The Unfinished Song (Book 5): Wing by Tara Maya Read Free Book Online Page A

His muscular arms were stained crimson past the elbow. She
could no longer see the black gloves. He looked gloved in gore.
Flecks of brain and intestine splattered his bare chest.
    He met her eyes. Something flickered in him, and she
had the oddest sense that he felt…humiliated…for her to see him
like this. Or ashamed?
    Then his lips curled up in a sardonic smile.
    She was sure she had imagined it. If anything, he
was proud of his “work.”
    Yet, at times, he did not cut. “This one is not
ready for our Lady,” he said of a warrior who had lost a foot and
looked delirious with pain. Instead of killing the man, Umbral
waved his hands over the man’s aura. Dindi saw a flash of golden
light, and she realized with amazement that Umbral was healing him.
The stump bled less. The man fell asleep.
    “Leave him past the trees with our marks,” Umbral
ordered the two other male Deathsworn.
    He spared a few others as well. To Dindi, it was not
obvious why he spared some and killed the rest, any more than it
was obvious why he had changed his mind about killing her right
away.
    The two male Deathsworn, who had been sent to place
a Green Woods woman outside the menhir clearing, returned on a path
that passed the log where Dindi sat. One of them, the ugly one who
had leered at her when she was still tied to the other altar,
lingered.
    “What are you doing, Masher?” his companion, already
ahead, called back. “We have another two dozen or more left. Don’t
think I’ll do your share for you.”
    “I have to yellow some snow. Go on, Owlhawker, I’ll
catch up.”
    Owlhawker grumbled but returned to the rows of
injured. There were fewer bodies now, and more had stiffened before
they could be lifted to the menhir.
    Masher did not duck behind a tree to attend private
business. Instead, he sauntered closer to Dindi.
    “I don’t get it,” he said. “Your aura is skinnier
than an old woman in a drought, but when I am close to you, I feel
powerful. You taste real good…”
    She would have moved away, but as soon as she stood
up, pain jolted through the leash. She crashed to her knees from
the electric agony. The flash of pain was brief, but delayed her
long enough that Masher reached her side and grabbed her hair.
    He jerked her onto the log and forced her on her
back, with his own body splayed over her. He stank of offal.
    “I could save your life,” he wheezed in her ear. One
of his clammy, soiled hands rummaged inside her fur cape, which,
since she’d had to remake it, was held together only by improvised
knots between the rabbit skins. Fingers pinched her nipple. “I’ll
let you run away, if you’re nice to me first.”
    All at once, Masher flew off her into the air. He
smashed against a nearby tree.
    Umbral, in a towering fury, stomped toward the man
he had just thrown like a ragdoll. He grabbed Masher by the front
of his jerkin and scraped him up against the tree.
    “I’ve slit a lot of throats today, goat’s ass. It
makes no difference to me if I slice open one more. My gloves are
already dirty.”
    “Forgive me, Umbral,” whimpered Masher. “It’s just,
you’ve never taken one before. Couldn’t see why you would now. I
didn’t know she was yours. I mean I knew she was yours, but I
didn’t know if she was yours yours.”
    “She’s mine mine,” said Umbral through
gritted teeth. “And all mine. Touch her again, and I will give you
to Ash.”
    Masher turned white.
    “Let’s not be hasty. I said I was sorry. Didn’t I? I
am. Sorry. Ash still has it in for me, ever since that
plague-ridden clanhold. You know what Ash is capable of.”
    “I do.” Umbral dropped Masher in the snow. “Better
than you. Get back to work.”
    Masher scrambled away.
    “Are you…unhurt?” Umbral asked Dindi.
    “Unhurt,” she repeated flatly. “Asks the man who has
sworn to kill me.”
    “Well enough, I take it.”
    “I would have been able to defend myself if your
leash had not stopped me.”
    “ That’s
its