Page 68 of Mark of Love (Love Mark 3)

“Canyon toll? Wait, you’re planning on taking the canyon pass to Tyler?” Indigo demanded, butting in and refusing to mind his own business.

I focused on my aunt. “We should stay here, get an early nig

ht’s rest, and put in a full day’s ride tomorrow, and then take the pass the day after that.”

“Um, hello?” Indigo had gotten to his feet and was stepping between me and my aunt, lifting his bound hands and waving at us to signify he had something to say. “No,” he told me simply when I spared him an irritated scowl. “We’re not taking the canyon pass. It’s too dangerous. There are High Cliff knights guarding each end. They check every person that enters, and a glamour won’t hide your mark. Every arm gets watered down so they can see right past them.”

“Calm yourself, sweetling,” Melaina told him with a charmed smile as she gathered the coins back into her pouch and cinched the bag closed. Rising to her feet, she slid her nails along his jawline as she explained, “We came up through that very same pass to get here and made it through just fine. We will this time too.”

He blinked at her in confusion, even as he tilted his face away from her touch. “You did? How?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she cooed.

“Don’t worry about it?” he shot back, his brow furrowing into a deep frown. “You’re talking about taking my mate through perilous territory, risking her life, and you expect me to blindly trust whatever scheme miraculously worked for you once to actually work again? I don’t fucking think so. It’s too risky. She’s not doing it.”

“Excuse me?” I cut in, stepping toward him and ready to relieve him of some vital piece of his anatomy for not trusting my own competency to evade execution. “You don’t make decisions for me.”

But the bastard completely ignored me. “What’s so important in Tyler that you have to go there, anyway?” he asked Melaina.

“Our ticket out of here,” she shot back, clearly growing vexed with his obstinance. “Forever.”

With a bewildered squint, he demanded, “Out of where?”

“Out of here!” she exploded, waving madly at the air surrounding her. “Out of this lame-ass, out-of-date world that no longer contains the love of my life and my two children who aren’t evil.”

A trickle of blood formed in the corner of her eye, but she wiped it away before snarling at him and focusing on her rage again so she wouldn’t get too compassionately sentimental. “Now stop asking questions before I stab you again, and I won’t let Quilla resuscitate you this time.”

Lips parting, Indigo spun toward me. “You’re going back to Earth,” he realized. “So that must mean you know how to complete the ritual and trade places with someone there, so you can stay permanently.” His mouth formed a shocked O before he frowned in thought. “Wait. You had to have always known what it takes to stay there if three of the traveling party that went with you in three-ten are still there. But why would two of you come back?”

Eyes darting back and forth, he considered that conundrum for a second before he suddenly snapped his fingers. “Because you needed something physical to complete the replacement process, something you obviously didn’t have enough of the first time through.” He looked up at me. “And that thing’s in Tyler. Isn’t it?”

Melaina stepped cautiously closer to him, eyeing him suspiciously the entire way, before she spun abruptly and slapped me hard across the face.

“Hey!” Indigo shot forward, inserting his body between us with his back to me so he could face off with Melaina and push her a step back with his bound hands. “What the hell? You don’t touch her like that.”

“What the fuck did you tell him?” she roared at me over his shoulder, trying to bully her way past him so she could reach me again.

“I didn’t tell him anything!” I cried, backing away because she got a little too close to my face when she swiped out past his arm with her fingernails extended. “Psycho woman.”

“Then how did he know all that?” Fuming, she breathed hard and snarled at me with a murderous glare.

“I was trying to tell you,” I clipped back, beyond tired of her snap judgment and instant accusation that I’d been the one to mess up. “It’s all in his book.”

“His book?” She wrinkled her nose as if the word was foreign to her.

“Yes,” Indigo answered for me. “I wrote all about what I know and how I learned about it in my journal. Now stop accusing Quilla of betrayal.”

Stepping away from Melaina, because she no longer seemed homicidal, he bent down and plucked his journal from the ground. After tugging his necklace pendant from the hidden knot/lock and putting it back around his neck, he frowned and blew dirt and rocks from the pages before trying to iron them back to rights with his hand as best he could with them bound together.

“Dammit. This page is wrinkled now. And—” He choked on his own horror. “This one is torn. Son of a bitch! My baby’s been frayed.”

I turned from him, letting him mourn the one-inch tear on a single page in his book, and I narrowed my eyes at Melaina. “His great-grandmother was an earthling, which led to his fascination with Earth and tracking down everything to do with it. He figured out quite a bit about what it takes to get there from his research, but he doesn’t know exactly what we need, nor did he realize only Graykeys and their mates can go travel through the portal. He calls the earthlings who come here, trading places with us Replacements.”

“Replacements?” Sniffing, Melaina rolled her eyes. “What a stupid term to use.”

Indigo wasn’t paying any attention to her, though. He was too busy thinking again, because he suddenly said, “I’m still confused about how only Graykeys can travel to the other dimension. There was an elderly nanny in Donnelly who went to Earth for a few moon cycles. I’m sure of it.”

“Then she was a Graykey,” Melaina said simply, shrugging him off.

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