The cold look she sent me could curdle milk on sight. “You think?”
Damn. I had absolutely no idea how to talk to a Graykey. I’d spent my whole life being afraid of them and hating them for the destruction they’d caused in my own family. I never thought I’d converse with one. Or that one would end up being my true love.
Everything I said seemed to offend her.
Blowing out a breath, I focused on the countryside we were traveling. Having left behind the trees and spring Quilla had bathed in hours ago, we plodded over landscape that was growing increasingly craggier. A mountain range lay ahead of us. We’d have to cross a river before coming to it, but the next major parish on the other side of the great canyon pass would be Tyler.
I was familiar with the village of Tyler. I’d lived there for a time after my grandparents had died. I did not wish to return.
To keep from remembering those few years I’d spent with my mother’s older brother, I turned back to Quilla, blurting, “What do you call a belt made of money?”
She blinked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “What?”
I flashed her a wide grin and answered, “A waist of money. Get it?”
When she merely stared at me with blunt confusion, I cleared my throat and mumbled, “That was supposed to be a joke.”
“Was it?” The look she sent me said she disagreed. “Thanks for letting me know; I never would’ve guessed.”
Okay, screw this. I was tired of dodging the topic I really wanted to discuss with her, so I just blurted, “Don’t you think we should at least talk about this true love thing between us?”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Talk about it?” With a sniff, she muttered, “Okay, fine. Let’s talk. Here’s how things are going to go between me and you: I realize you feel some kind of disturbing affection for me or something because of the bond that stupid tattoo put into your head.”
Well, she wasn’t wrong.
But I frowned, anyway, because, “That’s not quite how I’d phrase it, but alright...”
“Except I’m not tied down by any damn love mark,” she went on. “So you mean nothing to me. I don’t want you to mean anything. And I don’t want to get to know you. As soon as my aunt and I finish our mission, that’s it. You go your way, I go mine, and we never cross paths again. Got it?”
Never cross paths again?
I blinked as a new horde of questions assailed me.
What mission was she pursuing?
Why did she need me to complete it?
And how did she propose to evade me forever afterward? I’d always be able to find her, no matter where she went.
But what I said was, “Are you serious? Magic has deemed us mates. You and I. No one in this life will ever make you happier or encourage you, partner with you, or love you as I will…” I flushed and gave a little shrug. “I mean, once we really get to know each other, I’m sure that’s how it’ll work out. Maybe not right now. But aren’t you even curious about me? I’m going out of my mind over here, fucking dying to know everything about you.”
“Well, I don’t give a shit about you, so…” She shrugged nonchalantly. “Nope. Not curious.”
I squinted at her. Her expression was completely apathetic. But a little jump in her pulse, this spurt of fear, anxiety, and guilt that came through my mark, projecting from her, told me she was lying.
So I leaned toward her and whispered, “Bullshit.”
She arched me a dry glance. “Excuse me?”
With a careless shrug, I answered, “I’m just not buying it, is all. You want to know about me, too. I know you do.”
“Whatever,” she spat, returning her attention to the road, and lifting her chin a notch higher. “Like I care what you think, anyway.”
“Someday,” I murmured, studying her intently. “I bet you will. I bet you’ll care a lot.”
The gush of unease that wafted off her told me she was afraid I might be right. I frowned, wondering why she was so afraid to fall in love with me, anyway. Because that was it, I realized. She was scared. Of love.
In any other situation, I could get that. Love was scary shit. You put yourself out there with no guarantee the other person would feel the same. You risked receiving the worst possible kind of rejection.
But that was the thing about love marks. They were the guarantee, before you ever spoke to or got to know that person. It was like a fail-safe sign that you’d just met the one who would never reject you.
Not being born of High Cliff, however, that fact must be hard for her to fully believe.
“Quilla,” I murmured, shifting my mount closer to hers and lowering my voice to a confidential level, to be sensitive to her worries and concerns. “I know this is overwhelming. It’s a lot to take in, for sure. It’s freaking me out too, I assure you. I mean, my entire life just changed. In the blink of an eye. But please trust me when I say it’s not something we have to fear. At all.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Yes, you are,” I countered softly. “But you don’t have to be.”
I reached out with my shackled hands for a lock of her hair that was fluttering in the light drifts of breeze, just to learn what it felt like. But before making contact, she swung out with a dagger she had clutched in her hand. And the blade sliced open the length of my palm.
“Oww.” Hissing in a breath, I pulled my bound hands back to my side and curled my fingers into a fist to stanch the pain.
Quilla gripped the bloody knife threateningly. “Next time you try to touch me, I’ll cut off the entire damn hand, got it?”
“I got it. Jesus.” Glancing down, I watched blood seep through the cracks in my fingers. “Sorry.”
Next to me, a riot of emotions zinged through my true love: remorse, fear, anger, sorrow, hope, fear again.
The woman had no idea how to deal with her feelings. Violence must be her default response to push down anything resembling emotion that tried to rise to the surface.
I looked up, wondering what kind of life she must’ve had. Her childhood couldn’t have been easy. Hell, I can’t imagine any part of her life had been. After escaping the violence that was her family, she would’ve been on the run ever since, avoiding people who wanted to kill her. Namely my countrymen.
And me.
Guilt flooded my veins. I’d been just as intent to find and eliminate the last of the Graykey clan as my king had been. All I’d seen from them were soulless murderers who wanted to create mass mayhem.
But they had to have souls, didn’t they? Because one of them was now my soulmate.
An acidic churn filled my stomach. It sucked learning just how wrong I’d been. The Graykeys might’ve done some terrible things, but they were still people. It was wrong to paint them all with the same brush. They should’ve at least been given a chance to prove they were willing to do anything—like Quilla had—to evade the dark side of the curse.
If she knew all the ways I’d helped contain her family curse, she’d never forgive me.
“Stop it,” she growled suddenly.
I blinked. “Stop what?”
“Stop doing that thing you’re doing with your eyes.”
My eyes? What the hell were my eyes doing? I reached up, a little worried they were bleeding, just as Melaina’s had a few minutes before. But they were dry and blood-free. The only thing they’d been doing was looking at her.