Page 38 of Bounty Hunter

My heart feels like it’s beating too fast. I’m grateful his hunter hearing is suppressed, otherwise it would surely give me away. I struggle to think of an acceptable response. “I’ve never felt comfortable with the showy stuff,” I mumble, looking down and twisting my bracelet around a few more times as a distraction. It’s not a lie, but also not the full truth.

He shrugs. “I can understand that.”

He moves away after that, and while I miss the warmth his presence gave, I’m relieved I can breathe again and that he didn’t ask more questions. We both quickly climb beneath our separate blankets. It’s too cold to not.

We lay there in the dark, and I’m freezing. I removed my sopping jacket, and that helped for a few minutes, but my shirt refuses to dry in the bitter cold that has crept into our cave from the storm. My eyes and arms burn with fatigue, and my teeth ache from the constant chattering the last several hours. I cuddle in a tight ball against the wall of the cave and try to hide the sound beneath my blanket.

“Toss me your blanket, we’ll layer up to share heat,” Ikar says from a couple feet away. There is a distinct lack of emotion in his voice.

I freeze in a different way and hesitantly turn my head over my shoulder to look at him, desperate at this point for any warmth I can get. Is he being serious? Should I allow this?

He just looks at me, his outstretched hand waiting for my blanket.

Against my better judgement, I remove my blanket and toss it to him, watching as he doubles them up neatly and then laysthem back down, but for me to share, I’ll have to get closer. I scootch over, only as far as necessary to fit beneath my side of the blankets, eyeing the few inches between us. Then, I turn away from him and pull the blankets back up over my shoulders. He lays on his back, staring up at the uneven rock ceiling above us.

Everything I was told about Ikar seems wrong, and I feel confused. I feel safe with him, I even feel like we’ve developed a sort of friendship, which has never happened between myself and a bounty. Even Rupi, my trustworthy character judge, seems to have warmed to him. Do I trust my gut and my bird or trust whoever set the bounty? Guess it doesn’t matter, no matter what I decide I won’t be removing the cuff. I’m just as trapped as he is at this point. I feel like a criminal myself, considering breaking rules and handling this entire arrest the way I have. I’ve heard all sorts of sob stories, lies twisted and used to attempt to manipulate a release, but I always see through them. I keep up thick walls around myself as protection, which I’ve tried to do with Ikar, but he seems to have torn them down brick by brick in a matter of days. His strong, steady presence. That smirk that so often lifts his lips. Even the irritatingly confident way he forges through any situation. I usually go with my gut, but my attraction to him has me wondering if it’s reliable in this case. I don’t want to believe that this man, who I’ve come to respect and feel comfortable with, is a Tulip killer. But Rupi wouldn’t peck at his earlobe like she does if he was a Tulip killer, right?

My eyes beg to close. I know I need rest, but before rest, I want answers. I decide to risk it for a short moment and pull magic. I hold a small ball of light in my hand, enough to dimly light our cave, but I keep it at my side and hidden from his direct sight. For a moment, I wish my magic was warm, like anOriginator’s, but nothing I wish will change the fact that it will always be cold, bright, white. Rupi lifts her head from her wing and turns an eye toward me inquisitively. Even if she could ask what I plan to do, I couldn’t answer because there is no plan. This is a desperate, spur-of-the-moment decision that I may regret. She re-tucks her head in sleep, and I drag my gaze toward Ikar, lying just inches away. His hands rest atop his chest as he stares at the pitch-dark ceiling, quiet. He doesn’t look at me, but I can tell he’s awake. I can practically feel his thoughts turning. Now, I find myself asking the burning question that has risen to the surface for the last few days.

My voice, though soft, seems loud in the quiet around us, and Rupi lifts her head again to give me a side eye of annoyance at the second interruption. “What were you doing with the mercenaries if you aren’t one?”

My heart beats hard as I wait for his answer. I hope I hate his answer, that my lie alarm starts ringing and I can know he’s just another bounty. Maybe Rupi’s quills will even burst out. But the fear that resisted this conversation reminds me how dangerous it is if none of those things happen. Part of me still thinks I’m nuts for doubting the fact that he is a criminal when the largest bounty I’ve ever contracted for is on his head.

He turns his head to look at me, as if he’s considering if he’ll talk or not. My stomach twists in hope. For some reason, I so badly want to know him. It takes him a moment to respond as he seems to put the right words together. My heart beats a little faster as he begins to speak.

“I’m in search of something that will save a lot of people,” he says carefully, “Two things, actually.”

I stay silent and wait for him to continue. He knows I want more than that. I already know about the flower.I don’t know what the second thing is, but I’m not concerned about that right now.

