And neither of us enjoyed camping.
Melaina cried out her frustration and tossed her hands in the air. “I swear, you are the most useless, incompetent—”
“I just don’t see why I have to vend the bread,” I said.
Fisting my hands down at my sides, I lifted my brows at my aunt and waited for an answer to that. I hated working in the market. She knew this. I despised crowds and people and price haggling. Melaina was the one who adored attention and being among the masses, somehow sweet-talking her customers into paying double her asking prices. Working the market-side of things was her skill. Not mine.
“Because you stabbed the last gem dealer we sought in the thigh, dearest, and their kind talk amongst themselves. You and I both know you won’t be welcomed back into any of their shops with open arms again, not after that stupid stunt. So now I must be the one to talk to the jewelers, and you have to sell the bread.”
Stupid stunt? Pfft.
“I gave him fair warning.” He really shouldn’t have been so surprised by the wound. “I thought I explained myself very clearly when I told him he’d meet the sharp end of my knife if he didn’t keep his hands to himself.” Shrugging, I demanded, “How am I in the wrong for keeping my word?”
It showed I was rather honest and trustworthy, if you wanted my opinion. I meant what I said, and I did what I promised. All good qualities.
Wasn’t like I killed the guy.
“People don’t like to be stabbed,” Melaina felt the need to explain. “For any reason.”
“Then he should’ve kept his damn hands to himself,” I grumbled. “Like I told him.”
“Oh, mercy.” With an exasperated breath, she rolled her eyes. “You’re such a prude. Tupping him wouldn’t have killed you, you know. In fact, getting laid every once in a while might help with some of those anger issues you have.”
“You think?” I arched a censorious eyebrow. “Then why aren’t you the happiest woman alive?”
She narrowed her eyes and pointed. “Don’t test me, you little bitch.”
I sniffed. Anger issues, indeed. If I had anger issues, she was the reason I had them.
Since the moment she’d dropped that amulet into Taiki’s cloak and shoved her through the portal to the other dimension, Melaina had been a thorn in my side. We might’ve gotten to spend nearly half a year with Quailen, Questa, and Taiki before we were sucked back to the Outer Realms again, but from there on out, it had been just me and her.
Me and her disagreeing about every subject under the sun, constantly bickering, never seeing eye to eye, and sticking together anyway, living miserably ever after.
Even after Melaina had broken her bond to her husband eight years ago and we’d been free to search for two more amulets so we could return to the others once and for all, life with her had still been hell. Melaina nitpicked about every breath I took, never missing an opportunity to put me down, and I’d learned to rail right back at her, slapping her into her place with pleasure.
It had taken Taiki and Melaina sixteen years to procure four amulets last time. Melaina and I had been looking nonstop for half that time, and so far, we’d only found one.
Well, okay, that wasn’t technically true. Melaina wasn’t aware I’d gotten my hands on an amulet a few years back. She still thought we had two to go. But I knew her better than I knew anyone. If she learned we had one, she’d take it for herself and leave without me.
She might be the most vexing woman I’d ever met, and she made it clear every day that she loathed the very ground I walked upon, but she was the only family I had. If she abandoned me here alone, I’d have no one. So, no, I wasn’t about to let her know we were halfway to our goal already. Not until we had that second amulet in hand.
Melaina had gone back to see Taiki and the others for short trips throughout the years—since short trips were all we were allowed without amulets—and those few moon cycles without her had been a worse agony than all the suffering I put up with daily with her around. It was far better to have someone irritating and obnoxious in your life than no one at all.
Every visit held such a high risk that I’d never chanced going back with her. There were about twenty-five percent odds we’d die in transport, like get dropped into the middle of an ocean and drown to death, or land underground and suffocate, maybe even be plopped in front of something speeding right at us and get run over and crushed. Anything could happen. That was why we needed to get our hands on another amulet, so we could go and finally stay there.
And leave the Outer Realms forever.
“Fine,” I exploded. “You deal with the damn gem dealer, then, and let him grope you six ways ’til Sunday while you find out if he has or knows where we can find another amulet.”
He was the best lead we’d gotten in over a year. Rumor had it that he owned one. So I could swallow my pride and admit she was right this time; she should be the one to barter with him.
“Oh, honey,” she purred, tapping her chin with a long-nailed finger and looking distinctly entertained. “I wouldn’t let him stop with a simple groping. I’d need far more than that. In fact, sex is a grand idea. Excellent suggestion, my dear. I should just give the poor darling a taste of Melaina, and he’ll be singing like a canary, eager to tell me all he knows or maybe even give me all he has. My God, why hadn’t I thought of that before? I should’ve been the one dealing with the gem dealers all along.”
“Whatever.” I sighed and rolled my hand toward her encouragingly. “Are you going to alter me now or what? I’d rather get this bread-selling shit done and over with now rather than later.”
Her smile dropped into a pout. “Why must you always spoil my moments when I’m having a brilliant idea?”
“I thought you said it was my idea?” I countered, unable to keep from quarreling with her.
“That’s it,” she shot back, waving her hand in a circle and then flicking her fingers my way. “You deserve this.”
A familiar tingling sensation spread over me. Being glamoured always felt as if my skin was being covered with a swarm of crawling insects. I just wanted to bat them away and bathe immediately whenever she transformed my appearance.
But it was a necessary evil.
Because I was a Graykey.
After the family’s eleventh and last reaping eight years ago, the rest of the Outer Realms had finally had enough. I honestly couldn’t blame them. Whenever the Graykeys expended their bloodlust on each other, they tended to turn on outsiders next, ravaging their way across the land and killing indiscriminately to appease the urges flowing through them.
And though the eleventh reaping had occurred in the kingdom of Lowden, because that’s where my grandfather’s brother—Great-uncle Orrick—had ruled as king until he died and his son Percy took power, it was the kingdom of High Cliff who’d led a charge to invade the land and dethrone my father’s cousin. From there, the High Clifters had shown no mercy, cutting down anyone who bore the mark of the Graykey curse.
They wanted the reapings to be done and the curse to be over in a bad, bad way. After killing all the Graykeys who’d fought back against them, they went on a hunt for all the ones who’d fled and evaded the war, and they killed them too. They were determined to eliminate all of us, so we couldn’t reproduce another generation and rise up once more with our evil bloodlust.