He Used My Blood Then Chose Me novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Scout on the Roof

Min-jun takes the blade meant for Seo-jun and kills the scout with his bare hands, bleeding. Ren Ito steps out of the trees and says the scout wore Luca's colors. Seo-jun binds Min-jun's arm and does not thank him.

The blade went past my ear and stuck in the boards behind me.

The prince had the man by the wrist.

He turned it, hard, and I heard something give.

The scout didn't cry out. He twisted free and came at me again with his free hand.

Min-jun caught him by the collar and threw him into the loft post.

The post cracked. Straw went up in a cloud.

The scout was fast. Faster than any man I'd seen.

He got a short knife out of his boot and opened Min-jun's forearm from wrist to elbow.

Blood hit the boards.

Min-jun didn't let go.

He got both hands on the scout's head and brought his knee up into the man's face, once, twice.

The scout went down on the straw. He didn't get up.

Min-jun stood over him, breathing hard, holding his own arm.

The blood ran off his fingers and dripped onto the dead man's chest.

"That's a shinigami," I said.

"Yes."

"He was here for me."

"Yes."

I got up and looked at the body.

Dark traveling clothes. No crest on the coat. But the man's collar was stitched inside, and the stitching was red.

I'd seen that red before. Every shinigami in the human lands wore it somewhere, if you knew where to look.

Luca's color.

"Your father's man," I said.

"That's not my father's color," Min-jun said. "That's Luca's."

"Same thing."

"No." He said it flat. "It isn't."

I didn't argue. I was already tearing a strip off the bottom of my tunic.

I wrapped his forearm with it, pulled it tight, and knotted it.

He watched me do it.

"You don't have to," he said.

"I know."

I finished the knot and stood back.

I didn't thank him.

He'd cut my hand an hour ago to find out if I was useful. Taking a blade for me didn't wipe that out. It just meant he wanted me alive for the rest of the trip.

That was all.

"You're losing blood," I said. "Sit down before you fall down."

"I've had worse."

"Sit down."

He sat down on the straw.

Outside, the mill yard was quiet. Too quiet. My father's dog should have been barking by now.

I went to the loft door and looked out.

The trees at the edge of the clearing were full of dawn and nothing else.

Then a man stepped out from between two trunks.

He came slow, hands open at his sides, long black hair down past his shoulders.

Slate-blue robe, dark mantle, a narrow sash. Traveling clothes, but good ones.

He stopped twenty paces out and looked up at me in the loft door.

"Han Seo-jun," he said.

"You've got my name."

"Everyone's got your name now."

He nodded past me, at Min-jun sitting on the straw with his arm bound.

"Prince," he said.

Min-jun's head came up.

"Ren."

"You look terrible."

"I've looked worse."

"Not often."

The man in the blue robe walked closer, easy, like he'd been invited.

He stopped at the foot of the mill ladder and looked at the body on the straw.

Then he crouched and turned the dead man's collar inside out.

The red stitching showed clear in the gray light.

"Luca's scouts don't wear the color on the outside," he said. "They wear it here, so the people they kill never know who sent them."

He let the collar fall.

"You've been found out," he said.

"By Luca?" I said.

"By Luca." He stood up. "The king doesn't like loose ends. A priest survived his massacre, and he's been looking for you for twenty years."

I looked at Min-jun.

Min-jun was already looking at me.

Ren dusted his hands on his robe.

"He knows a priest survived," Ren said. "He's known since before you were born. And now he knows where you are."

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