Fire and Bone (Otherborn #1)(13)

Marius releases a tired sigh. “Foolish boy. So faithless.” He turns away from us and walks back over to his desk. He picks up something—a knife, or a very large letter opener—and taps the tip against his chin. “You shall aid in this demi’s Emergence, offering yourself as her chosen protector. As your House master, I call you to this task, Faelan Ua Cleirigh. Until it is fulfilled or until you have perished from this plane.”

Marius rests the blade against his palm, then slides it across, opening the skin. Thick crimson blood begins to seep from the wound as he holds his hand out in offering. “Come now,” he urges Faelan, that lazy grin tilting his lips again.

“Fuck all, Marius,” Faelan growls. But he pulls out his own dagger and cuts his palm the same way. He looks pissed as he reaches out and takes Marius’s bloody offering.

Marius laughs and pulls Faelan into his chest, giving him a hug, slapping his back like he’s congratulating him. “Now this will be a contest. Wait until the Introduction tomorrow, you’ll see I’m right.”

I find myself pitying Faelan, but I’m not sure why. He’s acting like Marius just asked him to donate a kidney. The guy looks seriously annoyed as Marius releases him and steps away.

“Take her to the Cottages in Malibu,” Marius says. “My wife, Barbara, will happily see she’s given every amenity, and you can stay in the east forest bungalow while our guest stays in the west.”

“What about Aelia?” Faelan asks. “She’s going to be trouble.”

“She will obey. I’m her father, after all.”

Faelan seems dubious.

Marius turns his attention back to me. “Be gentle with our hunter, kind Sage.”

I nod, though I’m not really sure what I’m agreeing to. The only thing I know for sure is that the guy who’s supposed to show me everything about myself, about what I am, is completely miserable about it. I should probably be offended, but I’m not. I don’t blame him at all. Apparently, I’m deadly.

“Sorry,” I whisper as Faelan starts pacing in front of the desk. He glares at me. I wave my hand like I’m trying to explain. “I mean . . . that you’re stuck with me.” I don’t understand what’s in my head right now. Why am I apologizing for something I have no control over? Everything in me feels so weird.

“Good morrow, children,” Marius says as he heads for the door in the back of the office. “I’ll check in at the Cottages this evening to hear the progress report. We’ll have supper together.” And then he slips into the room where the white-haired woman and someone who’s famished are waiting for him.

Morbid curiosity fills me. How does all of this hunger/feeding stuff work, anyway? Is it through touching, like I did to Ben? Or drinking blood, like Ben did to Faelan? Or, like, could there also be actual chewing? Does it depend on who’s doing the eating?

A shiver of revulsion runs through me, along with something else. Something that makes it a bit tougher to breathe.

I look over to Faelan and immediately regret it. He’s leaning his hip on the desk, pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. The blue-green tattoos running over his arms seem more obvious now; they shape his muscles like a work of art. He’s still got dried blood on his shirt from earlier. The smell of it fills the air around me for a second as I study him.

Peppermint tingles in my nose.

And an ache fills my skin as weird urges tease the back of my mind, to step closer, to touch him. But it’s not a normal desire to be close to someone. It’s an intense need. A hollow pang. It starts to claw its way out of the darkness inside me just like it did when I touched Ben. Like it does when I look into the flame. Touch. Feed. Control.

I reach up to the charm necklace at my chest like it can calm the feeling. And new terror fills me. Because I know. I know now.

It’s hunger that’s been calling to me in the fire.





SEVEN

SAGE

Faelan leads me back to the car in silence. This time he doesn’t tug me along like I’m a fussy preschooler. Actually, he doesn’t seem to want to touch me at all. Which is good. I think if he did, I’d freak out in a major way, with this mess inside me.

He’s obviously pissed. He practically punched the elevator button into the panel to get the doors to close faster. It’s hard to care, though, with my own nerves on fire. I’m trying to take deep breaths and get this heat in my skin to pass. It’s so overwhelming, it’s actually starting to hurt. I don’t know what to do with it.

I hardly notice the wait for the valet to bring the car around. I barely register getting in the Audi or driving through the city. I’m focused so intensely on shoving down this crazy storm inside me that the rest of the world has become a blur of muffled noise and color.

My mind can’t seem to think past the embers in my skin, the need. I must be some kind of monster to feel like this about a guy I just met. About anyone. I need to get away from this thing. Somehow. But how? How do you get away from a feeling? For the first time, I understand why people jump off bridges. Everything is just too fucking loud.

I cover my face with my hands and try not to lose it.

A sharp zing fills my chest and something grips the back of my neck.

My eyes fly open and I jerk sideways, pressing my body into the passenger door. Faelan pulls his arm away—his fingers were wrapped around my nape.