Page 93 of Untamed

“There’s more to this story.” Zichri wrapped his strong arms around my shoulders, pulling my head into his chest. “Jaime, what happened?”

Jaime massaged his calf as if to revive it. “Sorry, my legs are boulders and my tongue,” he breathed deeply, “is a desert.”

“Take your time, friend.” Zichri’s heartbeat biri-bummed against my ear. The sound comforting, like the surf at night reflecting the moon that never failed to rise in its time. He radiated heat and goodness.

My markings faintly glowed from absorbing his steady feelings. How could he be calm at a time like this? Laude’s blue eyes burned in my mind’s eye with the same shade as Lux’s. We leaned against a dungeon wall because another friend had betrayed me. Resentment burned up and down my markings with fiery light.

“He used me against her,” Jaime rasped. “They waited for us.”

I slipped my arms around Zichri, who steadied the swirling emotions with his calm presence.

“Laude.” Jaime slunk down on his bottom, his legs seeming to have given out. “But she has a plan.”

“What? To keep us all out of view so she can make deals with her new best friend?” The sardonic tone in my voice bled through with a thickness that left no one in the dark to my sentiments.

“No, Queen Cottia trained her.” Jaime closed his good eye as if to rest it. His words plunged through my mind with a turbulent force.

“Mamá trained her to do what?” The answer, though not given, roamed around my mind with my limited knowledge of Mamá’s dark past. The remnant of its existence remained on her shoulder as a raised scar I only saw in the recesses of her room when she wore a thin chemise to bed. She had a gift for healing but was also particularly adept at a plethora of ways to murder a person with her gifting and without.

Zichri squeezed me tighter as if anticipating the answer. I glanced up at him, catching a muscle twitch in his bronzed cheek. He caught me staring at him, and all his tension drained from his face. “I think you know the answer.”

A long beat passed in the dim light of the prison cell. What could I do to get us out of here? I couldn’t transport us like Minerva or rip the jail doors out by the hinges like Cosme. Myemotions rode the waves of a choppy sea which made my gifting even more difficult to control.

“Beatriz,” Zichri craned his neck and leaned close to my ear. His breath still held the sweet aroma of those strange flowers outside the castle. “My arms burn.”

I flinched with the worries hefted on my shoulders. A drizzle of energy flowed to my fingertip, sparking a glow along the skin of my hands. The tiny bit of light allowed me to see the bronze skin on Zichri’s knuckles covered with trails of light tan lines that hadn’t been there before.

My breath stalled in my mouth. Fumbling to recall all the reading I’d done with Laude about relics, I remembered a passage about the last relic healing but taking power from those who had it. But to those who were powerless, the relic gave tenfold or something like that. The exact wording remained foggy, but the evidence marked Zichri’s skin. Is that why Minerva didn’t allow me to eat the flower but gave it to Zichri? What did it mean for Minerva who ate the flower, and seemed doubly blessed with gifting?

“Can you feel a pulse of energy on your skin?” I brushed my fingertips on his rough palm and allowed my gifting to flow through him.

His skin lit up beneath his soiled, white tunic all the way to his neck. The shirt could be a beacon on a lighthouse with the way it shone. I glanced over my shoulder, scanning the stone passage for our jailers, but no one came.

When I peered up at Zichri, he nodded.

Then, I let go of him, and he vanished. Only stone and shadow remained where Zichri should have been. I gasped in shock.

“What’s wrong?” Zichri’s disembodied voice asked.

“I can’t see you.”

Jaime’s wide-eyed expression told me he also couldn’t see Zichri. “How did you disappear?” He gave me a poignant look with his one good eye.

“I’m invisible?” Zichri’s inflection was marked with confusion.

Jaime and I nodded.

Reaching for Zichri, I met his body. I slipped my hand along his muscular arm to his neck. I traced his jaw and felt his Adam’s apple bob. His prickly jaw met my touch, and his excitement vibrated through the cords connecting my heart to his. I rocked onto my toes and leaned to his ear. “Can you teleport, or do you have the gift of invisibility?”

“It’s not like when Minerva takes us places.” He reappeared. “I don’t know.”

Chapter 41

Laude

“Laude, you should shedthe likes of that lap-lap dog who follows you arrrround.” Prince Hugo’s speech slurred. He refilled his pewter mug. “This is the best wine I’ve ever t-tasted.”

“Maybe you should stop.” I grabbed the bottle from his hand and placed it on a side table.

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