Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men #6) - Giana Darling Page 0,44
was still and portentous presence. “You felt for Cressida when King was gone. You hunted down Staff Sergeant Danner for her, for Zeus, so that she could be free of her burden and he could be free from prison.”
His mouth hardened, but the severity only made his handsomeness more palpable. “I understand revenge. I understand the concept of an eye for a fuckin’ eye.”
“You understand protecting the people you care about,” I rephrased, reaching up even when he flinched, to place my hand on his cheek, running my fingertips through is beard. “It’s why you spent the whole night out here.”
His lips pulled back over a snarl. “No one is gonna hurt you. No one is gonna fuckin’ touch you––” he cut himself off with a choked off curse in Gaelic.
“No one, but you,” I finished.
He stared at me suspiciously as if I was a mirror held up to his face and he didn’t trust the demons he saw lurking in his gaze. “No one, but me,” he finally agreed with a solemnity that felt like an oath sworn to God.
“Good,” I said casually, striving not to scare him away with the exuberance I felt in my chest, my heart a bouncy ball against the walls of my ribs. “Now, do you think you could teach me some of that fancy knife work? Just in case you can’t be there, I want to know how to defend myself.”
“It’s six in the morning,” he said flatly. “You should be in bed.”
“With you?” I asked hopefully, springing up to my toes so I could smile closer to his face, hoping to blind him with it so he might forget himself.
“No.”
I sighed dramatically. “Oh, fine. But I do want to learn. I suppose, if you don’t want to teach me, I could ask Wrath for help at Box N Burn…”
Instantly, I was in Priest’s arms again, his teeth over the hard pulse at my neck the way an animal might claim its mate. “No.”
“So, you’ll teach me,” I breathed as he bit down hard then licked the pain away with a long swipe of his tongue.
“I’ll teach you,” he confirmed reluctantly as he collared my throat with his hand and stroked over my pulse. “Because you are not weak. I’ll teach you to yield that knife I gave you properly and I’ll teach you to defend yourself usin’ just your mind and body. But you should know, from now on, there won’t be a time I’ll be absent when you need me. I may be more death than man, but I can still haunt you.”
I wasn’t sure, but as Priest turned to set up a trunk as a target closer for me to practice on and I watched his cool, efficient movements, I wondered if that wasn’t the most romantic thing anyone had ever said.
Bea
Eleven days, eleven body parts.
As if the arm wasn’t enough.
The killer placed them everywhere I couldn’t avoid going.
One day, at the mouth of the driveway to Zeus and Loulou’s house (sending Zeus and Priest into twin fits of rage, one hot with it, one cold).
The next, delivered to my lecture hall during my abnormal psychology class by a student who claimed someone paid him fifty bucks to get the gift-wrapped package to me.
One on the porch of my house, one at the library while I studied, another to the Entrance PD station while I was giving my statement to the police there, another to the parking lot of the Van PD station when I was there to give a separate telling of the events.
Body parts everywhere.
I didn’t open the packages anymore, but the cops asked me to identify the body parts through pictures when they interviewed me after each delivery. They tapped my phone, sent cops on routine routes by the Garro’s house, and informed the university of the situation.
Everywhere, people watched me, hoping to catch the killer.
In ten days, they’d come no closer.
Officer Hutchinson, a friend of The Fallen and one of the senior cops in Entrance, had told Zeus a profiler claimed the killer was most likely a middle-aged man who suffered socially, specifically with women, so he took out his aggression and repressed sexual desires on his female victims.
I’d researched murderers and psychopaths long enough in my studies and in my free time to know that the profiling was a template, one they applied to almost every serial killer before they garnered more details.
The police presence in my life did not make me feel safer.