“Let me go,” I said, trying to yank my arm from his grip.
Tuesday pulled on my other arm, as if she had a shot of winning this tug of war.
“Koz, get Tuesday,” Callon said, pulling me in toward him as Tuesday got towed behind me, like a stick floating on the water.
Koz walked around and, with an arm about her waist, detached Tuesday from my arm.
“I can’t leave her!” she wailed.
Koz leaned closer and said something that calmed her down immediately. Then they were moving away from us. She was nodding toward me as if to say it was all okay.
I was still trying to pry Callon’s hand off me as he said, “Zink, Hess, keep the pirates company.”
Zink nodded. “Yeah, can’t say I’m sad about that. Need to get a little energy out.”
“There’s five in the woods,” Callon added.
“We got it,” Hess said.
What did “keep them company” mean? It didn’t sound nice. Something wasn’t quite right here. I was fairly certain I had Zink’s number. If this was something that the pirates liked, he wouldn’t be happy about it. He didn’t like making anyone happy.
Callon looped an arm around my waist and then steered me forward at a pace I wouldn’t have been able to keep up if I’d had my old limp. We hadn’t walked far when shouts erupted behind us. I couldn’t twist my body around enough to see what was happening with Callon’s hard body behind me, steering.
We didn’t stop until we were at a large boulder that was a good twenty feet away from where the pirates had been. When we stopped, instead of letting me go, his hands moved to both my shoulders, steered my back against the stone, and held me there.
“You want to share what’s actually going on yet?”
The yelling in the distance escalated, and then there was gunfire. I hadn’t known the pirates had guns.
Two palms on his chest, I pushed against him. He didn’t budge. I turned my head but couldn’t clear the stone. “What’s happening?”
He didn’t loosen his grip. “Why does Turrock want you back so bad to have the pirates looking for you?” he asked, as if he had all the time in the world and a battle wasn’t being waged.
What the hell was wrong with him?
And wait, how did he know Turrock was coming for me and not Baryn?
“Answer. Me.”
“Don’t you care if your friends are in a fight? I care.” If they lost, and me and Tuesday got caught because Callon had me pinned to a rock, so help me, I’d kill him myself. I’d have to wait until he was sleeping or find some poison, but I’d get it done.
What if they got Tuesday while I was stuck here? She wasn’t as tough as me. She wouldn’t be able to handle it. I shoved at him again, and every time I did, he just pressed closer, until his body was an inch from mine. If I breathed too deeply, I would’ve brushed against him.
Callon moved one hand off my shoulder. “Why do they want you?”
There was a mewling sound in the distance and then there was nothing but the birds chirping, and a couple of crows cawing. The fight was over. Callon didn’t bother glancing over to find out who’d won.
He leveled his eyes on mine, as his free hand cupped my jaw and his thumb tilted my chin up. He leaned in close, taking a deep breath as the bristles of his jaw grazed my skin.
I stopped breathing completely. Or maybe he was stealing the air from my chest.
He leaned his head back until his eyes met mine again, searching my face, analyzing it. There was something there, brewing deep in those eyes. It was like his soul was whispering to me, charging me from inside. It called to the core of me, and I didn’t know if I wanted to drag his mouth to mine or throw up the thickest wall I could.
“Tell me what you’re hiding. You’re safe. You can tell me anything.” His voice was deep but soft, tingling over my skin, luring me in to some place where nothing could harm me and I didn’t need to run. Where if I told him all my darkest secrets, it wouldn’t matter. No, it would be better.
“What makes you so valuable that they’re going to such lengths to get you back?” he asked in that same tone. It hummed through me and felt like it was caressing every wound I’d ever had. Soothing all my hurts.
I could feel my lids dropping and heavy, my lips wanting to form the words, tell him every secret I had, all the things I’d feared to utter in the dark. With him, it was safe and warm.
And that was what jarred me out of it.
