I’m also still not sure how to process the fact she thinks I’m fey.
A comfortable silence falls over us until she walks outside.
For the next however many hours, I read over numerous things, researching this hidden world that destroys all illusions of reality I once had. Everyone else has gone outside to do whatever it is they do, and I forget that I’m not alone in the house.
Until a bedroom door opens and my heart jumps into my throat.
Slowly, I turn around to see two dull blue eyes—not silver, for some reason—staring into mine, and I try not to gasp when I see the slash-style scars marring the upper body in front of me. The scars on his torso look to have once been deep. Tan flesh is carved with constant marks, and each one represents more pain than the last.
“Get your fill before I put my shirt on.” The cold, distasteful voice has me snapping my wandering eyes back up.
He’s trying to sound amused, but the anger in his eyes and the tense posture he carries proves he wasn’t expecting to see me. And he doesn’t like me looking.
“Sorry,” I mutter, turning around quickly.
The rustling of clothing lets me know he’s pulling a shirt on, but I pretend I’m reading, hoping he goes outside.
“Kya figure out what you are?” he asks.
Freaking eh. His low, deep, gravelly voice is just as scary as the rest of him.
I shake my head when I get worried my voice is gone. He nods curtly before grabbing a knife and putting into a holster on his hip.
My voice finds its way back on the wings of curiosity. “Weapons work?”
“Not mortal weapons. These are from the anointed. Trust me, you don’t want to run into them. Some of them are harder to kill than us, even though legend would like you to believe they were easier to kill. We’re a prideful species.”
Swiveling on my seat, I turn to face him.
“Kya mentioned them. Essentially they’re like a group of Sam and Dean type people. Right?”
He just cocks an eyebrow at me.
“Sorry. Old show reference. You probably haven’t watched a lot of TV.”
He goes back to putting a few more things in holsters. Talking isn’t his forte.
“The weaker bloodlines are killed easier, but it’s still not a mindless task,” he says with his back turned. “One was killed not long ago by a changer, but it wasn’t easy for him to kill her. She was a good fighter. She killed an ogre first before the changer could end her. If she was strong enough to carry her weight in a fight against a changer after killing an ogre, then she was a serious threat. And she was a weak bloodline. They didn’t even try to hide the family tree or give up any children to ensure its safety because they were such a weak, overlooked line. Imagine how dangerous a strong bloodline can be.”
So not Sam and Dean. They were awesome, but just humans with salt and shotguns and a thing for tempting death.
Holy shit. Now I’m even thinking about TV like it’s real. I need to get a grip.
“Are they hunting you?”
“Us?” he asks, correcting me. “They’re hunting all of us, yes. There’s a group posted in town. We’ve been keeping tabs on them. Some of them are just humans who have been recruited. They’re leveling the playing field with trigger-response weapons akin to crossbows but stronger and more powerful.”
“Guns?”
He nods again. Trigger-response weapons? How old is this guy that he doesn’t know what guns are called?
“I know how to shoot a gun. I have one at my house. My granddad was ex-army.”
He doesn’t even look at me, still piling on the weapons as he keeps his back turned.
“Only anointed weapons that have been magically blessed can do harm. We’d hoped they couldn’t recreate the anointed crests. It’s not an easy process. They’ve apparently been stocking up for a while, which means they knew the second the power returned to their bloodline.”
And he’s lost me again.