Chapter 4 · Keep Me Alive

"You stabbed me, Mara. Start explaining before I decide the wound is the least of your problems."

Riven Hale had one hand around her wrist and the other pressed against the knife buried under his ribs. Blood ran between his fingers, black in the broken streetlight.

Mara tried to twist free. His grip tightened.

"Let go."

"You first."

"You have a blade in your chest. You are not in a position to make demands."

His gray eyes dropped to the knife, then lifted back to hers. He looked pale, furious, and annoyingly alive.

"Funny," he said. "I was about to say the same thing."

Behind him, an ash-covered corpse slammed into the overturned carriage. Its jaw cracked open. Gray dust spilled from its mouth.

Mara yanked against Riven's grip. "Those things are moving again."

"I noticed."

"Then stop holding me."

"Not until you tell me who sent you."

The corpse hit the carriage a second time. Metal screamed. Another body dragged itself over the wreckage, leaving a pale smear across the road.

Mara looked at Riven's hand. His fingers were locked around her wrist like iron bands. His blood had soaked into her glove. Under the leather, a hot line burned across her skin.

"Take your hand off me," she said. "Or I break your fingers."

"Try it."

She drove her knee toward his injured side.

Riven caught her leg before it landed. His shoulder slammed into a brick wall, but he kept her pinned between his body and the stones. His breath brushed her cheek. It smelled like blood and bitter herbs.

"You fight dirty," he murmured.

"You hired yourself out to the Night Court. What did you expect? Manners?"

His expression changed at the title. Just a twitch near his mouth. Small, but Mara saw it.

"You know who I am."

"Everyone in Veycross knows who you are. Riven Hale. Night Court hound. Curse-enforcer. Collector of debts."

"You left out murderer."

"I was saving that for the end."

The nearest corpse climbed onto the carriage roof. Its head snapped toward them.

Riven shoved Mara down as a blackened arm swung through the space where her throat had been. The corpse's nails scraped sparks from the wall.

Mara hit the ground hard. Riven came down over her, one knee between her hips, his injured side hanging close enough for her knife to feel every shift of his body.

"Move," she hissed.

"Still giving orders?"

"Still bleeding?"

"Still breathing."

The corpse lunged. Riven rolled away, grabbed Mara by the back of her coat, and hauled her behind the carriage. The dead thing crashed into the stones.

Mara pulled her second blade and cut at Riven's hand.

He jerked back just in time. The edge shaved a strip from his glove.

"You almost took my fingers."

"You almost took my head."

"I saved your head."

"You put me on the ground."

"That was tactical."

"That was insulting."

"Good. You can still talk."

The corpse crawled over the carriage, its joints bending the wrong way. Three more bodies staggered out of the alley. Their clothes marked them as city guards, but their faces had gone hard and gray, as if someone had packed ash beneath their skin.

Riven reached for the knife in his ribs.

Mara caught his wrist. "Don't pull it out."

"You suddenly care?"

"No. I care about not getting sprayed with whatever is leaking out of you."

"That is almost sweet."

"Pull the blade and I will make sure you die before they reach us."

His gaze held hers for one sharp second. Close. Too close. His thumb rested against the inside of her wrist, right over her pulse.

Then he smiled without humor.

"There you are," he said. "The famous Mara Voss. All teeth when cornered."

"And you are all arrogance when stabbed."

"I have practice."

"With being stabbed or being stupid?"

The corpse on the carriage roof dropped toward them.

Riven kicked the wreckage aside. Mara moved with him, shoulder to shoulder. He drew a short black sword from beneath his coat. The weapon had no shine. It swallowed the weak light around it.

"Left," he said.

"I don't take orders from you."

"Then take the corpse on your left."

Mara spun. The first ash-walker reached for her. She ducked under its arm and drove her blade into the soft place beneath its jaw. The body jerked. Instead of blood, a cloud of hot gray powder burst across her face.

She coughed and stumbled.

"Mara!"

Riven's voice cracked across the street.

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "I'm fine."

"You are covered in ash."

"Thank you for the update."

He cut down the guard behind her. The black sword passed through its chest, and the corpse folded into itself with a dry snap.

A third ash-walker rushed Riven from the side.

Mara saw it before he did.

She shoved him out of the way.

The corpse's claw struck her instead, tearing through her coat and raking across her upper arm. Pain flashed hot and clean. Mara hit one knee.

Riven turned.

For one second, the hard control left his face.

His eyes widened. His mouth opened like he had forgotten what to say.

Then he moved.

He seized the corpse by the throat and drove it into the carriage so hard the wheels jumped. The black sword punched through its skull. Ash burst across his coat.

"Get up," he said.

Mara pressed her palm over the cut. "You are welcome."

"I did not ask you to take that hit."

"You were busy being surprised."

"I was not surprised."

"Your face disagrees."

Riven crossed the space between them. He grabbed her elbow and pulled her upright. His fingers went around her arm, careful this time. Too careful.

Mara saw the fear he tried to bury under anger.

It vanished fast, but not fast enough.

She leaned closer. "Were you scared?"

His grip stopped moving.

"Of what?"

"Losing me."

"I don't know you."

"That wasn't an answer."

"It was the only one you are getting."

"Then stop looking at my blood like it offended you."

His jaw tightened. He glanced at the tear in her coat. The cut was shallow, but ash clung to the edges.

"That mark came from one of the infected."

"I noticed that too. You are very helpful tonight."

"If the ash got into the wound—"

"I said I'm fine."

"You do not know that."

"Neither do you. Yet you keep talking."

A low scraping sound came from the alley.

More bodies were coming.

Riven looked past her. "We have to move."

"You have to move. I have a contract to finish."

"Your contract was to kill me."

"Yes."

"And now?"

Mara looked at the knife still lodged under his ribs. The black veins spreading from the wound had reached his collarbone. His skin looked gray around them.

"Now I take you alive," she said. "The bounty pays more if I deliver your head attached."

"That is not how the bounty works."

"Then you should have read the terms before becoming wanted."