I didn’t believe in safe and warm. It didn’t exist in my world. It was a fairy tale for the naïve.
I blinked, shaking my head, and pushing off whatever strange trance he’d put me in. This was what I’d sensed in him. I wasn’t the only one here with magic, and right now I was nearly choking on his.
“What was that?” I asked. “What did you just do?”
His eyes near burned into mine, and he smiled just a hair as he said, “I’ll make you a deal. Tell me how you resisted it, and I’ll tell you what it was. Because if you don’t tell me why they want you back, I’ll go ask Turrock myself.”
He backed up, but I stayed still against the stone. Why hadn’t he said Baryn, again? He knew my village enough to know who was in charge. He knew Baryn was dead, but how? It had just happened, and his people had left the village before it had. I’d been with them this entire time and there was no one that would’ve known. “You mean Baryn, don’t you?”
“Baryn, Turrock, does it matter? I’m sure either one of them will willingly give me the answers if you refuse.”
“It matters and you know it does. How do you know Baryn is dead?” And hell if he didn’t. I’d thought I was the one holding out, but as I stood in front of him, I was positive this was no ordinary man. How had I not seen it? Felt it like I did now? He positively sizzled with some sort of deep and earthy energy.
“Maybe I’ll bring Tuesday with me when I go?” His eyes narrowed.
Would he really do that? If Turrock knew she’d been with me, he’d torture her. My hands trembled and I crossed them over my chest to hide it, to stop myself from trying to claw his eyes out.
“And if I tell you?”
He tilted his head slightly. “There won’t be any reason to go back there.”
In that moment, I hated him. I would’ve killed him right then if I could’ve. But I couldn’t, and it made me want to rage and scream. It made me want to use the only weapon I had and terrify him.
He wanted to know so bad? I’d give him more than he bargained for.
“My mother was a plaguer, someone who survived the unsurvivable. She caught the Bloody Death and lived. Well, it doesn’t just change them, it changes their children too. Sometimes the magic passes down in unusual ways—”
He leaned forward. “I don’t need a history lesson. I want to know about you.”
If finding out that my mother had been a plaguer, something that would send most people screaming, scared him, he didn’t show it. Nope, he stood there in front of me with a look of boredom and annoyance.
Well. Fuck. Him. “I’m a Daughter of the Reaper, Reaper Kissed, or whatever else you might want to call it. There’s all sorts of names for me, but the bottom line is I know when people are going to die.”
The fucker nodded. That was it? A nod? Oh no, that wasn’t satisfying at all.
“Give me your hand and I’ll tell you how you’re going to die.”
He smiled. “You mean you don’t already know?”
I sneered and grabbed his hand. He didn’t fight me, letting me do my thing. I didn’t particularly like forcing the visions, but fuck him. He was getting rattled today if it was the last thing I was doing. When I did it like this, even if I couldn’t see his death, if I focused hard enough, I’d see if he’d come close in his past. When you stepped near enough to the abyss, it always left a mark somewhere inside. All I wanted right now was to wipe that smirk off his face.
I got a vision, but he wasn’t in it, or at least the him I’d expected. A beast, a differen
t one than the creature who’d saved me, limped across a snowy field, leaving a trail of blood in his wake until it lost so much it collapsed. That was all I saw.
I dropped his hand, suppressing the chill that ran up my spine.
I looked at him, speechless.
He smiled. “That’s all right. No need to share.”
When I’d tied myself to him, I’d made a deal with the devil. I was fairly certain I’d gotten shortchanged.
12
Callon took a few steps away from the boulder and paused. He looked back at me, where I was leaning on it, and raised an eyebrow.
I pushed off the stone.
“I’m coming. You’re not that scary.” Actually, he was, or should be, but I was too mad that the tables had turned to admit it. He was supposed to be afraid of me after what he’d found out. Hello? Reaper Kissed? Death visions? Most people thought I was haunted. Him? No big deal.
Callon threw back his head, laughing and looking like the demon that lay beneath his skin as he walked.
