Fire and Bone (Otherborn #1)(7)
She keeps yelling at me about kicking my ass. I’m not sure how she plans on doing that. She’s a mess of a waif in oversize clothes. Not even remotely attractive at first glance, which is a relief. It’s probably why the pompous prince overlooked her. Her strawberry hair is ratty and she’s far too thin, her features too sharp. But her eyes . . . they’re stunning and vibrant, a golden shimmer already surfacing in the hazel, as the fire of her mother’s power begins to boil up inside her.
I steel myself against her energy and lean down, hovering. She shrinks back as she looks up at me. Her tongue stills—praise the holy Danu.
I take a breath in through my nose and try not to let the sharp spice of her power hit me too hard. Then I say, as calmly as I can, “You’re going to need to understand something if you plan on making it through tonight: I am not your enemy. I’m your best hope of finding safety.”
She gives me a derisive look. “Are you shitting me? You attacked me. You burned me and—”
“It was merely the iron collar. You’re fine. The pain is temporary.”
She shivers and puts her palm in my face. “I’ve been branded like you own me, dickhead.”
“Look at your hand,” I say.
She scowls, so I grab her wrist and turn her palm to face her, showing her the healed skin.
She struggles to break away but then looks at it, her mouth opening in shock.
“You aren’t human,” I say. She doesn’t seem to react to my words, still blinking at her healed skin, so I continue my speech. “Your life has been a lie. Everything you knew until this night is forfeit. Your true blood, your magic, began to surface several weeks ago. Tonight, with the full moon, you’ll start opening up to it further. The pixie’s potion is speeding up the process, but it was bound to boil to the surface with the lunar pull.”
She reaches up to hold her wrist like she doesn’t recognize the hand in front of her face. “What in the hell?”
I release her and step back. “I know this is difficult,” I say without emotion. Familiar words I’ve said hundreds of times to hundreds of Otherborn over my centuries as a hunter. Maybe I’ve been doing this too long, introducing Others to the truth about themselves. I’m hardened to their feelings—if I ever cared to begin with. Marius says he appreciates my cold nature, which is why he sends me out more than the other hunters, like I’m some sort of statement to the rest of the ruling deities of the Penta. But I tire of these creatures and their tantrums and childishness—which is the main reason I requested the job of gatekeeper in the hidden realms for the next century. Long past time for retirement.
The demigods, druids, and underlings I pull from the human world are usually spoiled brats by the time I get to them, having had their way most of their false human lives. This girl, though . . . I don’t know, she’s not what I expected.
Of course, the normal order’s been tossed out the window with her. She’s far past the age to be collected, which is usually twelve or thirteen. She appears to have been forgotten somehow. Lost. As if the Penta, even the Cast, were ignoring her existence entirely, letting her live a human life. Unless they didn’t sense her Other blood at all, though that seems unlikely.
It’s amazing that Marius felt her magic, given how repressed it is. He sent out several of his best spies to find her three moons ago, when he dreamed of her sleeping in an alley. But we had to wait, to be sure she was what we thought before contacting her. It’s cutting it very close, with her eighteenth Samhain playing out over the last few days, but it looks as if we caught her in time, before she could hurt anyone.
Somehow she locked away her goddess blood and forged her own way through the grime of earth over the years. I’m not exactly sure how to traverse an introduction to our world with a spirit that’s already so strong.
“I just wanted a shower,” she mumbles, now cradling her hand in her lap and studying the bedspread.
“You’ll never want for anything again after tonight,” I say.
She still doesn’t seem to hear me. There’s no look of fear, no understanding or glee, like I usually get.
“I’m going to take you to a safe place where there’s a man who wants to help you,” I add. “He’s rich, very powerful. Under his protection, you’ll learn where you come from and discover where you belong. The dark prince won’t be able to control you and—”
She barks out a laugh, interrupting me.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
“Dark prince? Seriously?” She laughs again. “Can you even hear yourself?”
I study her and wonder if the potion that Star gave her was too strong. That pixie is so flighty.
The demi stands from the bed and folds her arms over her chest, looking guarded but determined. “Look, muscleman, I can buy this whole you’re-not-who-you-think-you-are thing, since my life has basically sucked ass from the start and I’d love to believe that it was all some huge cosmic error. But you’re trying to tell me I’m going to meet Daddy Warbucks, who will explain to me that I’m a weird alien or something? And he’ll protect me from a dark prince? Pardon me if I don’t leap to join your cult so I can get a chance at cushy digs. That’s not my style.”
“You’re not an alien.”
She just smirks at me and huffs out another derisive laugh. I move to the door and open it wider, yelling out to the others, who I know are listening, “Bring Ben in here.” I turn back to her and slide my knife from its sheath.