Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2)(30)

“Why would you kill the owl? Nobody eats owl.”

“You’re bleeding. Let me see how bad.”

“It’s nothing.” It hurt like fire, but she knocked his hand away. “You’ve got no business shooting an arrow in this place, or at the owl.”

“I live in this place.” He shook back his mop of hair with its single skinny braid falling over his right ear. “Sort of. And I wasn’t shooting at the owl.”

“Yes, you were!”

“No, I wasn’t. Taibhse is a god of the glade. I would never try to hurt him. I was aiming at the apple. You wanted the apple, didn’t you?”

“Why would you care?”

“Why not? You’d have the apple now if you hadn’t spoiled the shot, and I’d be the one who tricked Taibhse. That’s a deep cut. Mallick will have a healing balm. He’s a great sorcerer. You’re his student.”

“And I can take care of myself.”

“Whatever.” He pulled out a cloth, shoved it at her. “At least wrap it.”

Annoyed, she wrapped the cloth around the slice in her palm, pressed her hands hard together, then yanked off the bloodied cloth, tossed it back to him.

The wound had closed, begun to heal.

“Even if you were aiming for the apple, you could have missed, hit the owl.”

His chin jerked up. “I don’t miss.”

“You did miss.”

“You got in the way.” He shrugged it off. “They’re saying you’re The One, like some great warrior, witch, Savior. You just look like a girl to me.”

He wasn’t much older than she was, a year, maybe two at the most. Taller, yes, but hardly older. She bristled at having someone her own age so dismissively term her a girl.

“If I was just a girl, your arrow wouldn’t be stuck in that tree over there.”

Pride every bit as much as power had her flinging out a hand, yanking it out, floating it back until it dropped at the base of the owl’s tree.

She’d meant to drop it at the boy’s feet, but close enough.

“That’s pretty good.” He walked over to pick it up while the owl stared down at him with cold disdain.

“Look, I was just trying to do you a favor. You’ve been trying to get that apple for days.” Using the cloth, he wiped her blood from the arrow before slipping it back in his quiver.

“It’s none of your … How do you know?” Horror, instant and deeply female, flared through her. “You’ve been spying on me.”

He had the grace to look embarrassed, and it pinked up the tips of his ears. “I wouldn’t call it spying exactly. I just saw you come in here. Nobody outside knows about this place, and nobody who isn’t one of us can come into it. So when you could and did, I wanted to see what you were up to.”

“You’re a, you’re a—” She dug for the word. She’d heard it in a movie. “A Peeping Tom.”

“I’m Mick. My father’s Thomas, but I don’t even know any Tom.”

“It’s an expression.”

“What does it mean?”

“A spyer.”

“It’s not my fault you took your clothes off, and anyway, you’re skinny. And I was just trying to do you a favor. You left out sweet cakes.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you the one who leaves things at the cottage?”

“One of us does. It’s tribute, and no payment’s expected or needed. It was kind to leave the cakes—and they were good. My father says you repay kindness with kindness, then there’s more of it.”

“I bet your father wouldn’t like knowing you spied on me.” She strode to her horse. “Don’t do it again. I’ll know.” She swung onto Grace. “And don’t shoot arrows at the owl or the apple. It’s not the right way. It’s not fair.”

She looked down at him, as regally as she could manage after knowing he’d seen her naked. “We appreciate the tribute, so thank you, your father, and whoever else. Now go sneak around somewhere else.”

She nudged Grace into a trot.

“Are you coming back tomorrow?” he called out.

She sighed, thought, Boys, and declined to answer.

As she approached the edge of the clearing, she heard the whoosh of wings. She reined in Grace, looked up. Her eyes widened in awe as Taibhse swooped overhead, the stem of the apple in his beak.

Some instinct—Mallick would have termed it a call to her blood—had her lifting an arm. And still it stunned her when the owl glided down, landing on it as if on a branch.

She felt his weight—considerable—but not any bite from his talons. His gold eyes stared into hers, and she felt a connection forged.

Mallick stepped out of the cottage, watched her ride toward him, one hand on the reins, the magnificent owl on her other arm.

Hadn’t he dreamed that? Hadn’t he seen it? The owl, the ghost god, the hunter, would be hers now. As bound to her, Mallick thought, as he was himself.

“I found the apple. I didn’t hurt the owl. He’s Taibhse.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I didn’t climb the tree. I don’t want to take the apple from him. It’s like stealing. But you see I found it, and he can take it back. I want the bathroom, Mallick, but I’m not going to steal to get it.”