I’d barely gotten past my annoyance when I was waylaid by the strewn bloody body parts. Not even full bodies. How many pirates had there been? There were arms and legs everywhere, so it was hard to tell unless I walked the area and tried to piece them together.
Hess and Zink were standing there, remarkably clean, considering they’d just slaughtered countless men. Were they all beasts? They had to be. I’d heard the rumors of beast men, but I’d dismissed it as fiction. There was no other way two of them could’ve slaughtered this many and that quickly unless they were the same as Callon.
The witch had said Callon could protect me. She’d clearly known what he was. A word of warning would’ve been nice before she talked me into tying myself to him.
Tuesday was walking toward us with Koz, and I could tell from her wide eyes that she hadn’t seen the killing go down either.
She stopped beside us, speechless and looking all around at the blood and gore. She glanced up at Hess and Zink, with wrinkles on her forehead, as if she couldn’t quite do the math. She went back to looking at bodies, silently counting.
Callon tilted his head toward me. “She’s Reaper Kissed,” he said, without any warmup or background like I’d supplied.
“Fuck me,” Hess said, shaking his head.
“Of course she is,” Zink said, with a huff.
Zink and Hess looked at me with varying shades of wariness. This was a little bit more of the reaction I’d expected from Callon. Maybe if I’d spat it out the way he had, I would’ve rattled him. No more history next time. It had watered down the punch line.
Koz nodded.
That was it? Only a nod?
Tuesday was oblivious to everything going down and had started using her fingers to keep track of the body count.
“Koz, go up ahead with Teddy and Tuesday,” Callon said.
I didn’t know if he wanted us gone so he could snack on the body parts or hide them. Either way, I was quite happy to get moving. Certain things I didn’t need to know.
Koz walked toward the bridge. Tuesday wasn’t paying attention to anything but counting, so I grabbed her arm and pulled her along.
After we crossed the bridge, Koz and I picked up our pace, leaving the dazed Tuesday behind but in sight. She was still shaking her head and mumbling numbers. It sounded like she’d made it to the division portion.
“You know, don’t you? I could see the way you looked at the bodies and then us. Are you scared?” he asked in a soft voice that wouldn’t carry to Tuesday.
“No.” I didn’t think I could be scared of Koz, not after what I’d realized today. It was him—the color of his hair was the same as the beast’s fur the night I’d been dragged from my village. That night, he’d said he couldn’t bring me “back.” I’d ignored it then. I shouldn’t have.
“You’re not afraid I will freak out and…” He made an exaggerated wrenching movement, as if twisting a neck or limb.
“No. I don’t think you’re going to…” I made a dramatic wrenching movement of my own. “Considering I’ve slept next to you in camp and the only thing I woke to was handmade crutches, it’s a little hard to be fearful now.”
We walked a few more feet and I waited for him to come clean. He didn’t, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to, so I said it.
“Plus, you saved me. I don’t think you would’ve dragged me out of there so you could turn around and eat me. I owe you, big.”
Koz looked down at his feet and shrugged.
“I couldn’t leave you there, not like that.” He finally glanced at me with hooded lids, his face tinged a warmer color.
“Why couldn’t you?” I asked. He’d said that as if it were human nature. I’d been left like that countless times. Asked for help more than I’d ever admit before I’d stopped relying on others to save me.
“Could you have walked away?”
Could I? It was an alien idea. “I’ve never been in a position to help anyone. I guess I don’t know.”
“I’ve been in both spots. It’s awful tough to walk once you have.”
He’d been chained and abused, too. It was crazy to think anyone would’ve been strong enough to abuse a beast, but I’d heard stories here and there of beasts being captured and tortured to death. I didn’t ask for details, and he didn’t offer any.
But there was still something weird I couldn’t let go of about that conversation Koz had with Zink the first time I’d seen them.
“That night in the village, why did Zink say it was different?” I asked.
