MARK OF LOVE (Lovemark #3)

1. Quilla

Chapter 1

Quilla

EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER“Do you remember the plan this time?”

The goading question caused me to cinch my drawstring bag closed with an irritated snap, momentarily imagining the pull cord was tightening around my aunt’s throat instead of the sack. Inside the burlap, the freshly baked loaves I’d just stuffed into it tumbled about uneasily.

But do I remember? Really?

Casting Melaina a hard glance, I ground out, “I told you, last time wasn’t my—”

“Fault?” she finished for me, flashing that ever mocking and sardonic smirk of hers. “Yes, so you said, darling. Multiple times. And all I’m saying in return is that I don’t give a s**t. Don’t f**k things up this time.”

Flipping her mass of red hair behind her shoulder, she tipped her chin up like arrogant royalty. From the way she sat with a rigidly straight spine while smoothing the extravagant pools of her emerald green skirt over her lap, one might think she should be seated on a throne in a castle right now, ordering about a kingdom. But no, lucky me, I was the only subject she liked to boss around. And we were far and gone away from any kind of opulence that could even resemble a castle.

The back alley we occupied smelled pungently of decaying cabbage—wait, make that horse s**t, since her mount was currently lifting its tail and defecating between us.

Melaina sent the horse a dry, unimpressed glance from atop the broken wagon that lay turned on its side where she’d perched herself, and she sniffed. “Rude.” Then she dismissed the animal with an arch of her eyebrows and turned her haughty expression back to me. “The goal is to sell all the bread, not give it away.”

“I know that,” I muttered. “And I only gave away one loaf.” One. But she acted as if I’d dispersed our entire stock without any compensation whatsoever.

“To a filthy street urchin,” Melaina argued. “Making all the other little ragamuffins loitering about and watching think it perfectly acceptable to take their own free loaves as well. Seriously, Quilla. How could you not notice when five more were stolen right out from under your nose?”

With a growl, I unceremoniously tossed our bag full of wares I planned to sell in the market into the pushcart beside me and ground my teeth.

The problem wasn’t that I hadn’t noticed the robberies; I just hadn’t put all that much effort—or any effort at all—into retrieving the stolen merchandise. But the kids had been so thin and half-starved to death. Being out the price of six stupid loaves wouldn’t sink us. And it had probably fed them for a week.

“We’re not running a charity,” my aunt lectured. “That profit is our livelihood. How the hell are we supposed to go anywhere after this with no funds?”

“We still turned a profit,” I argued, but not too heatedly because our so-called profit hadn’t been impressive. At all. It might cover the cost of meals for us, but it wouldn’t come close to paying for any kind of room and board along the roads. We’d have to sleep out on the ground in the open air and around a campfire every night.

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, s*x 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 s**t 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.

And they were still out there today, searching for every last Graykey.

I completely applauded the idea of ending the curse and eradicating even the idea of having another reaping. I had nightmares about getting caught in another family kill reunion.

But flat-out liquidating all of us indiscriminately seemed like a bit much. I had personally ensured myself safe from the dark side of the curse by casting off my magic years ago and giving it away to another. I still missed my powers of persuasion sometimes, but whatever. It had been worth it.

I might’ve been immune in the tenth reaping when I’d been young, but I think that had changed as I’d grown and started to mature. I could feel myself craving more, wanting to hunt down my own family and take from them. If I hadn’t shed my magic when I had, I probably would’ve been the very Graykey who had started the eleventh reaping. But I had shed my powers just in time, so it’d been my father’s cousin Percy who’d started the eleventh.

I hadn’t stopped my safety measures there, either. After giving away my magic, I’d gone a step further. I’d found a mage who could seal my womb closed, preventing me from having children and passing my curse on to another generation. There was no way I could fall victim to the bloodlust now or even be a carrier of it.

But did anyone care about that?

No.

They still sought me too. I’d evaded half a dozen High Cliff henchmen in the past six years. And all of them would’ve captured me or slaughtered me on sight, not even pausing to ask if I’d taken care of the risks from the curse by myself or even if I was willing to do so to avoid getting sucked into the bloodlust.

And so, I lived in hiding, always on the move, never staying in one place too long, and making sure I got close to no one. I had Melaina who assisted me, by keeping my face changed so no one ever really knew what I looked like, and that was it. But that was fine. We had to travel a lot in search of the amulets; there wouldn’t have been time for other friendships, anyway.

The creeping, crawling sensation finally abated, and I opened my eyes—not sure when I’d squeezed them closed, to begin with—and I glanced down to see what Melaina had turned me into with her magical abilities this time.

I saw my hands first—aged and wrinkled with liver spots. Scraggly blue veins crept up my arms over medium-toned skin, and grayed hairs covered my forearms.

