by Linda Kage
“You’re an ass,” I mumbled, plopping heavily onto my own blankets with a petulant sniff. There went my plans of getting in an early night’s sleep.
“An ass?” He gave a low whistle. “For commenting on the weather? Wow. Oh well. Everyone’s a critic, I guess.”
I turned onto my side, facing away from him and punched at the hard saddle under my head that was seconding as my pillow. But I could still feel him back there. His warmth, his smell, his very presence was a pungent reminder that I had a mate.
Whether I liked it or not.
“What’s the weather and sunsets like on Earth?” he asked, his voice filling me and seeming to flutter against a very sensitive place deep in my gut.
I closed my eyes, trying to ignore it. But my backstabbing aunt called from across the camp. “Oh, Quilla, darling. I believe your true love is waiting for an answer.”
I lifted my head and scowled at her. From the moment Indigo had returned from his bath, she’d been suspiciously silent. Letting me get suckered deeper and deeper under his spell. The traitor.
“Butt out,” I growled, flipping her the middle finger.
She laughed, howling so loud I winced and began to think up ways to hurt her. And him too. They both deserved a little misery for so cheerfully putting me through this.
“Psst. Quilla?”
I closed my eyes and sighed.
Dear God, this was going to be the longest night ever.
“Quilla?” he whispered again, making my gut tighten as I felt the word right between my legs, as if he’d just whispered it against my flesh.
“What?” I growled.
“Can I ask you something else about Earth?”
“No,” I muttered.
“But how did you even make do over there on your first trip?” he asked, anyway. “From what I’ve heard, it’s a completely different universe, utterly foreign to ours. And you went with nothing but—”
“Melaina,” I answered before explaining, “We learned immediately that one thing translates the same in any world you visit, and she capitalized on that.”
“Really? What’d she do?”
“I fucked some rich benefactor, and he took us in,” Melaina answered for me.
Frowning because I didn’t want her talking to him, I rolled back around to face him myself.
And Jesus, had he moved closer? I swear our faces weren’t even a foot apart.
Indigo didn’t seem to notice though. His eyebrows had shot up as he glanced across the way to where Melaina was finally settling down for the night as well. Then he glanced at me, his expression asking if she was serious.
I shrugged. “Turns out, it doesn’t matter where you go; men will do just about anything for sex.”
His chuckle was low and amused and stirred a crazy tightening inside me. “Care to find out if that sentiment is true with me?”
Clever bastard; the way he slyly and oh so mockingly challenged me to bed him made me want to prove him wrong by doing exactly what he asked. There was no way to answer his question without losing that particular battle of words—and a part of me couldn’t help but respect his deviously playful approach.
Not that I’d ever actually fall for it, but still, I could respect his maneuver.
A whole different part of me fluttered with approval over his open appreciation, and interest. It felt so genuine and honest. His lust seemed pure. If that was even a thing. Pure lust? It wasn’t like he just wanted to exhaust himself in some pretty, willing body. I’d had men want that empty pleasure from my skin before. They wanted to tup some shell for their own pleasures. Or bodily dominate someone in order to make themselves feel powerful. And it felt oily and dark to me. Lonely and even degrading. But Indigo was fully engaged. He was into me—the inner workings—mind and soul. Adding in a physical connection turned it into a trifecta of attraction. And that was different than anything I’d ever experienced before.
I didn’t know how to react to it, so I pushed it down, afraid of it, and I ignored his question entirely, taking the coward’s way out.
“Anyway,” I said. “Melaina happened to be quite adept at keeping the man occupied, so the rest of us were well cared for.”
Indigo watched me with a slight squint as if trying to figure something out. But then he seemed to let go of whatever thought he was having, and he cracked a quick grin.
