Page 23 of King Among the Dead

But she could. Twisted around and ducked under his arm as he staggered forward. He was heavier than he looked – all long bones and hard muscle – and her knees threatened to give beneath the sudden weight, but she managed to help him forward into the kitchen, and kick the door shut behind them.

“You shouldn’t – I’ll be fine…” Each sentence trailed off into nothing, his speech alarmingly slurred. His body, where it pressed alongside hers, felt too cold, nothing like the usual shocking heat of his hand when it covered hers.

“I’m helping you,” she said, firmly, adrenaline and fear bleeding into a useful kind of anger. “So shut up.”

He breathed out a sound that was half laugh and half groan, but he stopped protesting.

She got him to the table, and managed to get him perched on the edge of it. The knobby soles of his boots caught in the grout lines on the floor, and she had a feeling that was all that kept his legs from sliding out from under him. He curled forward at the waist, holding his side again, hunched and protective.

The lights were much brighter here, in the center of the room; bright enough to cook with. “Beck?” Rose pushed his hair back from his face, tucked the icy wet strands behind his ears, took his face in her hands. He wasfreezing. His lips were chapped and faintly blue, his eyes glassy. His swallowed with an audible click; she felt his jaw work beneath her palms. “What happened? Where are you hurt?”

“It’s fine,” he huffed between labored breaths. “Just a scratch.”

“Liar.” She slid her hands down to his throat, alarmed by the unsteady flutter of his pulse. “You’ve lost too much blood.” And clearly, his hand wasn’t doing anything to staunch the flow.

She took the collar of his jacket in both hands and peeled it back; started trying to wrestle it off his shoulders. She’d had fantasies about this jacket; vague at first, but then proper ones after her talk with Kay. Had thought of it cool and smooth against her bare skin. But now, she could only spare the thought that it was surprisingly soft for leather that spent so much time in the rain. He must take great care of it.

He grunted.

“We have to take it off. I have to get a look at where you’re bleeding.”

“I can…manage…by myself,” he croaked, teeth chattering.

“Yes, you look like you can,” she muttered. “Here, off it comes.”

He gave a low growl of discontent, or maybe of warning – one she didn’t heed – but he dropped his arms and let her shove the jacket down them and help him pull them through; his limbs were heavy, unwieldy, like he was having trouble controlling them.

Fear was a buzz under her skin; a staccato beat in her ears and throat.

Without the jacket concealing it, the shiny patch on his shirt glistened in the lamplight. She could see the difference in texture that gave evidence of blood running down his hip and leg, staining his pants, already dry: he’d been bleeding a while.

Ordinarily, she would have danced around him, breathless just from daring to skim her fingertips along his arm. But panic drove her now – he was hurt, was maybe even dying, a possibility shecould notconsider – and so she took the hem of his shirt in her hands and peeled it all the way up to his chest.

He hissed when the fabric pulled away from the wound.

“Sorry, sorry.”

It wasn’t a large wound, but it was deep, and fresh, red-black blood still welled from it and trickled down his side. When he breathed, it shifted, and she caught a glimpse of white subdermal fat – and a glimpse of white bone, his anatomy lessons supplying her with that horrifying knowledge.

“God,” she breathed. “Beck…”

His hand gripped her arm, and she lifted her face to meet his gaze; her own was glazed with tears, she had to blink to see him clearly.

He lookedwhite. His voice shook, but he managed to string together a sentence. “Sweetheart, it’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.” Managed toreassureher, or at least try. “Go upstairs and get Kay. Tell her to bring the kit.”

Her eyes and throat burned. He couldn’t die; she wouldn’tlethim. “I have to stop the bleeding.”

She left him perched on the table, prayed he didn’t fall down to the floor, and rushed across the kitchen to pull a clean hand towel from the drawer.

“Rose,” he said when she returned, and pressed the cloth to the wound – pressed tight enough that he hissed again. You had to put pressure on the bleed, she knew. Had to force it to stop. “I don’t want you…to see me like this.”

“Shut up,” she commanded. “Just shut up and don’t die. I’m going to get Kay.”

“Go get me for what?”

Rose turned and saw the woman standing in the doorway, in her own robe and slippers, her gray hair in its curlers, and could have sobbed with relief. “He’s hurt. He’s lost so much blood.”

The only sign of shock Kay offered was a quick jump of her brows. “Hellfire and damnation, boy,” she said on a sigh, coming into the room, slippers slapping on the tile. “What’d you do this time?” She waved Rose aside, and Rose moved, but only a step, hand still pressing the towel to the wound.

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