When I checked my waistline, the pudgy, soft middle looked so believable I could almost feel the added weight bearing down on my hips. With trousers and a stained tunic covering the form, plus no breasts, I could tell she’d turned me into a man again. She did that a lot. It amused her to make me male, I think. She must think I abhorred the idea of being a different gender, so I never let on that I secretly felt safer that way.

Fewer people paid attention to and bothered you when you weren’t a soft-skinned female with pale, flowing locks and big, soulful brown eyes. Being a comely maiden had never benefited me before, so it was a relief to escape that shell for a while and look like, well, basically like anything else.

Except I already knew Melaina had made me as unattractive as possible—her form of punishment, I guess. Spotting a puddle nearby, I caught a glimpse of my face and found that I now had a jutting masculine brow, thick bushy eyebrows, the biggest, most crooked nose I’d ever seen, and plenty of raised moles with sagging jowls.

Yep. I was hideous.

But hopefully not so repulsive that no one would buy bread at the market from me. We really did need to turn a bigger profit today. Constant traveling wasn’t cheap. And a night or two in an actual inn would be heavenly.

“Make sure to hobble like you have a bum leg or something,” Melaina instructed, looking as if she enjoyed my glamour far too much. “Or else no one will believe the disguise.”

“Limp?” I sent her a sharp frown. Limiting my ability to move freely was dangerous. If some threat showed up, I’d need to be able to run. And escape.

But my aunt obviously hadn’t considered that possibility, or maybe she just didn’t care. That sounded more likely.

“What?” She smirked cruelly. “Being elderly will help you garner sympathy and sales.”

“Sympathy is extinct.” No one cared about anyone else’s plight anymore. Not from what I’d seen anyway. Why did she think I had become so anti-social? So anti-people? Because they were all rotten, straight to the core; that’s why.

“Then scare them into buying from you. Tell them all the other bread vendors have bugs in their loaves. I don’t give a f**k. Just make us some damn money.”

I nodded and started to turn away, only to pause when I caught sight of the bell hanging from the outer wall of the building. “Don’t forget,” I reminded her. “It will ring three times if the jeweler’s open for business. Two means stay away because they’re probably being raided.”

Those were the types of details Melaina tended to forget.

“Got it; three times a charm.”

“Right. Good.” I reached for the handholds on the pushcart and began to wheel it toward the opening of the alley and in the direction of the Pinsky marketplace. “I’ll see you at our meeting place at two.”

She didn’t answer for a moment, but when I reached the exit to the alley, she called, “Oh, and, Quilla?”

When I glanced back, she flashed me a sudden grin and playfully waved me along. “Do your auntie proud.”

My lips twitched. No matter how much of a b***h she could be, there was a certain charm about her that not even I was immune to. I wouldn’t just be alone if she took the amulet and left me; I’d actually miss her.

I’d die before letting her know that, though.

And so I shuffled along without a rejoinder.

The market square wasn’t located clear on the other side of the village, but it was still a good distance away. I grumbled under my breath, cursing Melaina the whole way for putting me in a disguise that forced me to shamble and go slow.

The trolley I was pushing must’ve had something wrong with the axle because it wobbled and kept trying to go in the opposite direction than I was pushing it. The force of the breeze wasn’t helping anything either. Bowing my head against the wind, because one good, strong gust could wash away my glamour and reveal my true image, I plodded along, hoping the damn bazaar didn’t finish before I even made it to the village square.

All the good spots were taken by the time I arrived, so I was forced to squeeze the pushcart between a vendor selling onions—half of them overripe, by the scent of things—and a fishmonger who also didn’t have the freshest supply. Both were going to snuff out that inviting aroma of warm baked bread.

Grinding my teeth, I set up shop anyway, parking the trolley and glowering quite frequently at my neighbor merchant to the right who kept spraying fish guts whenever he chopped off the head of his catch of the day and then wrapped the body in parchment for customers. Turning to the side and using my body as a shield from the pungent shower, I unpacked my loaves and began to set them out for display.

I had two customers stop and buy a loaf before I was even finished setting up. That was good; the place was packed today, too. I might just sell my entire inventory before noon, despite my unlucky location and late arrival.

Since sound couldn’t be glamoured, it was difficult to deepen my voice whenever I was forced to speak to customers. So I kept my phrases short and clipped, and I didn’t mess around with small talk—not that I was a fan of small talk, anyway, but whatever.

About half my stock was sold when a particularly destitute-looking cluster of children edged in the direction to my stall. I scowled at them, hoping they didn’t come any closer because I already knew I’d end up handing over something to them if they did. Melaina must’ve really made me appear cantankerous, though, it only took me one glance in their direction for them to scatter.

Crap. Now I felt shitty. It was on the tip of my tongue to call them back and shower them with free goods when a commotion in the crowd caught my attention.

Something big was happening. And the small warning hairs rising on the back of my neck told me I wasn’t going to like it. The crowds shifted, attention narrowed in one direction, voices changed.

And just like that, everything inside me went on immediate alert.

I braced myself, preparing for anything.