“Can’t say I’m surprised to hear that,” he told me, lowering his voice to a whisper so only I could hear him. “Melaina’s quite promiscuous and seems fully capable of exacting anything she wants from people, but, uh...” He frowned and tilted his head like he did when he was attempting to reason through a complex thought. “Wasn’t your other aunt there? The one that’s supposed to be her true love.”
I glanced across the camp. Any mention of Taiki only made Melaina sad. And sadness brought on bloody tears, so she usually turned violent to fight off the heartache, which was why I liked to avoid the topic altogether around her. But I couldn’t see her anymore around the camp, and her prepared bedroll was empty. She must’ve left to do her private nightly routine.
I turned back to Indigo and kept my voice low anyway as I answered, “Of course. But Melaina’s never been one to think sex and love had to be exclusively combined. And besides, she usually coaxed Taiki into joining in, if Taiki was around.”
“Oh. Huh.” His brow furrowed as he tipped his head the other way. It was taking him longer to digest that thought, so I smirked.
“What? You disagree with that?” I leaned toward him tauntingly. “Are you trying to tell me you’ve kept yourself pure and chaste all these years for your precious one true love?”
“For you, you mean?” he countered, his gaze suddenly alert and probing.
I rolled my eyes and snorted, distinctly uncomfortable. He grinned smugly as if he knew just how hot and restless I suddenly felt under my clothes.
“Well, did you?” I snapped, not because I wanted to know if he’d thought about and considered me all these years, but because I already suspected he hadn’t, and I wanted to prove my point that he could also separate sex from love—or what he thought was love because there was no way he truly loved me. We hadn’t known each other long enough for that.
“I’m not a celibate, if that’s what you’re asking,” he answered.
When a strange, striking cold needle of pain shot through me, something like apology and regret flared through his expression.
His voice was noticeably softer as he added, “I had no guarantee I’d ever find you. And I have searched. Trust me. Any job where King Ignatius asked for volunteers for assignments that would get me out of High Cliff and traveling to a new place where I could look for you, I accepted it. But I never really thought I’d actually find you. Which meant, yes, there were brief, pleasant encounters along the way to fill a void. But all the while, I assumed that if we ever did meet, the rest of my encounters would belong solely to you.”
“Well, maybe you ought to change that philosophy,” I told him, “unless you’re ready to become a celibate after all. Because you will be getting no such encounters from me.”
“You don’t think so, hmm?” he murmured, his eyes glittering with amusement and an interested, seductive heat. Then he winked. “I guess we’ll just have to see about that.”
“I’m serious.” My jaw hardened as I glared at him for trying his cutesie, charmer’s smile on me. “I’ve no interest in sex. At all. And if you try to seduce me, I’ll probably end up gutting you. Got it?”
“No interest at all, you say?” Blurting out a shocked laugh, he shook his head as if I amused him. “Come on, you’re only saying that because you’ve never tried it.”
“You don’t know that,” I countered. “You don’t know anything about me or what I’ve tried.”
“I know you wouldn’t be talking this way if you’d had a decent enough encounter that rated as true sex. But don’t worry, empress...” He playfully tapped the end of my nose with the tip of his finger.
“I’ll show you how it’s done right.”
I grabbed his wrist before he could fully retreat, and I twisted hard, making him grit out a hiss of pain. “You said you wouldn’t touch me.”
“You’re right,” he strained out through his discomfort. “My apologies. I’ll not slip again.”
I let go of him and retreated my hand to my chest because my fingers burned where I’d touched him. “There will be no seduction plot from you at all, got it?”
My heart beat hard in my chest, hoping he fell for my intimidation because deep inside I was mostly just scared. Scared that if he tried, he just might succeed. And then where would I be? At the emotional mercy of a fucking High Clifter, one who openly admitted to having supported the eradication plan to eliminate all Graykeys. Falling for him would be the worst, most dangerous thing I could ever do.
At least, I think it would be.
