Page 22 of Bound

“No, thank you,” she said and paused. “Huh. I might actually take you up on that. But after I skin it, okay?”

“Of course.”Skinning. He assumed mortals only did that for clothing purposes, not because they couldn’t eat fur. What a weak palate.

She picked up the pie. For a moment, it seemed like she would place it on her lap. Then she looked down at the black fabric and hesitated, setting the pie beside her on the coverlet instead.

Slate watched her smooth her dress down as if checking it for crumbs. She had touched it so reverently when she examined her reflection earlier. He thought back to the town he had visited, all those mortals walking around in plain, functional clothes much like the ones she had been wearing when she appeared.

It was fine for those mortals. But Ruby deserved better. As long as she washis, anyway.

Ruby turned back to the pie and laughed in shock.

Slate leaned over to examine it. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” she said, sweeping her frizzy hair behind her ears. “This is my neighbor’s pie. Glenda. I recognize the latticing; she spends ages on it.”

Slate tried to translate this into Skullstalker customs. He had never had a neighbor, but he would be annoyed if someone stole from him.

“Is that bad?” he asked.

She raised her head, her dark eyes gleaming in the firelight. “No, this is wonderful! She’ll throw a fit. I want to feel bad for her because she has to cook for so many children, but she’s such a?—”

She cut off with a wince. “Never mind. Witches aren’t supposed to badmouth the people they protect.”

Slate huffed. “I have never heard of such a rule.”

She laughed again. It was choppy and shocked, as most of her laughs had been. As if she hadn’t been expecting whatever he said that provoked the laugh. Shehadbeen expecting him to eat her, after all.

He watched her scoop up a gleaming shred of pie and slot it into her mouth. Pastry crumbled over her palm, fruit slicking her fingers.

“Sorry,” she said, muffled through the mouthful. “I’ll clean up the crumbs.”

“I live in a forest,” he reminded her. “Crumbs are the least of my concerns.”

He watched her eat. Her cheeks bulged, her lips shining with juice, and he was filled with a hunger that had nothing to do with that pale mortal food. It was beginning to disturb him. He wanted so little until she showed up.

“Mortal,” he started. “How old are you?”

She covered her wet mouth. “Twenty-four.”

“And how long do mortals live? A century?”

She laughed, coughing with the crumbs. “What?Eighty, if we’re lucky. I hear stories of people living to see a century over the sea, but folk say all sorts of things about lands they know nothing about.”

Twenty-four,Slate thought. If a mortal lived until eighty… that would make Ruby a quarter-way through her life. What a pitifully short amount of time to exist.

An uneasy feeling twisted inside Slate’s stomach.

He pressed it down. “How is the food?”

She made a pleased noise, covering her mouth as she chewed another mouthful of pie. Her pink tongue darted out and swirled around her finger, sucking off a streak of fruit.

“I was wondering,” she asked.

He tore his gaze away from her sticky finger. “Yes?”

She bit her lip. “Do demons ever come to this realm?”

“Did you see one?” Slate asked, amused by his own joke. If she encountered a demon, she would be dead.

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