Heartless Hunter (Crimson Moth, #1) (28)

“Why does he hate me so much?” she asked, eyes still closed.

Rune felt him lie back down beside her, then turn his face toward her, his breath feathering her cheek. “My brother saw horrible things when he lived at the palace. Things that damage a person irreparably.”

She thought of Gideon refusing the wine earlier. There was a time when I needed it to survive.

She wanted to know more, but it was wrong to pry one brother’s secrets out of the other.

Alex hadn’t really answered her question, though. Gideon had disapproved of Rune since the day they’d met five years ago, long before this damage Alex spoke of. It seemed there was something unique about Rune that Gideon couldn’t abide.

It bothered her more than she cared to admit.

Alex stretched out his arm toward her. It roused Rune a little, and she lifted her head, letting him tuck his arm under her like a pillow.

“It’s too late for Gideon,” he said, turning her on her side and pulling her back against his chest. “You, on the other hand, can still be saved.”

If her eyes were open, she would have rolled them.

We’ve known each other for seven years, she thought, remembering when she first met Alex. She’d been eleven, and accompanying Nan to the Royal Library, which was a glass building full of every spell book in existence—before the Blood Guard burned them all and converted the building into their headquarters. As she wandered the aisles of books, Rune heard music coming from somewhere in the library. The song brimmed with emotion, and she’d searched every floor until she found the boy playing it.

In all those years, how many times have I needed saving?

She must have asked aloud, because Alex said: “It’s not the times you don’t need saving that I’m worried about. It’s the one time you’ll need it, and there will be no one to do it.”

If she hadn’t been so tired, she might have pinched his arm. Instead, she shifted closer, nestling into him. Breathing in the clean smell of his freshly ironed shirt, Rune let herself relax for the first time all day.

Alex was familiar.

Alex was safe.

“Rune?”

But whatever he said next was lost in the sound of her snoring.





THIRTEEN

RUNE




TWO YEARS PRIOR

THE DAY RUNE LEARNED she was a witch, she was hosting Alex’s sixteenth birthday. She’d spent months planning the event at Thornwood Hall—ordering the decorations, hiring the entertainment, and deciding on the menu weeks in advance.

By the evening, Rune was tired and achy from being on her feet all day. But when the dancing began, there was a new ache in her body: an unfamiliar cramping low in her abdomen. It was so painful, she couldn’t hold a conversation, never mind concentrate on the steps of a waltz. But Rune was the hostess; she was determined to see the evening through to the end.

It was only when a sudden wetness appeared between her legs that she excused herself and made for the bathroom. There, she hiked up her skirts, pulled down her underwear, and found …

Blood.

Black blood.

That couldn’t be right.

It had soaked through the cotton. So she took the underwear off and ran the tap at the sink, shoving them under the water. Then she grabbed the soap and started to scrub.

And scrub.

And scrub.

The stain wouldn’t come out. In fact, it was spreading unnaturally fast.

I’m not a witch, she thought, as black water circled the drain. I can’t be a witch.

The cramping worsened. Rune wanted to curl up in a ball on the floor and rock until it went away. This will be fine, she told herself. I’ll hide these in my purse and go straight home to Wintersea. No one will even know.

But when Rune glanced over her shoulder to check the back of her dress, she found the stain seeping through its yellow silk, too.

If anyone saw—or had already seen—it wouldn’t only be humiliating, but incriminating.

Her breath sharpened. Desperation drove her now. She peeled off her dress and held it under the tap, scrubbing at the black blood. Scrubbing until her fingers felt raw and her arms hurt.

But the stain didn’t lift, only spread across the yellow silk.

She couldn’t deny it any longer.

The magic of her first bleeding was turning her dress black.

I’m a witch.

The realization turned her cold.

The doorknob rattled. Rune jerked her head toward it, found the door opening, and quickly threw herself against it.

“There’s another bathroom on the second floor!” called Rune, her heart beating in her throat.

“Oh!” Lola Parsons said from the other side. “Sorry, Rune.”

Naked now, Rune pressed herself against the painted wood, waiting until Lola was gone before locking the door.

This bathroom didn’t have a window she could sneak out of, and the only door led to the hallway where Alex’s guests walked back and forth. With her clothes not only wet, but growing blacker by the second, she couldn’t leave.

She was trapped.

A knock on the door made her jump.

“Rune?” Alex called from the other side of the wood. “Everything all right? You’ve been gone for almost an hour.”

Alex, help! she wanted to say.

But that would require admitting the truth. And if she did, he’d report her. He might be her oldest friend, but he’d also murdered a witch queen and been rewarded for it.