“You’re not ready,” he finally said after gazing into my eyes a full ten seconds. “That’s fine. There’s no rush. We have the rest of our lives together to get there. And besides...” Sending me that devastating and charming grin again, he rolled back onto his spine and smiled up at the darkening sky, returning his bound hands behind his head. “I kind of like taking my time and savoring this first leg of our journey together. Gotta admit, it’ll be nice to learn you first and get to know what I’m working with before I start the real romancing.”
“Romancing? Pfft.” I wrinkled my nose and shuddered. “Don’t ever use that idiotic word in connection to me again.”
He only chuckled before assuring me, “This is going to be so much fun. It’ll be worth the wait.” Then his gaze went soft and serious as he turned his face to look at me. “You’ll be worth the wait.”
I gulped, and my heart did a stupid flip in my chest.
Indigo smiled again as if he could read my mind. Then he looked up at the night sky and began whistling “Singin’ in the Rain” to himself.
Bastard. His cheerful optimism wasn’t going to get to me. I would not fall victim to his charms.
Except a deep place inside me wondered whether I really wanted him to fail at this specific pursuit or not.
“Hey, Quilla,” he whispered.
Grinding my teeth, I groaned, “Oh my God, what?”
I fully expected him to grin over my aggravation, maybe chuckle through it and ask me another idiotic question, like how much in love did I think I’d fall for him, or he’d rattle off one of his corny wordplay jokes. But he looked far too solemn and serious for anything of that nature.
And when he said, “Do you ever miss your powers?” I could only blink, dumbfounded.
No one had ever asked me that. I mean, there was really only Melaina around, but she certainly didn’t seem to care about my feelings over that situation, so I really hadn’t thought about it too much either. It usually only caused an ache to bloom in my chest, because yeah, I think I did miss my powers. They’d made me feel special, unique, like one-of-a-kind important. Adults, like my father’s uncles, had even respected them. And now, I was kind of like a no one with nothing going for me.
Except, it was also a relief to be free of them. I had been constantly scared with them inside me, worried I’d use them for bad, because of the curse, and end up hurting someone. So I didn’t want them back. But, yeah, I did miss how helpful it’d been for even minor daily things, like walking across a room to fetch something, when I could just will it to come to me. And I missed how important it made me feel.
So I couldn’t stop myself from murmuring, “Sometimes,” in a wistfully nostalgic voice.
My gaze strayed to Indigo. He watched me solemnly. “I think shedding your powers was the bravest, most selfless thing I’d ever heard of anyone doing,” he told me. “You were willing to give up your biggest strength in order to protect others. That always seemed like it would’ve been incredibly frightening to do, to make yourself vulnerable just to save a realm full of strangers.”
It had been frightening at the time. I didn’t really think about it anymore though. What was the point? My gifts were gone. I’d adjusted to life without them. And now, this was what I was.
But the mere fact that Indigo believed it was noteworthy enough to mention caused my throat to feel extra dry and my nose to burn.
He laughed softly, though there was only admiration, no amusement, in his voice when he looked at me, and he said, “It’s ironic, but the fact that you gave your powers to someone else always made me think you were probably the one Graykey that should’ve kept them. You had the strength of character to put others before yourself. So I just had this sense that you’d also have the strength to fight away the bloodlust, if it ever hit you. That’s why I listed you as low priority in my reports. I kind of hoped King Ignatius never found you. I didn’t think you should be caught.” Crinkling his brow into a funny face, he sniffed. “Weird, huh? I had no idea who you’d become to me. You were just a name on a piece of parchment, and yet I had this strange urge to protect you, even then. Makes you think destiny’s always at play, doesn’t it?”
I didn’t know how to answer. I had a bad feeling that anything I said would cause these unwanted emotions to bloom inside me, so I just muttered, “Go to sleep, High Clifter.”
His smile was soft. Blinking drowsily, he whispered, “Sweet dreams, empress,” and then he purposely closed his eyes.