He turns his gaze back to the ceiling. “Believe it or not, I am not a criminal nor do I plan to become one.”

For some wild reason, I truly do want to believe him. Nothing he will say changes the fact that I have to treat him as a criminal, but I’m relentless. “Why were you with the mercenaries?”

Was he searching out Tulips for money? We haven’t talked about that list since I ruined it. I don’t want to mention it again for fear it will remind him that he thought I knew something. He was suspicious enough that he followed me, or maybe he was out for revenge. But then why did he rescue me? I’ll have to sort through that later, but the Tulips in general are not something I should know or even care about it if I’m an Originator.

I look back at him, but he still stares straight up at the rock ceiling, and the light in my hand is just enough to give shape to his face and expression. Is he waiting for me to get bored and go to sleep? I’ll stubbornly stay awake until he talks. No handsome profile will distract me from my quest for answers. Mercenaries give me the shivers, and I never accept jobs to work with them. That is one of my biggest hold ups in believing his story. I just want to know, but if he tells me, will I even believe him?

Finally he speaks. “My First Co—” He clears his throat and corrects himself, “…close friends and I are on a mission for our kingdom. Darvy and Rhosse. I was never actuallywiththe mercenaries. Merely fighting to gain information. We’d just left them when we...met.” He smiles a little, and my heart pauses beating in my chest for a moment as I wonder if he considers our meeting with fondness as his smile implied. I force my thoughts away from that because he’d just dropped a hint. Before he corrected himself, I’m positive he was about to say hisFirst Commanders are his close friends, and I’m familiar enough with rank to know it indicates he may be a royal soldier for one of the kingdoms. Does that mean Darvy and Rhosse are his leaders? But why would he fight for a list of Tulips? I want so badly to blurt it out, but my anonymity depends on my avoiding that topic, and since he didn’t bring it up, I can’t, either.

“You are claiming to be a royal soldier, then?”

He sits up and pulls his pack closer. I increase the light in my hand to help him when I see that he’s searching for something. Soon, he finds what he’s looking for and tosses something small to me. I catch it and find a small circular patch in my hands, about the size of one of my palms. I don’t know which kingdom it indicates, but it looks very similar to the one stamped on our currency. And, as far as my limited military knowledge goes, it appears legitimate.

I react on pure self-protective instinct. “So, you killed a soldier and lifted his patch? You’ve certainly built a decent cover, probably stole the poor man’s identity, too.” I narrow my eyes at him.

If a glare threw daggers, I’d be dead three times over.

I toss the patch back to him, feeling a little guilty at being the cause of the extinguished hope in his eyes that had flared for a moment.

“Don’t ask questions if you’re not ready to believe the answers.” His tone is as icy as the chill winds outside, and I shutter my gaze so he doesn’t see the guilt there. I should have just gone to sleep. It wouldn’t matter if I believed him anyway, I wouldn’t uncuff him. I’m grateful for the steadying support of my rules. Those rules are my backbone, and they say to never trust a bounty. I broke rules, and now look where I am. Breaking more rules will only make it worse.

He looks away as he places the patch back in his pack. “I know I’m asking a lot here, but I can promise if you release me, I won’t hurt you. And you won’t become a bounty.”

He just can’t help but push my limits. Who does he think he is? I pull my eyes from his and pick at the stitching along one of the blankets that cover us.

“So, you know that if I break the contract and don’t deliver you to the authorities, I become a bounty as well. Interesting that you know that tidbit.” I look at him suspiciously. How many arrests has he manipulated his way out of? “And promising that I won’t become a bounty for breaking it? That is impossible. So, that’ll be a hard no. But I do hope you’re able to find what you’re searching for.” And I mean it. If he truly is a soldier on a mission to save his people, I hope he’s successful. Until then, he’s my bounty. A very dangerous one, at that.

I turn onto my side, facing the cave wall. I’m about to extinguish my light, prepared to fall asleep and forget that disappointed look on his face that will probably be seared onto the backs of my eyelids. I hear him shift, feeling the blankets pull and loosen while he gets comfortable. Then Rupi chirps contentedly, sounding further away than before, and I realize she’s no longer by my side. I lift my head to look over my shoulder and scowl when I see that she’s nestled herself in the warm crook betweenIkar’sneck and shoulder. I stare in shocked silence at my traitorous pet. Ikar doesn’t acknowledge me, though I know he knows I’m looking in his direction. And maybe I imagine the smug quirk to his lips as Rupi practically coos as she tucks her head to sleep, but I don’t think so. I purse my lips as I quickly lay back down and stare at the cave wall. He’s so dangerously alluring even my loyal bird has left me for him. See if I ever buy that expensive birdseed again.

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