King Among the Dead - Lauren Gilley Page 0,54

cemetery, and one of a strange wooden figure of an animal – without a head.

“Thomas Cromwell had Saint Derfel himself removed from the church in Llandderfel, but the stag he sat astride remains there, installed on the church’s porch.

“Every saint has his own supposed miracles.” His voice went smoky. “Saint Derfel is said to be able to fetch damned souls back from hell.”

She shivered when she met his gaze. He was completely serious – and why shouldn’t he be? He’d seen a conduit in the flesh. Twice. One had killed his brother, she’d surmised. He believed that one of King Arthur’s knights had the power to journey into and back out of hell. She’d long since stopped questioning him, so she supposed she believed it, too.

“Anyone in particular you want to fetch?”

He glanced away, and when their gazes broke apart, she realized how much tension had swelled up between them, because it was suddenly gone. “No. No, I–” Grim smile. “I like to think Simon didn’t end up there. Supposing heaven’s better.” He tilted his head back and forth. “But it’s a way – it’s an entry point. I’ve been looking for those for years now. In case…” He closed the book, and set it off to the side. “Anyway,” he said, briskly, and she realized he was self-conscious. “I thought we’d try the shooting range today.”

~*~

Shooting, it turned out, was the easiest skill to master. It took practice, as did everything, but once she’d learned to allow for the recoil, had learned how to use each gun’s sights and account for each individual weapon’s accuracy, it wasn’t hard to shred the center out of a paper target, eject the mag, reload, and do it all over again.

Within two weeks, she’d become proficient with all the handguns in Beck’s arsenal.

“Which do you prefer?” he asked one afternoon, when she’d set the .45 aside and hooked her ear protection down around her neck. He was looking at the array of guns laid out on the table beside her, but lifted his head to fire an intensely curious look toward her. Her answer mattered to him, though she wasn’t sure he’d reveal how much so. “Gun or knife?”

Guns were lightweight, portable, and allowed a person to keep a distance between themselves and their attacker. There was far less risk of getting hit, or grabbed, or stabbed when wielding a gun, and it packed a punch that didn’t rely on a person’s physical strength. A gun was a tactical advantage for someone like Rose, and her answer should have been immediate.

It was immediate – but it wasn’t gun.

“Knife.”

He stilled for one brief moment, breath held, fingers splayed across the table. She watched his pupils expand. Then he nodded and turned away. “May I ask why?” So polite, to cover how delighted he was. She could tell, though. Could feel the glad shiver that wanted to ripple down his back.

Her own breath wanted to hitch and stall, the air shifting, sparking. It continued to amaze her how the atmosphere could change like that, bristle and crackle with tamped-down energy after just a look. The way a question could heighten her awareness of him to a level that was sweetly sharp – and that felt reciprocal.

“A knife…” How to say it. She wet her lips, gaze fixed on his profile, the dark sweep of his lashes against his cheeks. She’d only used a knife on a man once, but the memory lingered, fresh and heated, always ready to leap to the surface of her mind; always present in her fingers, and arms, and a faint, ghostly throbbing in the back of her head. One mention sent her back there, to the man gasping, and the blood splattering hot across her bare feet.

She swallowed and tried again, palms tingling, pulse throbbing. “When I used the knife, I knew that I was the one who’d stopped him. He was going to hurt you – and me. And he – he didn’t even expect it. He looked surprised, when I stabbed him.” She could hear the wonder in her voice, knew it showed on her face.

If he would only look at her…

And then he did, a slow turn of his head, hair falling half-across his face, eyes gleaming through the strands. His mouth was set in a tight line, but it wasn’t displeasure. She couldn’t pin down his emotion, but she knew it wasn’t bad. That he didn’t disapprove of her way of thinking.

“I knife is intimate,” he