and dangerous.
He drew up beside her, muscles standing stark in his bare arms, chest heaving, sheened with sweat in the deep V of his shirt collar. “I told you to stay.” It didn’t strike her as a reprimand, not exactly. “Rose.”
She offered her knife to him, handle-first, surprised to see that her hands weren’t shaking. No part of her was, save her lungs, trembling and quaking as she fought for breath, as she stared at him.
He reached out, cupped her hand with his own – and put it back on the knife handle; tightened her fingers around it. Held her gaze; touched the tip of his tongue to his top lip, considering. Measuring her. Took a slow breath and said, “A true hunter finishes what she started.” Then he glanced down at the man she’d stabbed, inviting her to look, too, with a tilt of his head.
The man was fading, losing strength and coherency, but he would linger a while longer with a gut wound like that. Beck had made it all the way home with one, after all.
This man had none of Beck’s steel resolve, though. His white-rimmed gaze flickered back and forth between them, lips quivering as he breathed in short bursts through his mouth.
“Who sent you?” Beck asked.
The man shrank down into the collar of his jacket, shaking all over. Blood puddled on the floor between his legs.
“Who,” Beck’s voice went silky-soft, low like the rasp of a knife across leather, “sent you?”
The man gulped a few times. “T-t-tony.”
“As I suspected.”
“He said – he said you were hurt. He said you were half-dead.”
“He was wrong. He usually is.” He squeezed Rose’s hand, made sure she had a solid grip on the knife, then released her so he could crouch down beside the man. He rested his forearms on his thighs, head tilted like a curious bird. “Tell me about his conduit.”
The word sent a spike of mixed emotions through Rose: warring dread and curiosity.
Somehow, the man’s face went whiter. His breath hitched. “I don’t–”
With an almost casual movement, a flex of his wrist, Beck twirled his knife and drove it into the meat of the man’s thigh.
He screamed. Kicked his head back against the cabinet face and fumbled for his own knife.
“Rosie,” Beck said, and he didn’t have to instruct her.
She stepped forward and kicked the man’s knife away. It skittered across the tile and got lost beneath a cabinet.
Beck kept his hand lightly on the handle of his knife. “Now,” he said pleasantly. “Tell me about Tony’s conduit.”
No hesitation this time, save the quavering breath, the unsteady voice, the shocky twitches of the man’s lips as he struggled to form coherent sentences. “I don’t…he’s new. I never…never met him…before. Some guy named…Dan…Daniel.”
“What miracles has he performed?”
“He cut – cut a guy in half – just looking at him.”
“Hmm.” Beck drummed his fingers on the knife handle. “You’re sure you don’t know where he came from?”
“No. I swear!”
Beck nodded. Then he looked up at Rose. Crooked his finger. “Come here, sweetheart.”
She crouched down beside him; had to straddle one of the man’s legs to do it, but she wanted to be close to Beck. Close enough for their arms to brush. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body, the way sweat had sharpened the usual cedar scent of him.
“Here.” He reached to trace a line across the man’s throat with one fingertip. The man quailed beneath the touch, but didn’t retreat – couldn’t retreat, caught between the two of them and the cabinets.
The two of them. The concept bloomed like a flower in her mind; a burst of loveliness and color that left her belly warm.
“Draw the knife here.” He pulled his hand back, and turned to her. “Hard pressure. It’s more difficult than it looks.” His gaze searched her face, sparking, wild, barely-leashed. “Don’t be afraid. I’m right here.”
“I’m not afraid.”
He smiled – wide, wider than ever, his teeth flashing. “No, you’re not, are you? Go on, then. Finish your kill.”
The skin was tough, and the angle meant she had to apply more force than if she’d been behind her prey, but the knife was sharp, and it was easier than she’d thought – easier than he’d made it out to be. As easy as putting the blade into the man’s belly, she drew it across his throat, and opened him up.
She wasn’t counting on the arterial spray. The man had already lost so much that it wasn’t as forceful as it could