“No,” Melaina whispered in horror, lifting her hand slowly to touch my wound. “But you—you have to. You’re my only hope in getting her back.”
“I don’t know where she is,” I said steadily. “But I will. We’re doing everything we can to locate her, and we will get her back. I swear it.”
“Yes.” A sob shook her frame. “We have to,” she ordered. “That girl is my heartbeat. No matter how much I tried to contaminate her and sully some of that pure soul she has so she wouldn’t be too fragile and she could take care of herself, a part of her could never be tainted. There was just this innate kindness that lurked below the surface no matter what I did, and it infected those around her. She infected me. The little bitch was like my own little ray of hope. No matter how dour things got or dark our future looked, she never gave up. She was always there. With me. I can’t give up on her. Oh God. Please. She’s my child. I can’t do this without her. Please…” She clutched her face and moaned. “I can’t leave the Outer Realms without her. She—she…” Looking up at me and revealing a face full of blood that dripped from her eyes and nose and mouth, she sobbed. “Find her, Indy. Find her.”
“Melaina,” I murmured, taking her arms kindly. “We will. Now stop this. Stop crying. She wouldn’t want you to bleed out.”
“I can’t.” She shook her head, too far gone. “I need her. I can’t stop.”
I shook her. Hard.
Startled, she blinked at me.
“Stop crying,” I ordered. “It’s not doing anyone any good. Especially yourself. Start planning what we’re going to do to Quilla’s kidnappers when we catch them.”
“Oh, we’re going to flay the bastards alive,” she seethed, only to hiccup and sniff, unable to quell the bloody tears. “First, I’m going to slice their stomachs open with the thinnest slit so that their guts don’t spill out all at once but need to be pulled forth one inch at a time, drawing out the pain so they feel it for hours and days.”
“That’s really gross and barbaric,” I said, climbing off her and then holding a hand down to help her up. “But I like where you’re going with it. Keep up the savage thoughts. Alright?”
She nodded, but the blood kept coming. Because she kept crying as she spoke. “We’re going to make them scream in agony,” she promised, taking my hand but not having the strength to pull herself up. “Every last one of them.”
“Yes, we will.” I let go of her fingers as she passed out, so I could scoop her into my arms.
After picking her up, I turned toward the cottage, where Olivander scuttled back out of the way, wide-eyed and gaping as I carried Melaina forward. “So that’s Quilla’s aunt? Lovely woman.”
“She’s an acquired taste,” I answered as I brushed past.
“Obviously.” The prince followed to watch as I laid her down on my cot and mopped drying blood off her face.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked. “I’ve never seen anyone bleed from the eyes like that before.”
“Her Graykey husband suppressed her gentler emotions like compassion, love, and kindness. When she does manage to feel them, they begin to kill her.”
“Shit,” he murmured sympathetically, kneeling next to me so he could study Melaina’s prone features. “It always manages to amaze me how corrupt some people can get. Why would you subject another human being to that kind of suffering?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured, though a part of me maybe kind of did know.
Fear, it told me. Fear made us crazy and ugly and unrecognizable. I understood fear now, on an up-close-and-personal level. How it plowed through me and reared its ugly head, telling me I had no power. No control. It made me want to do almost anything to feel the presence of dominion over pretty much anything again.
Giving in to fear and letting it rule him was probably why Melaina’s husband had felt the need to subordinate her to his will. So he’d always have control. So he’d never experience the helpless, gripping loss of it. Because he’d been utterly weak.
My gaze focused on Melaina’s face. Since I couldn’t feel Quilla, and I no longer had the mark to tell me if she was even still on the planet, I had held on to a small hope that she’d managed to escape and that she and her aunt had gotten away to Earth after all. But with Melaina here, just as desperate to find Quilla as I was, that hope cracked.
“So what do you want to do?” Olivander asked.
Heaving out a breath, I pushed to my feet and faced him. “I want to go to Tyler and talk to my uncle.”
“Uh…” Olivander blinked as he stood as well. “I was actually asking about the violent redhead, but okay. What brought about this decision?”
Melaina had. Her presence had prompted me to act, to stop relying on my hope alone, and to do something.
“My friend, Nicolette,” I answered though.
“You mean, the Queen of Far Shore? My sister’s sister-in-law?”
I nodded. “Yes. Her. She told me her true love began to read her emotions, just like she could read his. But he never got a love mark.”
“Really?” Olivander lifted his eyebrows, intrigued. “That’s interesting. Not sure how it’s relevant right now, but still an interesting fact.”
“And true loves don’t need the mark to heal their partners with a kiss,” I went on.
“True,” Olivander agreed. “But what does that have to do with—”
I held up a hand. “You share something with your soulmate,” I told him. “Something you can’t share with anyone else. The mark might help point it all out and bring it to light, but it doesn’t invent new or special powers between true loves that don’t already exist. Somewhere inside me, I’m still connected to her. I just can’t tap into it as the mark could.”
I shook my head, not quite sure how to explain what I was feeling, but I tried anyway. “I might not feel her here.” I pointed to my temple. “I might not know where she is. But she’s still here.” I pressed my hand against my heart before balling it into a fist and digging it against my stomach. “And my gut keeps telling me to go back to Tyler and talk to my uncle.”
Olivander studied my face a moment before giving a single nod. “Alright then,” he murmured. “That’s a good enough reason for me. We can leave in the morning.”
Releasing a breath, I returned the nod with one of my own, one full of gratitude and relief. I knew there was a reason he was my favorite Bjorn brother.
“Thank you, my prince.”
Chapter 39
Indigo
“Must we take this many guards?” I turned in my saddle to scowl back at the dozens of riders following us down the road.
Next to me, Olivander sighed. “I’m a scholar, not a warrior, Indigo. If we meet with any trouble, you’ll appreciate their presence, trust me.”
I snorted. We’d been traveling for almost a day now and we were currently a couple of hours shy the village of Ashley. I’d left a note for Melaina, explaining how I was following a lead in the hopes of discovering Quilla’s location, and I planned to return in a week or two. Then Olivander had left one of his knights behind to watch over her.