RUNES (A Runes Book 1)

Chapter 7

“I guess you’re ignoring me now,” he said. “What happened to the gutsy girl who begged me to bite her in the school parking lot?”

“I did not beg.” Only he could take something said in anger and flip it. “I’m copying the runes before you remove them.”

He chuckled. “Who said I can remove them?”

“Me. One of your people painted them.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because she hates me.” I glanced at him and wished I hadn’t. Without his wraparound sunglasses, his eyes drew me in. He really had beautiful eyes and incredibly long eyelashes. My eyes strayed to his chest. He hadn’t changed his shirt from earlier, and the blood from the stabbing wound was still there.

I pointed at the spot. “Can you get rid of that by drawing runes on your shirt?”

He glanced down and frowned as though surprised it was there. “Yeah, or I can do this.”

He stretched his T-shirt so it plastered against his masculine chest, and my inner hound wagged its tail in appreciation. The blood on the fabric quickly disappeared. He grinned, looking pleased with himself. What a show off.

“How do you do that?”

“I control the runes on my body; will them to do my bidding. Unlike the others, I don’t need to sketch new ones all the time.”

Yep, he was definitely showing off. “Can you look at any rune and know what it means?”

He rolled his eyes as though the task was too mundane for someone with his abilities. “Before I answer that, how are you planning to decipher the codes?”

“Codes?”

“The message behind the rune patterns you have so, uh,” he leaned closer, his arm touching mine, “sloppily drawn.”

I sucked in a breath as I adjusted to the sensations shooting through my body from where our arms touched. My heart pounded. I wanted to move away and break the contact, but I couldn’t. Truth be told, I longed to wrap myself around him and greedily absorb these new sensations. Now if only I could breathe before I passed out.

Then what he’d said registered. He’d called my sketches sloppy. Somehow my mind tended to process things a lot slower whenever I was around him, and it had to stop.

“Well?” he asked.

I exhaled and muttered, “I’ll check online.”

He laughed, and I wasn’t sure whether he knew the effect he had on me or if my squeaky voice was the cause. Either way, he was laughing at me. Anger boiled to the surface. One minute in his presence and I wanted to deck him.

“Go away, Torin.” I got up.

He jumped up. “It amazes me how Mortals think they can decipher messages from the gods.”

I cocked my brow. “As in I’m the Mortal and you guys are some kind of gods?”

“Close, but yeah.”

I counted backward until I was calm enough to speak without hurling my notebook at his head. “Why are you such a douche?”

His brow shot up. “Me? I’m the nice one. You’re the… impossible one. One minute you’re thanking me for healing you, the next you’re yelling at me for doing it.”

“You marked me with your stupid runes,” I said through clenched teeth.

He pretended to think about it. “If I marked you, Freckles, I’d be under your skin. You wouldn’t think of anything or anyone but me twenty-four-seven.”