Chapter 403: That’s Permanent Marker, Kael

Kael stiffened next to Guinevere. She could feel him through their matebond. He was thinking.

Then his emotions poured into her chest at full volume. Ones she was not prepared for.

Confusion. Shock. Followed by oh shit. Then a stronger OH SHIT.

Kael’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

His head dropped. His cuffed hands came up to his face.

Guinevere turned to look at him.

He raised one finger. The universal signal for "give me a second because my brain just caught fire."

"Two puncture wounds," he said into his palms. "On the neck."

"Yes," Veyron confirmed.

"That’s it?"

"Yes. That was the method."

He looked at Guinevere. "You actually thought this was about plants and fountains."

Guinevere’s brows knit in concern. "Are you alright, Kael?"

The laugh came out of him like a gunshot. No warning. No buildup. One second he was processing the sentence and the next he was laughing so hard his cuffed hands hit the table and the sound bounced off every wall in the interrogation room. Veyron’s hand went to his weapon. Guinevere leaned away from him. Neither reaction slowed it down.

"The fountains," Kael wheezed. "I cannot. I can’t."

He pressed his cuffed hands against the table and forced himself to breathe. In. Out. The laugh was still sitting in his chest, waiting for another chance.

He straightened up. Wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Looked at Octavian.

Then he tilted his neck revealing a small gold symbol. It had been forming since Guinevere marked him the first time.

"Does your king have one of these?" Kael asked.

Octavian’s lips parted. His head tilted. The look on his face said he wasn’t sure.

"Check his neck, Master Mage. It might not be where his puncture wounds are. But it will appear on his neck at this spot. If he has one of these, then your king isn’t in a coma. He’s going to wake up with abilities that he didn’t have before and runes that don’t go away. She warned you those were contagious."

Kael looked at Veyron. Then at Octavian. Then back at Veyron.

"One of you is going to have to explain why you arrested his fated mate. You are also going to have to explain to him why police chased her and drew weapons on her and I would like to be in the room for that conversation."

Veyron still looked confused.

Kael gave a nod. Stood up. Walked to the one-way mirror window. Took a marker off the ledge. Nobody stopped him.

He turned to the wall and decided it was a whiteboard.

"Since we’re struggling, I’m going to use visuals."

He drew a stick figure. The proportions were criminal. One arm was longer than the other. The hair was three lines of different lengths going in three different directions.

Kael turned. The class was squinting at his drawing. He wrote GUINEVERE underneath it.

"This is Guinevere. She has light. Lots of it. Unstabilized. Volatile." He drew squiggly lines radiating from the figure. Half of them looked like snakes. "These are the surges she has been telling everyone about since we arrived."

He drew a second stick figure. Worse than the first. The legs were different lengths. The crown on top looked like a damaged fence. He wrote SOLVEIL underneath.

"This is your king. They are connected." He drew a line between them. The line wasn’t straight. It curved twice for reasons only the marker understood. "This is the matebond. It is not a weapon."

He drew two dots on Solveil’s neck. The neck was barely distinguishable from the torso because the stick figure didn’t really have one. The dots sat on what might have been a shoulder.

"These are your puncture wounds. Not stab wounds. Not dagger wounds. Matebond marks. Made with teeth." He tapped the dots. One of them smeared. "A bite, Commander. Mates do it. It’s driven by the dragon or wolf inside the person. Not everyone gets a mark. Only if the beast inside you wants to. And usually males do it to females. Any women you’ve sent to House Solandris? Yeah. Guarantee at least one of them has been marked by a dragon. Guinevere happened to give him one because she has a wolf." He pointed at the Guinevere figure, whose lopsided head and uneven arms stared back at the room like a haunted doll. "The one who has been apologizing for your fountains and your stairs played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for? That one marked him because he is her mate."

He drew an explosion around the Solveil stick figure. The explosion looked like a flower that had been stepped on.

"When a matebond mark is given. She bites him. Venom enters his bloodstream. His body calibrates. The fever he’s probably running? Yeah, she does the same thing. He’ll wake up refreshed and feeling better than he has in ages. That is your coma."

He drew a third stick figure. His worst yet. The angry face he attempted looked more confused than menacing because Kael could not draw expressions and had tried anyway. He put a dagger in its hand. The dagger looked like a rectangle with ambition. He wrote IRRELEVANT underneath and drew an X through it. The X missed the figure by half an inch on one side.

"This is what I have been losing sleep over."

He drew an arrow from Guinevere to Solveil. The arrow curved downward and then corrected itself like it had gotten lost. He drew a heart over the connection line.

"This is a matebond. Not a murder."

He stepped back. Three stick figures. Two smeared dots. One lopsided heart. An explosion that looked like roadkill. Handwriting that would get him held back in primary school.

He turned to Veyron.

"Does this look like a woman who tried to kill a king? No. We all know the goddamn answer to that is no. Even you Veyron. Don’t deny it. I saw that crack a second ago."

He capped the marker. Sat back down. Crossed his arms.

"Class dismissed."

Silence.

Veyron looked at the wall. Looked at the stick figures. Looked at the smeared face of his king rendered in the artistic style of a toddler having a tantrum. Looked at the lopsided heart. Looked at the explosion that looked like a vegetable.

"That’s permanent marker," he said.

Kael looked at the marker. Looked at the wall. "You’re welcome."

Guinevere’s face had caught fire somewhere around the tenth time Kael emphasized she had marked King Solveil and she now had her face in both of her hands.

"Now look what you’ve done. You upset her," Octavian snapped at Kael.

"I’ve upset her," Kael repeated flatly. "Table Banger over here has been yelling at her and you put her in warded cuffs. I drew a bad picture of her and THAT’S where the line is? Un-cuff me so I can fix this."