Page 47 of The Bone Witch
Riggs cracks up. “No. Leprechauns aren’t real, but I just love seeing a new Osteomancer’s face for the second that they think they are.
I let out an indignant huff, but it quickly morphs into laughter. He could have had me believing they were real for years. Hell, I probably would have gone on a waitlist for one.
“You’re all so gullible,” he chortles, and I can’t even try to deny it.
Rogan’s deep chuckle sounds just behind me, and a blush crawls into my cheeks. Riggs leads us to a packed crowd gathered around a grassy clearing, and the lycans all part to allow him access to a front row vantage point. Bodies are tightly pressed in against each other as everyone pushes in to see what’s happening inside of the verdant arena. Stones are stacked a little higher than my knee and set as a divider between spectator and participant. The field is colorfully lush in patches, but trodden and well-used. It makes me think of this place back home where they hold Highland Games every year.
My thoughts of big Scottish giants throwing logs around are chased away when, in the center of the field, standing on top of a tree stump, is a huge, sweaty, shirtless man. He has feral long auburn hair, matching stubble on his jaw, and predatory, gleaming golden eyes. Another equally massive and shirtless man charges him with a bellow, and just when it looks like Brock O’Hurn’s beefier twin is about to be shoved off the stump, he nimbly dodges the attack and sends the other man rolling past him to crash into the dirt.
The crowd erupts with noise. Cheers and boos explode all around me. “What’s going on?” I ask Riggs, but it’s Rogan’s voice in my ear that answers.
I realize with a start that he’s the body pressed in behind me. And it sends a keen awareness through every inch of me.
“The goal is to push the big guy off the stump. Each competitor gets one try. If they succeed, they take over the position on the stump. The last man standing on it wins some sort of prize; sometimes it’s money, other times it’s something else,” he explains, bending down so that his lips are close to my ear.
I stifle a shiver that wants to strike through me, worried that he might feel it and get the wrong idea. I’m responding to the intimacy of someone being close to me, not to Rogan specifically, I tell myself, and I don’t want to give him reason to ever doubt that either.
“So what’s the rarest bone you’ve ever seen here?” I ask Riggs, desperately needing some kind of distraction as Rogan puts his hands on my hips to steady himself when someone jostles him from behind. His muscles tease my back, his warmth soaking into me. Crap, what was I asking? Bones? Right. Bones.
“We’ve had a fair bit of priceless and precious bones and herbs come through here, but my personal favorite are what’s left of the jackalope bits.”
I start to laugh, picturing the fabled animal that looks like a jackrabbit with antlers. “You got me with the leprechauns,” I confess. “I’m not falling for the jackalope,” I warn him, laughter bubbling out of me freely.
His grin grows even wider, and just when I think he’s about to concedeyou got me, he pulls at a chain around his neck. A rabbit’s foot and a small antler slip out from underneath his shirt. They dangle from the chain like manifestations of the impossible becoming possible.
“No. Way,” I argue, veneration spilling out of every syllable.
Riggs holds them out, like he’s daring me to test their authenticity. So of course I extend my hand and grip the small antler between my pointer finger and thumb. I’m hit by the smell of wild flowers, the taste of clover, and the sound of a haunting cackle as the rush of running from a predator fills my veins. My bewildered gaze rises to meet Riggs’s, a knowing smirk lighting up his whole face, and I’m at a complete loss for words.
It’s real.
“How?” I ask on a reverent whisper.
“They’re extinct now, the last one we know about was caught when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. My mother gave these to me to remind me of what happens when we don’t treasure and protect the things around us.”
“Aw, man, now I can’t ask for them, knowing that they have such sentimental value,” I whine, and Riggs guffaws.
“The antler is a bit stabby, I could be talked into maybe parting with it,” he jokes, and my overzealous ass jumps all over that.
“Really? What would it take to talk you into it?” I blurt, like I’m nothing more than a Gollum staring at the one true ring.
Riggs studies me for a moment as though he’s actually considering parting with something so precious. I should probably feel bad, but I want the bone something fierce. I have no idea where this intense need is coming from; it’s not rational, but Ineeda jackalope antler in my life. I just had no idea that I did until now.
“Okay, Osteomancer, you can have my jackalope antler,” he declares with a mischievous glint in his bright amber eyes.
“What’s the catch?” I ask suspiciously even though my insides are celebrating gleefully.
He laughs again and gestures toward the arena. “Ifyou can get Saxon off the stump.”
I turn just in time to see a lycan leap at the man standing on the hewn tree trunk—Saxon, I’m assuming—and the auburn-haired behemoth flips the advancing lycan over his head like the guy weighs nothing. From the loud thump that fills the enclosed area, and the vibration that moves through the ground when the lycan’s body hits, I can attest that the man weighs a whole hell of a lot.
Well, crap, there goes my precious.
16
Dust plumes around the man who was just thrown to the ground. The fine mist of dirt starts to slowly settle around the field as murmurs fill the air like bird song. I watch the plume disappear, and it takes with it my overeager hopes to become the proud new owner of a jackalope antler in the very near future. Riggs’s smile is cocky and pleased; he knows exactly what he’s just done. I want to sulkthat’s not fair, as I’ve clearly been duped, but that kind of shit isn’t cute at any age, so I tamp it down.
His eyes twinkle mischievously, and I find that I really want to shove his underestimation down his throat. I want to make him eat his words. But as I stare out at the tree-sized man on the stump in the middle of the clearing, I’m at a loss for how to make that happen. Riggs chuckles deeply and pats me hard on the back, making me jerk forward and struggle to keep from tilting over from the contact.
