Page 20 of To Bleed A Kingdom

Unsure if their behavior is comical or embarrassing, I shove the thought aside and instead return my gaze to Lena, searching for the colored jewels that signify her most dominant immortal Gift. But as I look at the spot near the outer corner of her eye where the jewels we’re born with are placed, I'm shocked to find nothing.

She's human.

I'm completely dumbfounded to find not one jewel. How can that be? How can she not have any? Humans aren’t this attractive. Not even an immortal. It’s simply not possible that she’s human.

I narrow my eyes, searching for a jewel hidden somewhere, but all I find are small, dot-shaped scars, only a shade darker than her skin tone, the markings staggering across both eyelids, all the way to her hairline and partially beneath her brows. Scanning her from head to toe, I notice they begin again at her shoulders, loop around her arms, and eventually disappear beneath her leather vambraces. I don’t see more markings past that, but I imagine more are hidden beneath her clothing.

“Your jewels, or lack thereof, are nothing I've ever encountered before,” Kace notes shrewdly, gesturing towards their group with a wave of his hand.

As if choreographed beforehand, their entire party's features clear of all emotion and they slowly straighten in their seats, hardly blinking as they stare at Kace.

“Is that the mark of a lesser god?” Kace asks Amara, reaching out to touch her starlight jewel.

She scowls at the offending appendage and smacks it away. “Lesser gods?”

“That’s right,” Kace replies, shaking his finger with a wince. “Immortals and fae are usually only Gifted by the primary gods, but occasionally they can receive an additional Gift from one of the lesser deities. The Sight, Wards, Healing, and so on, but those are rare.”

“Quite educational,” Tristan says dryly, nursing his pint.

The fool preens at the “compliment” before returning his attention to Lena. “Well?”

She shrugs. “We’re people.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Kace pinches his nose. “We’re all people. I mean-”

“Leave it be, Kace,” Griffin cuts him off, shaking his head.

“But…” Kace begins to argue, but then his words trail off as he finally takes notice of the foreigners’ glares and the warning hidden beneath.

Kace pastes a smile on his face and slaps a palm on the table hard enough to rattle our tankards. “Mysterious. I like it! I bet that works wonders with the females.” Mumbling, he adds, “I should try to be more mysterious.”

“You'd have to stop wagging your tongue to become mysterious,” Griffin states dryly.

Kace peers upward, tapping his chin. “That would be a lost cause then, wouldn’t it?”Sighing, he slumps in his chair. His dour mood saps away all the jovial energy, leaving us with no escape from the tense air still radiating from them.

I don't believe this exchange could possibly get any more awkward.

Readjusting in my seat, I clear my throat. “How long will you be visiting?”

Lena watches Kace for another long moment before returning her gaze to mine. “We don't have a set timeframe, but not too long,” she answers vaguely, her amethyst orbs leisurely trailing me from head to toe. “What do you do?”

“I'm Captain of the Guards,” I reply, grateful for the change of topic. “Griffin is my second, and Kace is my third.”

She stiffens, her face hardening with a cold glare of which my mother would be envious. “Is that so?”

Brow furrowed, I look to the other members of her party, all leering in my direction. The menacing silence thickens with each moment that passes as I gauge their reaction.

I stand corrected. It can become more awkward. Excruciatingly so.

Amara folds her arms over the table and ducks toward me, a demented smile stretching her cheeks.“Tell me, Captain, are your recruits trained to molest weaponless females? Or is that just common practice?”

I stiffen. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“It seems your guards enjoy taking liberties without permission,” Tristan says with an air of nonchalance, but his eyes flash with a promise of violence.

It takes a moment to process what he said, then another to wrap my head around the thought that my guards, the guards I trained, the guards I recruited, would do something so vile. So repulsive. When I finally do, rage whips through me. Blazing a path down my arms, my legs, billowing within my chest, it surges into a wildfire and douses me in its flames.

Baring my teeth, I slap shimmering orange palms down onto the table and stand, hovering above Lena. “Did they touch you?” I ask her, wrath hoarsening my voice.

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