Ben growled, his wolf clear in his voice.
    Corrine grinned, and Erica knew she approved of both of her wolves. “Now that I would love to see, but I have yet to be shown the death that awaits him.”
    “Have you seen what lies ahead for us?” Ben asked.
    Corrine’s smile slipped away and a shadow formed in her eyes. “I have seen two possible outcomes for your future, and as with all battles between good and evil, there is a happy ending and one that is not so happy.”
    Having forgotten that the Alpha still sat in the room, Erica startled slightly when Gabe sat forward in the seat he had taken across the room. “Corrine, you talk as if there is already a battle on the horizon, but you have never spoken of this before.”
    “You are already at war, Gabe, and it is one that you must win. Not just to guarantee the happiness of these three young lovers—” Corrine gestured between Erica and her mates, “but the survival of your own pack. I have never spoken of this as I had not been shown every piece of the puzzle that is unfolding