The Reaping Read Online Free

hand.  But it turned pink. 
My hand was covered in blood.
A wave of fear washed over me, squeezing the air from my lungs, making it difficult to breathe.  I sat up quickly, my head spinning in rebellion.  The forest around me spun and swam.  I closed my eyes until the vertigo subsided then I slowly opened them again.
I held my hand out in front of me and examined it.  I didn’t see any cuts or scrapes, nothing to account for the blood on me or in the snow for that matter.  I straightened out my arm.  It was covered in blood, too. 
Then I looked down.
The pale yellow parka I was wearing was drenched in blood and torn to pieces.    My legs were stretched out in front of me and they were saturated as well, the denim shredded.  No wonder I was so cold. 
I scanned the ground in the clearing.  There was blood all around me—splatters and streaks, even puddles.  It was pooled between my legs.  When I saw what I was sitting in, I hurried to my feet.  What was left of my clothing was soaked with it.  I could feel the wet weight of it all over my back side, too.
I took stock of all my parts and was relieved that I seemed to be intact.  I checked for wounds elsewhere, but again I found none.  I waited for pain, but none came.  After that, only one thing was on my mind:  whose blood was it?
I looked left and right and, besides the blood, the snow was completely undisturbed.  There was not so much as a footprint impressed upon its perfect surface.  I’d have to question later how I’d gotten to where I was without leaving any trace of which direction I’d come.
I spun in a tight circle, looking around for the source of all that blood.  That’s when I saw him. 
I managed to stifle the scream that bubbled up in my throat.  I stood there, in the bloody snow, motionless, just staring at him.
My first thought was that he was dead.  And that I might have killed him.  My eyes scanned his long form in a quick once-over, looking for blood and injuries.  I didn’t see any.  Relief washed over me when I saw his wide chest rising and falling rhythmically.  He was alive.  Alive, but unconscious.
I doubted he was much older than me, maybe just over twenty, and he was clothed entirely in black leather.  Only his arms and head were bare.  I saw what looked like a black strip of leather lying beside his head.  I thought it might have once held the longish hair that was currently spread about his head in a dark halo.  Even in his present state, I could see that he was handsome and incredibly intimidating. 
Then a troubling thought occurred to me.  I looked at his big hands where they lay limp in the snow at his sides.  Hands like that could easily rip a girl my size to pieces.  There was no blood on them, but still…what if?
My eyes snapped back up to his face when I heard a low moan.  A frown pinched his thick brows together, but I could still see the dark crescent of his lashes as they rested on his sharp cheekbones.  I knew that if I had any chance of escaping whatever gruesome things had taken place here, I had to move fast.  Very fast.
Slowly, I stepped back with one foot, the snow crunching lightly under my weight.  The rise and fall of his chest stopped and I held my breath, praying that he wouldn’t awaken.  I waited what seemed like an eternity for him to start breathing again.  When he did and it looked unlikely that he would wake up, I stepped back with my other foot.  Then I stopped.  And waited.  And watched. 
Nothing.
Encouraged, I took another step back.  Then another.  When still there was no indication he was waking, I picked up the pace a little.  I kept my steps as light and soundless as possible.
When I’d successfully put nearly ten feet between myself and the stranger, I turned to navigate the trees.  I shifted sideways to slide between two laurels then stepped around a huge oak tree…and ran right into a wide chest covered in skin tight, black leather.
My breath caught