Page 50 of Marked
I waved at the path behind us where Nala followed in her gentle loping pace. Her tongue lolled out the side of her mouth. “I try to avoid venturing into the sacred forest without my familiar, and she needed to heal. I was also busy vetting you, if you don’t recall.”
Ace scrunched his face as though he smelled something foul. “You’re not the only hunter in camp. Why didn’t your brother go? Or your boyfriend?”
“My boyfriend?”
“Onion.”
“Rye isn’t my boyfriend,” I said.
“Well, he’s a terrible partner or whatever the phaan he is.”
“And why do you say that?”
“Because he hasn’t gone to check out the hunters. He hasn’t tried to track them down. If you were mine, I’d destroy the whole phaaning forest and slaughter anyone involved.”
“If I was yours?” That thought both horrified and excited me. I squeezed my eyes shut briefly. How dare I like the sound of that. How dare my heart forget so easily the hurt this man had caused.
He mocked my romance books, for phaaning sake.
Ace took a long-suffering breath as if his comment was somehow my fault. “Don’t flatter yourself or start getting ideas, Mouse. It’s a figure of speech. I meant if my significant other was attacked like you were, I’d do everything in my power to ensure it never happened again.”
“Trust me, I don’t find any of that flattering.”
He glared at me for another full inhale and exhale before turning away. “You’re an infuriating woman and intentionally missing the point. Where is the sense of immediacy? Of retaliation?” He waved his hand at the path in front of us.
“Right here,” I growled and thumped my chest with the flat of my palm. “The anger and rage are right here. I don’t need my brother or some fling rampaging into the forbidden forest for me when I’m more than capable of doing it myself. I don’t know where you’ve been all these years, but I’ve been here, working hard earning my place. I’m not helpless. I am not a simpering maiden in need of rescuing or a mouse that cowers from danger, and the sooner you realize that and manage your expectations accordingly, the better.”
Ace’s eyebrows rose with each word, but he remained blissfully quiet.
“Besides, only guardians can enter the sacred forest. None of the non-galeons are allowed to enter and galeon descendants are forbidden from hunting in these woods as well. They’re only supposed to enter it if they’re pulled by the call of a familiar or they have a familiar that wants to play in the fields.”
“Play?”
I shrugged. I had no intention of explaining the inner mechanisms of familiars when I sometimes questioned my own understanding.
We walked in silence after that while I fumed, and Ace quietly contemplated whatever thoughts ran through that smooth brain of his.
“A fling, huh?” He finally broke the silence.
“Out of everything I said, that was what you decided to fixate on?” I readjusted the strap for my quiver. “You’re an ass.”
He smiled then, his face almost splitting in two. “The sooner you realize that and manage your expectations accordingly, the better.”
20
We crested the bank of the river that led to the field where the hunters had attacked. Nala must’ve sensed how my nerves frayed with each step because she walked beside me, pressing her furry body into my legs. Whether she did this to reassure herself or me, I’d never know, and it didn’t matter, because at the end of the day, we both needed the connection.
When we arrived at the field, I froze on the spot while my mind tried to process the scene in front of me. It didn’t make sense. The area was empty. No bodies.
I spun around and scanned the forest.
Nothing.
I searched and found location markers around the area—the tall pine with the snapped branch, the fallen log with moss, the alignment of the mountain range through the twin cedars.
They were exactly where I expected. I hadn’t mistaken the area or somehow lost my way. This was the field. This was the place I killed a bunch of men and one of them shot Nala.
My skin prickled, and I slowly approached where Nala had fallen.