The Faceless Woman by Emma Hamm (i love reading .txt) 📕

still he thought she might have been staring with a dumbfounded expression. He liked to think he’d stumped her.

“Are you crazy?” she cried out. “I like my head attached to my neck! If she wants to kill you so bad, what’s going to stop her from doing it on sight?”

“She likes a show. She hates a missed opportunity to prove to her people how powerful she is.”

“That doesn’t mean she won’t kill you.”

“Oh, she’ll try.” He grinned at her frustrated huff.

“Bran. Please tell me you have more of a plan than we did with the dead god.”

“I don’t like plans. I find they’re constricting.”

She threw her hands into the air and stomped in the other direction. Branches snapped under her feet, and she slapped at the trees. They started yanking their branches out of her way, which only made her grumble about plants refusing her an outlet to complain.

How often did she lose her composure like this? Certainly more than anyone he’d ever seen before, but he was trying hard to annoy her.

“Where are you going?” he called out. “We have to be captured together.”

“I’m going to spend the rest of my life enjoying my head attached to my neck!” she yelled. “You get captured, deal with the Duchess, and surprise me when we die.”

A snort escaped before he could catch it. “We’re in the midst of the Unseelie forest, witch. Aren’t you the slightest bit afraid?”

She spun on her heel, dark hair flying about in a curtain resembling the night drawing across the sky. “I am the most frightening thing in this forest, Unseelie. They should be afraid of me.”

Good god, he could love this woman.

He sank down on the fallen log, eyes wide and heart thumping against his ribs. A few nights ago, he might have laughed in her face. He might have argued that he was the most terrifying thing in this forest. But the tiny witch was damned strong, an untapped well of magic that rivaled his own, and a mystery about her so thick he couldn’t see through it. She might not be stronger than he was, but she most certainly was a sight to behold.

She blew out a curse, spun on her heel, and marched through the forest with her head held high. Damned if she didn’t look like a queen.

Bran lurched to his feet, long limbs awkwardly catching on themselves until he found his balance.

“Hold on there,” he shouted. “I didn’t grant you leave!”

“Did I need to ask for that? I’m not part of your kingdom, Unseelie.”

“Bran, damn it. My name is Bran.”

“I have an exceedingly capable memory. I know what you’re called.”

“Then call me it.”

“I’ll call you by name only when you deserve it,” she growled.

“Then you call me Unseelie when you’re angry?”

“What gave you that idea?”

He snapped his fingers as he finally caught up to her. “Considering I can’t see your face, I thought it might be an endearment.”

She growled again. The noise somehow both adorable and slightly intimidating. “What would ever give you the idea it was an endearment?”

“Oh, maybe how you linger on the tones, as if you’re already thinking about me reclining on the forest floor, entirely nude and at your mercy.”

“I have never had that thought!”

She answered too quickly, and he knew what that meant. She had thought about it. She’d thought about him in more ways than that.

The grin that spread across his face was probably uncalled for. But it was reassuring to know she didn’t think of him as just another faerie. Hell, she’d even let him touch her face.

That had to mean something, right?

Aisling was pulling ahead of him again, slipping past branches that snapped down behind her in his way. He pushed at one and tried to be gentle about it, but even the trees were trying to slow him down.

“Hold on,” he called out. “Aisling, you’re getting too far ahead of me.”

“Keep up then.”

“Fighting someone in this forest isn’t worth it. Just wait for me.”

“Not planning on it.”

“Damn it, woman, this is my home. Would you listen to me?” His voice escalated, perhaps a little too loud for her liking because the next branch he passed under revealed she was standing with her hands on her hips, waiting for him.

As soon as he entered the small clearing, she advanced on him like a woman walking to war. He didn’t know what she was doing, couldn’t see her expression to even guess, but knew the stubborn set of her shoulders and the clenched fists well enough.

He stepped backward, hesitating briefly when his heel caught on a root of a tree.

She lifted a hand and pointed at him. “I was raised a witch, Unseelie. I am calm only because I will myself to be.”

“Dangerous,” he murmured. “Obviously, you are dangerous.”

“You would do well to remember it.”

Because he could not help himself, he reached out and feathered a touch down the long column of her neck. “When we get to the castle, I will tie a black silk ribbon around your neck so all know you are mine.”

“Why would you say that now? When I’m threatening you?” Her voice was breathless, whispering promises best said when a shadow crossed over the moon.

Bran stepped closer until he could inhale her unique scent of smoke and moss, earth, and the space between shadows. “You were made to wear black velvet with spiderwebs in your hair, while onyx stones dance upon your fingers. You are a midnight woman, made from the ashes of witches burned, wielding magic born from their screams.”

The words slipped from his tongue with the red-wine dark taste of prophecy. Magic heated his blood, and blunt feathers fanned down from his head, covering his arm with a fine dusting of obsidian. They disappeared as quickly as they came, until all that remained were his black claws tracing her throat.

She was so beautiful, regardless of her face, the color of her eyes, the fullness of her lips. No, none of that was important. Bran could see