The breeze catches Alonso’s hair, whipping it around his face. He steals a glance at me before stepping forward to comply, his face so beautiful it makes me want to weep.
As Coronado drags the tip of the iron across the tender skin on the inside of Alonso’s forearm, I cringe. The sickeningly sweet smell of burning flesh overpowers my senses. I clench the folds of my gown, but keep my face expressionless. If Coronado discovers my true feelings for Alonso, he won’t hesitate to throw him overboard.
“I claim you as one of the Arcanum. You belong to me now.” Coronado finishes the mark, then pours a bucket of seawater over his handiwork. I hear Alonso’s skin sizzle. The pain from salt in his wound must be excruciating, but Alonso stands like a statue, staring out over the endless ocean separating us from the New World.
As Coronado and his soldiers retreat to the lower deck for another night of drink and tall tales, Alonso sinks to the ground, cradling his arm. I go to him, touching his wrist. He flinches.
“Do you trust me?” I ask.
“Yes,” he whispers, clenching his hand into a fist.
I reach out for his arm again, gently rolling up his dirty shirtsleeve.
Swiping my finger against the sharp edge of his dagger, I coax my blood to the surface. I hold my finger above his cut; he stops me.
“What will your blood do to me?” He looks up at me through long wild strands of sun-kissed hair.
“Take the pain and make you scar more quickly, but you will bear his mark forever.”
He pulls me closer. “It won’t make me immortal?”
“No,” I answer, stunned by how painful I find the notion of Alonso remaining mortal.
“You’ll be blood bound to Coronado.” I feel his warm breath pulsing against my cheek.
“I would rather die one thousand deaths,” I whisper, meeting his gaze.
He presses my cut finger into his wound.
He sucks in a shallow breath through his teeth and I see the broad muscles in his shoulders relax as the pain is extinguished. His flesh heals into a thick rope, revealing Coronado’s signet, a winged creature, crudely etched into his skin.
I run my now-healed finger across the brand. “Your body is only a vessel. You belong to no one.”
“You’re wrong,” he says, his golden brown eyes settling on mine. “I belong to you.”
? ? ?
The creak of the screen door wrenched me back to the present.
“Ash!” I spun around to see my brother hurrying down the steps. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“You see her?” I whispered.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you,” he said as he approached me with his hands raised in front of him as if he were trying to soothe a wild animal. “But you need to get out of the truck . . . now. Those guys could come back any second.”
“I can’t leave her like this.”
I reached back to touch her and felt short rough fur beneath my fingers. I whipped around to find my knees nestled against a white diamond-shaped patch of hair just above the rib cage of a young buck, its torso riddled with bullet holes.
The deer’s leg twitched.
I scrambled out of the truck, knocking my brother to the ground.
The deer got to its feet in the bed of the truck, blinking big dark eyes at us. It shook its antlers, as if shaking off death, then leapt across the road majestically and disappeared into the thick woods.
The screen door creaked open. Rhys and I took off running back toward the car. My heart was pounding, which meant my brother was probably about to have a coronary.
The hunters strolled down the porch steps toward their truck with toothpicks dangling from their lips, looking totally content—until they saw the empty space where their trophy used to be.
“What the Sam hell?” the guy with the goatee yelled as he looked under the truck.
“Son of a bitch!” the other one screamed as he paced the lot. “Did somebody steal him?”
Rhys slipped in on the driver’s side and I got into the passenger seat.
My brother’s hand was shaking as he pressed the ignition button.
“Do you need me to drive?” I asked.
“No,” he snapped as we pulled away.
I watched the woods in anticipation, hoping to catch a glimpse of the deer. I wanted one last look to know it was real.
“What just happened?” Rhys yelled as he merged back onto the highway. “How did you know it wasn’t dead? Why would you touch it?”
“I saw the dead girl.”
“Where?” Rhys looked around in a panic, momentarily swerving into the other lane of the two-lane highway.
“Back there, in the truck.”
“Wait.” His knuckles blanched as he gripped the wheel. “You’re telling me you thought the deer was the dead girl?”
“She seemed so real,” I whispered as I rocked back and forth in my seat, trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me. “Rhys.” I turned toward him. “I think Mom was right. I think I might seriously be a conduit, and the protection marks . . . they’re not working anymore.”
There was a long silence that neither of us knew how to fill.