The Orphan Collector の小説・ストーリー

The black ink from the Moonstone had traveled up my wrist, mapping my veins in dark, bruised lines that reached all the way to my shoulder. "You look terrible, child," Nazim said. He dipped a finger into the bowl of scarlet feathers and began to stir. The sound was like dry husks grinding together. "The Orphan gift is a parasite. It doesn't use your energy. It uses your history. Every time you flare that red light, you lose a piece of who you were." "Shut up," I rasped. My voice sounded deeper, edged with a growl that wasn't mine.

A silent banker dealing in the currency of things unsaid. Its gaze is always on us. On me. On Arthur. It wants the big one. The motherlode. The secret of the Graft. The memory that holds the weight of a erased multiverse. I can feel its hunger, a cold, patient vacuum. It doesn’t want to expose it. It wants to consume it. To make it part of its own silent, powerful being. And if it does? If it pulls that thread? The Harvester’s work unravels. The tags come off. Every universe remembers. And the Collector… it would come back. For us. For its compromised specimen.

It was a digital copy of a private investigator file, compiled by a man named Marcus Vance, a fixer hired by Fenrir Vane’s wealthy family. There were attached photos, taken through the pouring rain just minutes ago outside our building. The first set showed my pale face looking out the window of the private team car. The second captured the exact moment Orion’s massive body frame guided me into the private elevator, his hand gripping my hip with a heavy, possessive force that looked entirely unnatural for a captain protecting a normal Beta teammate. I scrolled down, my hands shaking so hard I almost dropped the phone. Beneath the photos were old, yellowed papers stamped with the official sea

The collector smiled. "You misunderstand." His eyes gleamed. "There were hundreds once." Drift crossed his arms. "So?" "This is the last one." The room went quiet. Even Drift understood that. Not because it was sacred. Because it was rare. The collector smiled again. That same awful smile. The smile of a man collecting pieces of something dying. Like mounting heads on a wall. Nero hated him instantly. The ride home was quiet for a long time. Drift broke first. "Still got paid."

“It’s so good to see you again, my dear.” I growled. I knew that voice. My heart hammered in my chest and I strained against the chains. That voice belonged to ex-High Councilor Oran. We had found out his involvement with the BloodHunter Coven after we had eradicated the coven. It turns out, he had his hand in a lot of bloody things. He was an elder and as such, Oran was on the top of my list to kill.

] [STATUS: HARVEST OPTIMAL. A massive, bone-white claw reached down from the Collector vessel, hooking into the zenith of the dome with a sound like a world being buried alive.

As Cali went out of the office, her phone chimed in her purse. She took it out to find out that Horace was calling her. He was also an orphan and they both lived in the same orphanage. An involuntary smile spread across her lips. And she picked up his call almost immediately. She forgot about all her troubles and pain in her life for a moment. It was always like this when it was him. He was like a loving brother that she never had.

I tried moving towards the other end of the fence and pressed my ear against the cold, metal. "You want to escape." "We know how you can escape." "It's her soul." "He has her." "Escape!" I pulled back abruptly in clear shock. All those voices were mixed up together. Repeating those words again and again. As if talking to me. That's crazy. Nobody knew how much I wanted to escape. More importantly, what was this place? Who were those people crowded at the shoreline? What were those voices? "The Underworld." "He trapped you here. All for himself!"

One Blackridge wolf didn’t move fast enough and the thing tore him apart before anyone could reach him. Theo shouted something I couldn’t hear properly over the screaming below. The First Queen spoke quietly beside me. “That’s a collector.” I looked at her sharply. “A what?” “The Hollow creates them when too many souls break free from containment.” Her gaze stayed fixed on the battlefield. “They gather what escapes.” My stomach twisted violently. “You mean the dead wolves.” “Yes.” Another scream echoed through the city as the collector slammed a corpse through the side of a ruined building before turning toward the living wolves again.

--The End-- A/N: We have reached the end of the Debt Collector. Thank you so much for reading you guys! I love you all so much <3 <3 <3. Please check out my other completed stories My boss is clueless and The Bad Boy's Problem (Nate and Amelia's story).