If I only knew how he’d been tracking me—and why—maybe I could still fix this.
But if he’d had no idea I was a Graykey—
You know what? The why didn’t matter. I didn’t care about his mission or goals. They meant nothing to me. He’d probably been lying anyway. And I just wanted him off my trail.
If a glamour couldn’t divert him, he must have a vial of blood from one of my family members, I finally decided, and he was able to track me that way. No idea how he could’ve gotten that, but I couldn’t come up with any other explanation.
So, really, all I had to do was find that vial, destroy it, and then he’d never be able to follow me again. Problem solved. Plus, I wouldn’t have to kill anyone today, either.
Double bonus.
Except the idea of searching him sent a flutter through me that made me pause. I’d have to touch him, all over, patting around inside his clothes and against naked skin to find the vial.
He was a little too handsome to be doing all that to, at least for my peace of mind. Heat collected under my own clothes. I’m not sure why his features made any difference in the grand scheme of things. But it definitely made everything feel so much more intimate to me.
I found myself focusing on the rounded curves of his ass and how perfectly his dark trousers cupped the tight globes.
The insides of my thighs tingled, and my breasts suddenly felt heavier as I imagined my palm flush against the silken yet hard flesh of his buttocks and slipping over the delectable hills, before heading up that strong back to trace every bump and dip in his spine, until—
“Good God.” Gulping, I glanced away, then circled to the other side of him so I’d be forced to stop ogling his ass and could see more of his front.
What the hell was wrong with me, anyway? If I couldn’t find that blood on him, I was going to have to kill this man. Mentally undressing and fondling him was not going to help me accomplish either goal.
And yet, instead of crouching next to him and starting my search before he woke to fight me again—which he really would fight this time, now that I’d stupidly revealed I was a Graykey, and his kind was designed to kill my kind—I just stood there, gazing at him.
Using the tip of my sword, I caught a piece of dark hair that had fallen over his face and was obstructing my view. Gently, I brushed it aside so I could see him better.
But wow. He’d really been formed majestically, hadn’t he? With his full mouth parted slightly as he breathed, I was even held enchanted by the brief peek of his top teeth I saw between his soft-looking lips.
I licked out my tongue over the top of my own lip and moved my gaze over the beginning of a beard that couldn’t hide the strong definition of his cheekbones and jawline. His eyes had been so bright and alive. They had twinkled with interest and energy when he’d looked at me.
I shuddered and shook my head.
A cut he’d probably gotten when he’d fallen after I knocked him unconscious bisected his eyebrow and was beginning to bleed. And dammit, even that made him look dashing.
An urge to lean down and kiss the injury away filled me, and I took a wary step back, intimidated by my own reaction to him.
Maybe I should just kill him now and be done with it. Anything to avoid getting up close and personal with all that wild beauty sounded preferable right now.
From behind me, another twig snapped, and then a new voice spoke.
“I honestly can’t tell if you’re going to mount him or murder him.”
Chapter 6
Quilla
I jumped and whirled toward the second person to surprise me in the past ten minutes.
The woman who stood there gazing at me with an arched eyebrow looked somewhere between evilly entertained and pleasantly bored.
She always had a way of looking at me as if she didn’t give a fuck, all the while caring so much she judged and critiqued every action I made. It was a talent only Melaina could master.
Dropping my sword I hadn’t even realized I had lifted, I turned back to the slumped man at my feet. “He found me again.”
“So I see.” Melaina strolled up next to me and stopped. “And you let him see your true identity this time.” She shook her head, tsking in disappointment. “Very unwise, Quilla.”
“It wasn’t my fault; he caught me unaware.” I scowled at her, fully prepared to defend myself more, but she nudged him with her foot and rolled him from his side until he landed completely on his back, his limp hand flopping out next to him.
“Damn.” She gave a delighted shiver once he was facing up and revealing his full masculine appeal. “But he sure is a sight for sore eyes, isn’t he? Just look at that face. So strong. So young. So mouth-wateringly gorgeous.” Crouching next to him, she ran the back of her fingers along the very same jawline I’d just been appreciating.
Something about her stroking him in the sensual, slow way she was made my insides squirm and scream with this insatiable desire to pull her off him.
By her hair.
I glanced away so I could stop seeing it. “He got smart,” I muttered. “I didn’t realize he was following me this time.”
“So I guess this means we need to kill him now, hmm?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled, swallowing as I glanced down at him again. “I guess.”
“Well, then.” She pushed to her feet before dusting her hands against each other as if clearing them from all guilt and accountability. “Don’t let me stop you.”
My heart stuttered in my chest. And a sudden idea occurred to me. Sucking in a hopeful breath, I glanced up at Melaina. “Did you get in to see the jeweler today?”
“I did.”
Oh, thank God.
“And?”
If the jeweler had the amulet we needed and she was able to get her hands on it, maybe we could just leave the Outer Realms here and now and never come back; problem solved. There would be no reason to kill anyone to keep them from chasing and killing me. Not even this man could follow me out of the Outer Realms.
“And he didn’t have the amulet,” my aunt reported.
“What!?” No! We needed that amulet more than ever. I narrowed my eyes at her. “Do you think he was being honest? Maybe he really did have the amulet but just—”
“Oh yeah.” She sounded sure of herself as she pressed a hand to her plunging bustline to swear by her honesty. “He was still loopy from a post-orgasmic high when he told me, and it’s basically impossible to lie then, so he couldn’t have been dishonest.”
“You had sex with him?” I exploded incredulously, only to pause and send her a tight smile before answering myself, “Of course, you did.” This was Melaina we were talking about. She never turned down a chance to copulate.
“And he gave me a new lead too.” She wiggled her eyebrows in self-congratulations. “He swears a pearl collector in Tyler told him about having an amulet like the one I described.”
“Tyler? But we just came from that direction.” We had literally passed directly through Tyler on our way from Kole up north to Pinsky. Why hadn’t the guy in Kole just told us about the Tyler jeweler?
“These damn gem dealers are beginning to piss me off,” I muttered. “I swear, they’re just jerking us around on purpose and leading us on a wild goose chase.”