“Laugh,” he hissed as he crouched, ducking his head beneath mine. “Pretend I’ve told you a joke.”
I glared at him as a throbbing pulse beat through my bruised shoulder. “I doubt I’d find any joke of yours amusing.”
“Please.” Sweat beaded on his brow. He was breathing heavily and his eyes—the most gorgeous blue eyes I’d ever seen—were wide.
Perhaps it was those eyes that swayed me. They were every bit asmesmorizing—mesmerizing as the tunic. I did as he asked, although I found it quite difficult to force a sound of glee.
“That’syour laugh?” The boy gave me a baffled look. “You sound like a braying donkey.”
I scoffed. “Perhaps if you had an ounce of charm…”
“I’ve more than an ounce…”
“…or wit…”
“…I also have that…”
“…you’d hear a genuine laugh. But, at the moment, I’m annoyed. So I can either continue braying or…”
The boy dropped his gaze, giving my arm a frantic squeeze. “Continue laughing.Please.”
As I carried on with my strained guffaw, three armored men ran past us. Soldiers. One of them grunted, “I’m sure the wee bastard went this way.”
“He’ll stay in the alleys,” another said. “Easier for him to hide. If we turn here, we may be able to catch the blighter before he reaches the border.”
My forced laugh died as the soldiers turned down another street. “Are they looking for you?” I asked the boy.
He grinned and straightened. “Looking, yes. Finding, no. Not if I can help it.”
I stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Why are they hunting you?”
“I left my post.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to be in the army.” He shrugged.
“Perhaps you should have considered that before you joined.”
“I didn’t join. Or, rather, I didn’tchooseto.” The boy cleared his throat and ran a hand through his walnut-brown hair. “Humans have the freedom to choose their profession. Hybrids don’t.”
“You’re a hybrid?” I scoffed. This smug, lazy boy was so very much unlike Terrick, the only other hybrid I knew.
“I am. One of many. The army won’t even miss me.”
“If that were true, they wouldn’t be searching for you.”
“Well, they may miss myability.Certainly not me. I amnota skilled fighter.” He waggled his fingers in front of my face, as though offering his raw and blistered palm as evidence to his claim.
I’d gotten sores like that before too. When I first began mucking the goat pens, my hands had been ravaged by the coarsepitchfork handle. Terrick rubbed a salve on the lesions each evening, assuring me my skin would harden and I’d stop getting sores. He’d been right.
This boy clearly hadn’t learned that lesson. “Perhaps if you spent more time training and less time fleeing, you would not have such blisters,” I said.
“I’ve no wish to train. These are musician’s hands, you see. I’m developingcallises—callouses in the wrong places. Soon I’ll have difficulty playing the harp.”
“The harp?” I asked. At the time, I couldn’t picture what it was. In Swindon, some of the townspeople used flutes to carry a tune, but none possessed an instrument as grand as a harp.
“Have you never heard a harp being played?” the boy gasped.
