King of Ash and Bone by Melissa Wright

Author:Melissa Wright [Wright, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melissa Wright

Chapter 14

She stared at him. Since the moment he’d met her, Mackenzie Scott hadn’t been able to keep her gaze off him for long. Hunter understood why. She’d spent the whole of her life pushing people away, keeping them free of the bubble she’d created for her and her brother, the safety of no one knowing they’d been abandoned. But Mackenzie had let Hunter in. The one person she shouldn’t have.

For his part, he hadn’t taken his eyes from her either. But it wasn’t any sort of interest. It was wariness. Because he’d spent the whole of his life knowing he could never allow a human to discover the truth.

He rubbed a hand over his face, unable to keep from glancing again at this girl. Who was he kidding? It wasn’t merely interest, it was outright covetousness. His. Just like the story said, he wanted her for his own. He frowned, angry at his own loathsome idea, and pulled at the cloth of his shirt where it was irritating his injured side.

Mackenzie leaned forward. “You’re hurt.” Her voice was flat, and he couldn’t decide whether it had been a question.

He answered anyway, turning to face the chiseled wall to bring his side away from her view. “I’ll be fine. It’s healing.” The energy here was feeding him.

The reaper had brought a human girl before her time, the legend said. His plaything. The girl had been paraded about the palace, on show for all to see. The Iron Bound had hissed and cursed, watched in outrage as she was toyed with, made a game. And then she’d been brought back to the reaper’s side. She had been pulled through before the reaping, and her senses had not been dulled by the process. In front of the entire gathering, she’d drawn a crude blade from her wardrobe, carved iron. She’d been a sheep herder’s wife, the legend said. She’d used that blade to cut him through the heart.

Though it had been close, the reaper had not died. The culling had carried on. When the last of the humans were brought through the gate, the reaper was left on the other side. Punishment, for what he had done.

He would be turned to ash, faded away in the undying lands.

Hunter’s punishment would be worse. Hunter would be taken to pieces.

On this side.

Mackenzie shifted, as if to move for him to tend his injured side, and she winced with the movement. Hunter bit down his automatic response, because the words would have been in the language of the dying lands. She had gotten hurt in the fall. “What is it?” he asked, sliding onto the edge of the seat beside her.

The pain must have been too sharp for her to notice his approach, because she didn’t shy away. “It’s nothing,” she said. “Just cracked my shoulder again when we landed.” Her gaze fell to the tattered material of his shirt, now on full display. The borrowed shirt was torn, shredded by the raven claw Azral had lodged in his side.

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