Page 87 of The Bonds of Indigo

I turn, crossing my arms and watching him like he’s one wrong breath away from giving me an excuse.

Go on, idiot. Make the move that lets me kill you.

“What hex are you under?”

Her indigo eyes shift to look up at me, before drifting back to him. “Nocthariel.”

I have no idea what that means but by Rane’s shock, I can’t imagine it’s good. “I’m terribly sorry.”

She just shrugs her shoulders.

“Is there an ending to the sentence?”

I can tell she’s becoming even more uncomfortable. Her shoulders slightly hunch, her fingers fumbling with one another and eyes closing to half-mast as she tilts her chin down.

“No.”

“I see.”

“What did you say your name was?” I think Yesenia is talking to me, but I’m not taking my eyes off my little slayer.

“That’s Butcher,” Atlas answers in my absence of care. “Are you from around here, Yesenia?”

“We just moved here a little bit ago. You guys just passing through?”

“Usually those that are cursed don’t roam free,” Rane says, but it isn’t with any spite behind it. “Our kind isn’t meant to be locked up. Especially not a Yldarwright.”

I could’ve sworn the two Witch races didn’t get along. Maybe this is the exception—because technically, Necroth aren’t supposed to exist. His sister clearly was the one who created him, dragging him back from death as one of those abominations. It’s possible it wasn’t what he wanted.

I don’t know the full list of laws, but the way Amarah reacted when she realized what he was told me everything: whatever Yesenia did is very, very bad.

“Yeah,” Amarah replies, nothing more.

“Butcher?” Atlas calls, and I glance over my shoulder at him. “I think we should get going.”

“Can I get your number?” My nose twitches. Of course the Necroth isn’t talking to Atlas. “My sister and I would love to see you again. It isn’t every day we come across a Yldarwright.”

“You can have mine,” Atlas jumps in—because he knows he’s preventing another corpse from hitting the ground.

I jerk my attention back to Amarah who surprisingly has her attention on me.

“You’re pretty cute for a Mundane.” Yesenia lets out a stupid giggle.

When my little slayer looks back at Rane, she gives him the best fake smile I’ve ever seen. It better be fake.

“I don’t have a phone,” she says. “And I don’t plan on coming back this way any time soon, but I can give you my name.”

I don’t know why my heartbeat kicks up, but when he smiles at her, my vision blurs.

“That’ll work,” he says with a growing grin.

“Little slayer…”

He digs a napkin out of his back pocket. “Sis, do you have a pen?”

“I don’t just carry around a pen, Rane.”

“It’s fine.”