But I continued to stare at him long after his breathing changed and he really did fall asleep. His charms went deeper than blatant flirting and devastating smiles, I realized. I think he actually respected me.
No one had ever respected me before.
Why would I even want to avoid a person like that? I wasn’t sure, but I had a feeling my own stubborn pride was going to make me hold firm against his advances anyway.
Chapter 19
Indigo
“You know what I still don’t get?” I said from atop Holly. She was back in her zebra form, and I was growing used to the odd stares passing travelers sent us. Or maybe they were suspicious of the shackles on my wrists.
Though, honestly, I think it was mostly Holly they gaped at.
Whatever the case, it didn’t matter. I was in too much of a good mood to care about either. I’d woken up this morning, facing my true love, asleep on her bedroll next to mine, and I’d gotten to watch her at rest, looking innocent and sweet as the sunlight rose over her. It’d been spectacular.
When neither Quilla nor Melaina answered me, I rode ahead until I’d drawn up alongside them and had wedged Holly between the two horses they were riding.
Each woman remained mute.
They’d been giving each other the silent treatment since we’d broken camp earlier and Melaina had let me finish their stew from the night before for my breakfast. Quilla had snapped at her for feeding me since I was supposed to be fending for myself. But Melaina had argued that she was just going to throw it out anyway, so what did it matter. Then Quilla had directed half her anger at me for eating the stew.
But it was stew.
The stale, tasteless rations I had in my pack could never compete with the rich bounty of flavors in stew. And Quilla had made a particularly damn fine stew. Besides, I’d gone to bed last night without any supper, so I was starving. There was no way I was passing up an offering of stew. Quilla could just be mad at me for a while.
Which she was. And Melaina was now mad at me too, because—
Well, I wasn’t sure why she also refused to talk to me. But Melaina didn’t seem to need a reason to be pissed off. Her moods shifted so frequently I figured she’d get over whatever was wrong with her within the next five minutes, anyway.
It might’ve had something to do with how quickly I’d cleaned the crock in the spring after finishing the stew, though. She had thrust a scrubbing wand and soap powder at me and instructed me to go wash the pot out in the brook. Which was exactly what I’d done. Thinking I needed to hurry, I’d accomplished my task with the utmost speed, not wanting to delay us from our
departure.
But she’d snapped at me that no kitchenware could possibly be decently cleaned in the pathetic amount of time I’d taken on it. Muttering something about how I needed to learn proper hygiene and cleanliness if I truly intended to go to the old world with them, she jerked the cauldron from my hand, adding, “Let me see this.”
I assumed her intent was to criticize my shoddy washing abilities, but after squinting into the pot for a good two minutes, she looked up, scowling. Obviously finding nothing critique-worthy, she shoved it back into my stomach as hard as she could. “Well, put it away in the pantry pack, then.”
With a huff, she spun away and ignored me. And neither she nor Quilla had spoken to me—or each other—since.
I sighed heavily into the silence. Aside from their unstable temperaments, I had to admit the relaxed pace they set was nice.
No one traveled like these two, I swear. I was used to riding with parties who were under strict schedule constraints and didn’t spend unnecessary minutes lollygagging because it was always time to get back on the road. But Quilla and Melaina liked their luxuries and made comfort a priority over haste. Their we’ll-get-there-when-we-get-there mentality was refreshing and utterly stress-free.
Except for one point.
Safety.
My mate was never going to be safe out on the open road like this.
“So, anyway,” I started when no one responded to my first question. “How the hell did you make it through the canyon pass the first time through?”
Melaina gave an aggravated sigh of disgust. “It’s really quite simple, dearest. We used a glamour.”
I frowned. “But they do glamour tests at either entrance.”
Quilla’s aunt smirked at me. “Not after we openly showed them Quilla’s mark, they didn’t.”
Okay, what? “That makes no sense.” I turned my attention to Quilla, but she still wasn’t talking to me. With a sigh, I refaced Melaina. “I’m not following.”