Koz laughed. “Because you’re human.”
“He isn’t?”
“Don’t tell him that.”
I nodded. With Zink, I could believe that.
Koz tilted his head toward where Tuesday was lagging behind, and we both stopped, waiting for her to catch up. She took a while as she walked in sort of a stunned trance.
She finally reached us and said, “I’m missing something big here, aren’t I? How did Zink and Hess kill all those men by themselves? There were way too many. And I heard gunshots. You guys don’t have guns.”
I cleared my throat, hoping Koz would explain it.
Instead of answering, he turned to me. “Is she going to scream? I hate when people scream. It hurts my ears. They’re very sensitive.”
I couldn’t help but look at that statement in a whole new light, considering what I now knew.
“Maybe?” I had wanted to scream.
Tuesday was staring at Koz. “Somebody better tell me what’s going on.”
Koz kept his eyes on me. “I’m going to lag a few paces behind, just in case.” Koz tapped his ears and smiled, all teeth and no happy. He took a few steps away. No matter how hard Tuesday stared at him, he wouldn’t look at her.
“It’s going to be fine,” I said, giving him a thumbs-up, like he would do for me.
The second Tuesday turned back to me, Koz’s eyes shot to her. That was when I knew if she freaked out over Koz being a beast, I was going to have to beat some sense into her until she saw what I did.
I grabbed Tuesday’s hand, tugging her along with me for the second time that day. “You know how that beast dragged me out of the village and then didn’t eat me? I don’t think it was because I didn’t smell tasty.”
“Then why?”
“Remember that rumor about how some of the beasts that roam the Wilds could turn into men? Remember there was a place northeast of here, where they said there were a bunch of them?”
“Yeah, I remember that,” she said, and I could nearly hear the gears turning in her head.
“Turns out it might have been accurate.”
I made a point of not staring at her while she let it roll around in her head for a few moments. I glanced back at Koz, who was staring at everything but us. I saw the tense line of his shoulders and the way his eyes didn’t seem to be seeing anything.
“Are you saying they’re…” Her mouth dropped open, and then she squinted. She look
ed back toward Koz and then to me.
Tuesday stumbled to a stop. I stopped as well. A peek at Koz showed he’d done the same, maintaining his distance.
“Callon?” she asked as it all really sank in.
“Yes.”
“And…” Her eyes darted to Koz.
“All of them. Koz was actually the one that saved me from the village.”
I knew Tuesday; I knew she was good to her core. I also knew she was scared of mice. Please don’t be scared. Please. It would slice Koz to his core, and I didn’t want to see that. I would’ve shaken her and said as much, but I knew Koz was listening to every single word.
Tuesday’s shoulders straightened and her look turned authoritative as she said, “Well then, beasts can’t be as bad as they say. Koz wouldn’t turn into something evil. Ever.” She tilted her head back to Koz, dark, gorgeous hair falling over her shoulder. “Koz, why are you walking all the way back there?”
He lifted his head, all smile and this one jammed full of happy.
We’d been walking for an hour when I noticed Zink getting closer to me. He didn’t normally speak to me, let alone walk next to me. People only sidled up to me for one reason. Now I had to decide whether to screw with him or give him his answer.
It didn’t hurt that it was a good interruption from the other thing looming over my head like a guillotine. I’d trapped a beast and he didn’t know it yet. So if I vented some of that angst on Mr. Grumpy, he deserved it a little. After all, he had compared me to a dog.
Zink cleared his throat for the fifth time before he asked, “How does that thing you do work?”
“Not sure. Just does.” I continued walking and whistled. I’d never whistled much, so it didn’t sound very good. I didn’t let that deter me.
Ten minutes later, Callon said, “Stop fucking with him, Teddy.”
Callon wasn’t only a beast that killed animals and probably people, he killed joy. Or tried. I wasn’t done yet.
I turned toward Zink. “I’m sorry. Did you want to ask me about something?”
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