My mouth dropped open. “Have you forgotten that he’s a High Clifter?” I argued. “Their kind is designed to kill my kind. I don’t care what idiotic, romantic notion his mark puts into his head, he’s dangerous, so I don’t want him here. If you do this—this keeping-him thing—then you’re responsible for him. And you make sure he stays far away from me. You hear?”
She blinked, then let her mouth drop open. “Honestly, I can’t believe you gave in that easily.”
“Well, what the hell else are we supposed to do?!” I shouted, yanking off my frock so I could change into a pair of traveling trousers and a tunic. Then I stomped my way into sturdy boots. “You just said so yourself: we can’t kill him for no good reason, and leaving him behind would be fruitless. Even if he didn’t follow us, I wouldn’t want him running free to tell just anyone where we were. There’s nothing else that can be done. But—” Lifting a hand to cover him from my peripheral vision, because the blurred vision of him I was seeing from the corner of my eye was distracting as hell. “You deal with him, or I will put him down. I refuse to interact with the monster at all. I may be his true love. But he is not mine. From here on out, he’s your pet to take care of and feed and water. Got it?”
Melaina lifted an interested eyebrow and hummed deep in her throat as she glanced at the High Clifter. “Of course,” she murmured. “And I accept him. Thank you, dear niece. I promise to take good care of your true love.”
On the ground, the stranger groaned and began to stir.
Fuck. I closed my eyes and lifted my face to the wind, hoping for a miracle to end this moment, because I was so not ready for whatever happened next.
“Son of a bitch,” he rumbled, wincing as he tried to lift his bound hands toward his face. “Not again.”
Pausing when he realized he wore shackles, he lifted his head from the ground and opened one eye to peer at them. “What the hell?”
A second after that, he sucked in a breath and veered his attention directly toward me. His eyes were already a dark blue, but they seemed to deepen into a clear azure sky right before a sunset when they focused on me.
“Holy shit.” Surging upright, he remained sitting on the ground with his legs stretched out in front of him and his hands bound together near his waist.
“You...” He started, his voice breathless as if someone had just sucker punched him in the diaphragm. Then he shook his head slowly as he gazed at me with complete awareness, taking me in from head to toe.
“Hello,” he finally greeted, his voice going husky and soft.
Something uncomfortable and tense whirled through me. My pulse picked up, and oxygen levels went light. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew he was the source—or more on point, his interested gaze was the source. And I needed it to stop.
So I narrowed my eyes. “Stop staring at me or I’ll gouge your eyes out.”
His eyebrows shot sky-high. A moment later, his gaze darkened.
“That’s right,” he murmured, air hissing from his lungs. “Shit.” He blew out a long breath and gazed up at the leaves of the trees around us with dazed shock. “You’re a Graykey.”
His features paled and he swallowed audibly before turning a pale green and looking as if he might cast up his accounts.
“Fuck me sideways, you’re an honest-to-God Graykey.” His breathing began to come in shallow rasps. Gabbing his hair, he pulled on it until it stuck out from his head in dark, wild spikes. “A Graykey. Why did I not see that one coming? I mean, with the luck I have, it was pretty much inevitable. But seriously?” He looked up further, at the sky this time, as if blaming the clouds for his misfortune. “What the fuck?”
Ending his rant on a dramatic flair, he fell backward in the dirt until he was lying supine on the ground and laughing bitterly until he ended the maniacal sound with a low, pained groan and ground the heels of his bound hands into his eye sockets. “Jesus, what am I going to do?”
I blinked at him lying there on the ground, sulking. A second later, I sighed, growing impatient—because deep down in a place that would never see the light of day, his reaction stung—and I demanded, “Are you done freaking out yet?”
“Nope.” He held up his pointer finger, which forced his other hand to lift as well since they were shackled together. “I’m gonna need a couple more seconds to come to terms with this one.”
Then, once again sitting up abruptly, he lifted his hands to shake the chains in my direction. “And what is this about anyway? Am I supposed to be your prisoner now, or do you just have some kinky fetish about keeping your men bound? Because I’m sure you can convince me to be down for that, but I’d like to know upfront, if it’s all the same to you.”
I narrowed my eyes, but all he did was raise his eyebrows expectantly, awaiting some kind of answer.
I glanced toward Melaina. “As I said, I’m not dealing with him. He’s all yours.”
With that, I put my back to the prisoner and started to pack our camp.
“Looks like you belong to me, then, precious.” Slapping her hands together with mischievous delight, my aunt sent the High Clifter a saucy smile full of so much evil relish that it would put no one at ease. “Whatever should I do with you first, hmm?”
“Wait. Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Melaina gave a despondent sigh. “It’s just sad how no one knows who I am, anymore. You know, in my day, everyone knew my name. But, alas, that was apparently another lifetime ago before the damn Graykeys got a hold of me. You may call me Melaina, darling. Or cry it out hoarsely while you’re coming from the orgasms I plan to give you. Either way.”
As she chuckled at her own joke, I couldn’t resist peeking at the High Clifter to gauge his reaction.
Instead of appearing intrigued by her blatant invitation, however, he lifted appalled eyebrows and slowly said, “Right... So that’s never going to happen.” Then he glanced my way and motioned toward her. “Is the crazy redhead the person I have to thank for the sore skull I got in Pinsky?” He lifted his hand—er, both hands—to the back of his head and winced when he found the place where Melaina had bashed him a week ago.
Melaina trilled out an amused laugh and waved a dismissive hand. “That’s all water under the bridge now, way back when I thought you were trying to kill my sweet niece here.”
He zapped a horrified glance her way. “Niece! You mean, you’re—”
“But now that we know you’re just her one true love, it’s all good, and we can be friends. Very, very close friends, if you like.”
I went back to packing everything away as the man suddenly fumbled for words.
“She—you—wait. Did you just say true love?”
“Ah, yes.” Melaina hummed deep in her throat. “I guess I should’ve mentioned the cat was out of the bag. We played with your little tattoo there while you were sleeping and discovered the truth of who you are to your new mate here.”
I could tell the exact moment he looked my way; the back of my neck heated unbearably hot.
“So she knows,” he murmured softly, and something in his voice made my insides shift with a strange surge of awareness.