Red by Alyxandra Harvey Read Free Book Online

it.
    Colt drank, then grinned at me, blood smeared on his teeth.
    After the ritual, I left, needing the soft danger of the forest on the other side, the sinister beauty of the lake. I might as well patrol while I was out here. I’d always preferred tracking to fighting. Sloane called it haunting. Same difference in my mind, as long as they both ended with a certain creature at the end of my spear. I wasn’t giving up. Even after three and a half years. Because unlike the others, this was one monster that had to be put down.
    Sloane insisted I was becoming hard and jaded. Even she didn’t know my secret, didn’t realize how well I was starting to wear my hunter persona. I hardly knew anymore, either—that was clear to me when Kia had startled a genuine laugh out of me in the car. The sound was so foreign I’d actually thought about reaching for a weapon.
    She might be a problem.
    She was smart enough to figure out something was going on at the estate. She was keeping secrets. And she was hot enough to be a distraction. She’d made me forget, for one brief moment, that I wasn’t a guy driving a cute girl home, that though I might not be able to change a flat tire, I could gut an angry Scylla and set traps for three different species of goblin.
    I wondered if Summer would recognize me now.
    Of the two of us, she’d always been the natural warrior, even when we were fourteen. She’d been so shy and polite, no one suspected that she was brilliant with a sword, gun, and aikido. Her father taught her, drilled her mercilessly each and every day to make her strong. But still not strong enough.
    I checked the inner wards, trying to forget Colt, Summer, my dad, everything. Forgetting Kia proved more difficult than I’d thought. I hadn’t been lying when I’d told her she wasn’t like other girls. I’d never met anyone like her. Sloane was both practical and ridiculously romantic. Justine was loyal but ruthless. The girls at school were more interested in my abs and Dad’s bank account than anything else. They wouldn’t last a day in my world. But I played my part. I flirted and smirked and generally acted too lazy and spoiled to care about anything important. It was a good cover, and it was surprising how many people, teachers included, were impressed by that.
    But not Kia.
    She didn’t seem particularly impressed by anything. And that made her hotter.
    The steady flap of huge wings had me turning to the west, throwing knife in hand. Stymphalian marsh bird. The untrained eye could be fooled at a glance, thinking it was an eagle or a heron, but the marsh bird was bigger, smellier, and definitely meaner.
    Spotting Kia was just as easy.
    She was trudging through the grass, heavy compost bucket in her hand, red hair like fire. Abby was really strict about composting, and though she was far away, Kia sighed visibly as she turned over the bucket. I knew from experience that it was heavier than it looked.
    Kia didn’t see the Stymphalian marsh bird flying toward her. She didn’t even know to look up.
    But it saw her.
    The bird, already drawn by the magical wards, turned, sensing a fresh meal on the ground below. I waited patiently, grimly, for it to fly past me. It was so focused on Kia, it didn’t sense me. I threw my dagger and it hit the back of its neck, pinning it to a tree. Blood and feathers went everywhere. The bird gave a mournful, piercing death cry, which had the hair on my neck standing up. But I couldn’t afford to feel pity. One moment of hesitation and someone might die. Kia might die.
    Kia glanced up, frowning at the sky. When there was nothing for her to see, she hurried back through the gate and toward the castle. I reclaimed my knife and wiped it clean on a leaf. Then I continued into the forest, wondering what the hell Abby had been thinking, inviting Kia to live here.
    I searched for other marsh birds, since they tended to travel in pairs, but there was nothing but the wind and the smell of smoke.
    And