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I smiled a very pleased smirk.
“I was just thinking her outfit was awfully flashy and superfluous to be wearing for a grimy boat trip across fish-scented waters,” I explained before winking and nudging her. “Though I have to admit, I wouldn’t mind seeing you in that bedlah.”
Snorting in answer, she shook her head and turned back to watch her aunt approach the other woman as if moving in a trance.
“Who the hell are you?” Melaina murmured, her voice full of awe and adoration as she lifted her hand to touch all the irresistible shininess.
“I am Nalini,” the flamboyant woman answered, only to raise amused brows at her companion, who smacked away Melaina’s hand before Melaina could touch the star tattoos dotting her hip. “It’s okay, amans,” she told him, stroking his arm lightly. “I don’t mind if she touches me.” She turned back to Melaina, her smile bright and eyes glittering with interest. “Please excuse my lover. He gets unreasonably jealous sometimes.”
Quilla’s aunt spared Nalini’s paramour a glance, only to hum deep in her throat and reach for him with her other hand. “No need for jealousy, handsome,” she assured. “As you’re welcome to join in too.”
“Oh, Jesus.” I shook my head and sighed. “She really just can’t help herself, can she?”
“No, she can’t,” Quilla murmured as I finally turned my focus to the other two travelers with Nalini. I had noticed she wasn’t alone from the beginning, but it’d been impossible to look past all her opulence and really see them until now.
The man she called her lover was slim—small in comparison to me but still considerably larger than her—with freakily pale blue eyes, dark skin, and shorn black hair. I squinted at him, convinced he looked familiar, even though I couldn’t pinpoint from where.
Nalini’s second companion on her left was considerably more recognizable, however. He gained my attention when he sat down on the boards of the ferry and let his tongue hang out so he could pant like a contented puppy. I blinked at the small bedraggled boy who didn’t look as if he’d ever taken a bath in his life. He wore nothing but a loincloth and seemed more like a feral animal than a tame child.
Which was exactly the same state he’d been in the last time I’d seen him.
“What in the world?” I murmured, returning my gaze to the man and realizing where I knew him from as well.
“What?” Quilla demanded in a low voice.
I turned my body in toward hers so only she could hear me, even as I kept my suddenly suspicious gaze on Nalini. “I know the two companions. The man’s a soothsayer. And the kid’s a magical bloodhound. I guarantee you he’ll be able to smell the glamour on us and tell them we’re under a disguise, so be prepared.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Quilla nod imperceptibly. “And the woman?”
“No idea,” I confessed. “I met the other two in the Dimway Forest about a moon cycle ago when Nicolette started her royal tour of Far Shore. They traveled with a group of other wayfaring mages that followed a blond Amazon woman.” I glanced toward Quilla, adding, “A blond Amazon woman who told Nicolette she was a direct descendant to the mage who placed the first love mark on Elaina L’Amante.”
Quilla whirled to gape at me. “That would make her a Graykey, then.”
“Yes, it would,” I agreed, returning my gaze to Nalini. “Unless she was lying. Or your family legend is false.”
Snorting at that option, Quilla asked, “What was this blond Amazon woman’s name?”
“Mydera,” I said, which gained Nalini’s immediate attention as if someone had just called her name.
She’d been stroking her hand up the outside of Melaina’s arm while Melaina leaned back against the soothsayer—Wicket, I remember him being called—when he stepped in behind her to shift her hair to the side and kiss the side of her throat. But now her sole focus was on me.
Stepping away from the orgy she’d been on the precipice of beginning right there in the open ferry, Nalini approached us, her hips swaying lustily with each step.
“And you two,” she greeted with a big smile as if she knew us, her arms opening wide in welcome. “You must be the happy new couple. I’ve been looking for you.”
Instantly on guard, I shifted closer to Quilla.
But Nalini waved her fingers as if to calm me. “Be at ease, warrior. I mean your mate no harm. Far from it, in fact.”
“But you’ve been looking for us?” I countered, remaining on high alert as I kept myself positioned between her and Quilla. “Why? How do you even know who we are?”
Nalini opened her mouth to answer, but Holly appeared in front of me in her cat form, hissing and growling. Nalini paused in her tracks, blinking as Holly transformed into an enormous panther with a sleek black pelt, and the high-pitched kitty snarl she was emitting became a low guttural roar.
Claws emerging, she leaped at Nalini's face.
Nalini frowned at her. “How rude,” she accused before lifting her hand and waving the backs of her fingers at the unicorn as if to sweep it aside.
The leaping panther popped out of existence a mere inch from reaching its target.
