AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He pointed at me as if he was going to say something nasty, but then he shook his head and countered with, “We’ll come back to that later.” He turned to Melaina and announced, “I’m going with you two to Earth.”
“If you were to come with us,” she shot back haughtily, “we’d need to find three amulets, then, and we haven’t found any. Not in the past eight years. And I don’t feel like waiting around long enough to discover a third.”
A spark of guilt shot through me, knowing I probably should tell her about the amulet tucked away on my person, but I couldn’t seem to risk it. Not yet. She was too unpredictable.
Indigo glanced at me then, his brow furrowing slightly, as if he were catching a whiff of my guilt. But then he turned back to Melaina.
“Which is exactly why you need me,” he announced. “Investigating, collecting information, and discovering where things are is literally what I do. I can help you find the amulets.” Lifting his book as if that were proof of his abilities, he said, “Just ask your niece. She read some of my research. If I want something found, I find it.”
“No,” I growled. “No, no, no, no. You’re not helping us find the amulets, because you’re not going.”
“So, what?” He spun toward me, suddenly irate. “You just plan to leave me behind?” Something in his gaze shifted. The anger drained so hurt and betrayal could fill his eyes. “Alone?”
The word alone struck me hard. That was the very reason I was so intent to help Melaina find the second amulet and go to Earth with her. So I wouldn’t be left here alone.
Dammit. How had he known to use that very word against me to argue his case?
Hardening my jaw, I shook my head, refusing to fall victim to his mock pity party. “Alone?” I repeated, lifting a censorious eyebrow. “Give me a break. You were leading an entire kingdom’s army when you came across my path. So don’t try to play on my sympathies with some lonely act. You can go back to being your queen’s right-hand man once I’m gone.”
He stepped toward me, his lips quivering with rage. “Except Queen Nicolette isn’t my true love. You are. You’re my future, whether you want to accept it or not. You’re the only shot I have at getting a truly happy life, and I’m not going to just stand aside and watch you walk off into the sunset without me. We’re in this shitshow together, woman. Until the end. There is no going off anywhere without me.”
With a growl, I stomped my boot on the ground. “God, you sound like such an overbearing caveman right now.”
His eyebrows lifted. “I have no idea what a caveman is,” he admitted, “but they must be pretty damn smart if they think remaining with their partner through thick and thin is a good idea.”
“Jesus.” I threw my hands in the air, beyond frustrated. “Why are you fighting this so hard? Your mark will disappear when I go to Earth, so you won’t feel so connected to me anymore, anyway. You’ll be free.” I waved my hands like a bird flapping its wings. “So just let it happen.”
“Except I don’t want to be free of you because, newsflash, empress…” He moved even closer, towering over me. “I like the connection.”
“You what?” He was so close, I could see golden flecks in his eyes, just as he’d claimed to see some in mine earlier. They sparkled as if they were catching fire from all his heated emotions.
“I don’t want to lose my connection to you,” he repeated, making my pulse flutter rapidly.
I sucked in a deep breath and blinked before wrinkling my nose in confusion. “But why would you want that kind of connection to a complete stranger?”
I couldn’t fathom why anyone would want me that strongly if they did know me, but he’d still basically just met me. I couldn’t mean that much to him.
“Because it’s a security I haven’t had in a long time,” he admitted. “After I lost my parents when I was eight, I only got five years with my grandparents before they too were gone. Then I was shipped off to my uncle Everett’s family, where I only stayed for a couple of years before joining up with King Ignatius’s army as soon as I turned eighteen, hoping to find a place to belong there. But they shipped me off to Donnelly when Princess Allera married Prince Brentley, and then I was assigned to be Nicolette’s personal bodyguard. And yes, she did grow to be my best friend, a sister of my heart, and the closest thing I have to family, so when she became the queen last moon cycle and asked me to be her army’s commander, of course I said yes. What else was I supposed to do? Where else was I supposed to go? I might have plenty of friends, but she was the only thing I had that somewhat resembled family. I would do anything for her, but I don’t want to be a knight forever and fight wars and kill people. I just want to settle down with my true family and solve mysteries.”
He stared at me a long moment after confessing all that. I stared back, not sure what to say.
A second later, his heated feelings drained from him, loosening his shoulders and bringing sad hopelessness to his eyes. “When I first felt a spark in my tattoo, telling me you were near, I was so happy and eager for my connection to you, I was ready to give up everything to follow you wherever you went. And I still am.”
Pressing the heel of his hand to the side of his head and directly over his mark, he watched me earnestly. “This thing tells me I belong somewhere. With someone. I belong with you. I can’t lose you with it there. I can always tell if you’re fine. Or it alerts me if you’re not fine, so I at least know I need to do something to fix that. It tells me that you’re my one shot at getting the best life I could have. And I’m not letting that go. So go ahead, empress. Try to r
esist it all you want. But I’m not. I’m going to put in all the work I need to in order for both of us to reach our nirvana. Together. Got it?”
Heaviness filled my chest. He had so much faith and hope in his stupid mark; I was almost jealous of his convictions. But then I reminded myself that reality never had such a fairy-tale ending.
The man was clearly delusional.
Except a small part of me wanted to believe him and have the same delusion.
Before that silly part could grow any larger, though, Melaina spoke up, breaking the moment.
“You know,” she said. “If Pallo had ever talked to me like that, even once, he never would’ve had to forcibly marry me and then suppress my compassion, empathy, and kindness, until I cried tears of blood and possibly bled to death from the eyes if I ever got too close to feeling any of those things. I probably would’ve just married him willingly.”
“Jesus,” Indigo breathed, gaping at her in horror. “That’s why you bleed from the eyes?”
