I shook my head in complete awe. “Unicorns are so badass.”
“Yeah.” Quilla appeared at my side. She seemed similarly transfixed by the forest destruction Holly was reaping before she glanced at me in a daze. “So how the hell did you get one to be so devoted to you?”
I shrugged. “I just gave her a backrub and sweet treat.” Then I grinned. “Maybe that’s what I should’ve tried with you from the beginning, huh?”
She groaned and rolled her eyes at my pathetic joke.
“Indigo?” a male voice said from behind me.
I spun around, weapon raised, only to stop dead. “Axel?”
He’d somehow gotten past Holly’s barrier of fire, and instead of running, like everyone else diving for cover was doing, he sought us out instead.
Always so brave, that Axel.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised he would be among a posse that was out hunting Graykeys, but I was.
When his gaze strayed past me, it narrowed with hate, and he lifted his sword for an attack.
“Don’t want to alarm you or anything,” he said calmly, never taking his gaze off Quilla. “But you might want to step this way, cousin. You’ve found yourself in the presence of a Graykey.”
I glanced back at Quilla who was slowly backing away and had found another dagger. She lifted it threateningly, prepared to let it fly.
Turning back to Axel, I asked, “Her? How do you know?”
He crept a few paces closer to her, but since I was still safely positioned between the two, I didn’t stop his approach.
“We set up a magical perimeter around my father’s home. Any Graykey that crosses the boundary trips an alarm to alert us to their presence and turns their eyes black.”
I whirled back to check Quilla’s eyes. “Son of a bitch,” I murmured in surprise. I’d been so busy checking her over everywhere else for injuries I guess I hadn’t looked into her eyes. She still had the whites, but the browns of her irises were all black now, as if the pupil had swallowed them whole. It was kind of creepy to look at, actually.
Returning my attention to Axel, I asked, “Is there any way to turn them back to normal?”
“If she escaped the magic perimeter, they’d return to normal, but we’re not going to let that happen, are we, cousin? We can take her out now. Together.” Then he paused, frowning, and sent me an odd look, finally catching on to the fact that something wasn’t quite as he thought it was with the situation. “Wait.” Straightening, he blinked at me. “Why would you ask that?”
I didn’t have an answer for him. At least, not one he’d like.
“You already knew what she was,” he finally realized. “Jesus, Indy. What’re you doing?”
I lifted my hands, trying to reassure him. “It’s not as bad as you think, Axel. She’s not dangerous.”
“She’s a fucking Graykey. Hell yes, she’s dangerous. Her curse could turn her toward her bloodlust right now. She could kill us all with her magical—”
“No,” I told him. “She won’t. She got rid of her magic. Willingly traded it with a non-magic-bearer. The bloodlust could no more consume her than it could you.”
“Don’t believe her lies, Indy,” Axel begged me, trying to sidestep a wide berth around me in order to reach her but not getting any closer. “You’re better than that. Hell, you of all people have more reason to hate them than anyone.”
I felt Quilla through my mark, moving with him, keeping me in his direct path. So I turned with my cousin, constantly facing him as he walked, making sure he stayed in front of me and she stayed behind.
“She’s not the one who told me about shedding her magic, though. So how could she lie about it? I got the information from five witnesses—one of them being the King of Donnelly and two were High Cliff royalty. I’m telling you, Quilla is not dangerous.”
“Quilla?” he spat incredulously. “You call that monster by name?”
“She’s my true love, Axel.”
That finally snapped his attention away from Quilla so he could gape incredulously at me. I tapped my tattoo, and he sucked in a breath, rasping, “Jesus. Indigo, no. You—you can’t be serious.”
“I am. And so, you’re not touching a hair on her head,” I promised my cousin. “I can’t allow it.”
“Let me kill her for you,” he entreated. “Once your mark fades after her death, your bond to her will die too. I can free you.”
“I’d sooner die myself,” I growled, pissed that he would even suggest what he had.
He shook his head slowly, then answered, “So be it.”
Lifting his sword, he charged. I parried and blocked easily, sighing in disappointment. “Still like the initial bold and direct attack, I see. You haven’t changed much.”
“Neither have you,” he countered. “You still critique every damn move I make.” Then he surprised me by flicking out his sword point and catching me in the side.
“Indigo!” Quilla cried out in worry, and Axel sneered at her.
I lifted my eyebrows and blew out a pained breath. “Better,” I congratulated him, only to catch him off guard right back, attacking his sword with a force that caused it to go sailing away from his hand. Then I backed him into a tree and held my blade against his throat.
“We don’t have to do this, Axel. Just step aside and let us go without a fight, and you’ll never hear from us again. She’s not a danger to the Outer Realms; I swear it.”
He snorted an incredulous sound and shook his head. “My father would kill me if I let her go.”
“And I’ll kill you if you don’t. Don’t make me kill you. Cousin, please. You were the only person in your father’s home who showed me any kindness. I don’t wish to hurt you.”
“I guess I’ll just have to kill you first before you can, then.”
“Look out!” Quilla shoved me away from Axel just as he pulled up a dagger and thrust it forward. The blade barely nicked my tunic as I stumbled to the side.
Suddenly freed from the sword I’d been holding to his neck, Axel shot toward Quilla, snarling, “Graykey whore! How could you? He was a good person. He was family.”
Melaina screamed as he lifted his dagger and slashed the blade down toward Quilla’s face. Except I caught him from behind and snapped his neck.
Letting out a choked sob, he went limp. His knife dropped away from her as he sagged backward into me. I caught him in my arms and cradled him gently before easing him down to the ground, where I laid his body in the grass and slowly stepped back, staring in a daze at his dead, unseeing eyes. Then I gripped my head in my own hands and muttered, “Goddammit, Axel. You idiot. It didn’t need to come to this.”
Holly appeared between my legs in her cat form, meowing piteously and winding around my ankles as if trying to comfort me. She sniffed at Axel’s body once, then hissed in distaste, and flounced away.
I glanced up to find that the other two dozen men who’d attacked us were gone, all having run away from the fire-breathing dragon.
Why the hell hadn’t Axel run too?
“We need to get out of here,” Melaina said. “Before they realize the dragon isn’t pursuing them, and they come back.”