Page 71 of Mark of Love (Love Mark 3)

“Yes. Now, let’s get back to the topic of these amulets. Just how successful did you say you were at finding things?”

“I said no,” I broke in with a serious frown, pissed that he’d managed to sweet-talk his way to my aunt’s side. “He’s not coming to Earth with us, ergo he’s not going to hunt for amulets with us either.”

Neither of them paid me any attention.

“So there’s this legend…” Melaina started, hooking her arm through Indigo’s and leading him away to sit on some tree stumps near the burnt-out campfire. “It’s been passed down through the Graykey family line that stems back to the original nineteen.”

“You mean the first nineteen settlers who came to the Outer Realms?” Indigo slipped in curiously.

She nodded. “From the old world, yes.”

He nodded too. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“Corandra Graykey was the first to arrive and, if the story can be believed, she was the only one with any magical abilities.”

With a snort, Indigo shook his head. “Of course that’s how the story would go in a Graykey family legend. Leave it to them to give their ancestor the only one with powers.”

“Possibly.” Melaina shrugged. “But anyway, back in the old world, Corandra was murdered, hanged from a large oak tree, I believe.”

“Oak?” Indigo furrowed his brow. “But there’s no such thing as an oak tree.”

Melaina laughed. “Not in the Outer Realms, that’s for sure. Because seriously, why would she allow the very tool that killed her to inhabit the new world she created after that?”

“She actually died then?” he asked skeptically. “So how was she able to create a new world in the first place if she was dead? Are you saying the Outer Realms is just a product of her imagination? We’re just puppets playing in someone else’s afterlife?”

“No,” Melaina answered, but not very assuredly. Her brow furrowed in thought. “At least, I don’t think so. Wow. You know, I never considered that idea before. Huh, I suppose it’s possible, but I don’t believe so. She brought everyone else who died from that tree here as well to live out the rest of their days in the Outer Realms.”

Indigo lifted his eyebrows. “Sure sounds like an afterlife kind of deal to me.”

“Okay, yes,” Melaina snapped. “I agree. But...” She shook her finger menacingly in his direction. “The people here can change and grow and breed children. Fight in wars, travel, and invent. Hurt, heal, destroy, and build. Do you honestly think that could happen in someone’s afterlife?”

“Well, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I’ve never been anywhere else but here. For all I know, my reality could be someone else’s fabricated make-believe world. Someone’s afterlife.”

“Well, I have been to another realm,” Melaina shot back with an elated smirk. “The old world. Now, how do you suppose I’m able to travel between the two of them if one is an afterlife?”

Indigo pointed at her. “Good question. I concede to your point. Now…” He rolled his bound hands. “Proceed with the rest of your story, please.”

Melaina blinked at him, widening her eyes as if trying to keep herself from strangling him, then she cast me an accusative scowl. “Your mate is annoying as hell.”

No, really? “I’ve noticed,” I said.

Indigo merely smiled at me, as if charmed, probably because I hadn’t outright denied we were mates. But in my eyes, that was a given, so I was conceding nothing, and he was celebrating a false victory.

Rolling my eyes over his lame cheer, I decided to start a stew for supper, because I already knew this discussion would take forever. But as soon as I knelt by the fire pit from the night before to get it going again, Indigo leaped to his feet. “Oh, here. I’ll do that.”

He produced a fire striker and was coaxing a flame from the logs before I could even start. I blinked at him, then turned toward Melaina, sharing an exasperated glance with her.

But seriously, did the bastard have to butt in everywhere he didn’t belong? Now what was I supposed to do with my hands?

She shook her head. “I don’t even remember where the hell I was in this stupid story.”

“Some woman named Corandra Graykey was murdered from a tree that doesn’t exist,” Indigo provided helpfully, adding another log to the fire. “And instead of permanently dying—or possibly she did permanently die, if this is indeed her afterlife—she created the Outer Realms as an ideal refugee location for others who died from the same fake tree she did, which happened to be eighteen others. Right?”

“Right, thank you.” Melaina nodded and set her hands in her lap. “So Corandra shared her powers equally among the others.”

Indigo snorted. “Yeah, this is definitely sounding more and more like a Graykey-orchestrated story. The gracious, benevolent Graykey provided for her flock. I mean, give me a break.”

“Yes, well, it’s the only origin story I’ve ever heard about our happy little land here, so it’s this or nothing so far,” Melaina snapped. “Now, shut up and listen.”

---