Page 32 of King Among the Dead

With their eyes locked, there was no mistaking that he remembered; that he’d meant to call her that then, even in delirium, and that he meant to call her that now. He was conveyingsomething, strangely heated and vulnerable all at once.

She wet her lips, and started to respond, but the floor creaked, and then Kay was slipper-slapping back into the room with an injection ready.

Rose climbed off the bed, though his gaze stayed fixed on her: all through Kay’s administration of the shot, and her fussing – at him and with the covers. He stared at her until the drug finally claimed him, and his eyes fluttered shut.

Rosie.

TEN

Despite the regular administration of antibiotics, Beck’s fever worsened over the next forty-eight hours. “You see this with gut wounds,” Kay said, shaking her head; she sounded more resigned than grim, and definitely not worried. Rose supposed she worried enough for the both of them.

His face was hot and dry to the touch; he fidgeted under the blankets, murmuring and groaning in his sleep, nonsense words they couldn’t make out. He managed to swallow when Kay spooned a little broth into his mouth, but didn’t accept much before he turned his head away.

“Stubborn idiot,” Kay grumbled.

Rose sat up with him for two nights. Two rough nights.

The first, she was installed in a chair by his bed as the light faded, and rain came on in a steady tide that began at one end of the house and shifted across to cover the other, like someone drawing a blanket of clouds across the sky. She’d left the curtains open, and the last silver light limned Beck’s uneasy profile so that he seemed to glow.

“Why don’t you go on to bed, honey?” Kay suggested with true kindness. When Rose glanced toward her, she found her standing with one hand on the doorknob, looking like that was all that held her up. “I’ll set an alarm for the middle of the night and come check on him.”

Rose shook her head. “No, you go on. I’ll stay.”

Kay sighed, but she seemed to accept that Rose wasn’t going to be budged on this. No more gentle prodding or suggestion. She nodded. “Come get me if you need me.” And shuffled off down the hall, pulling the door to behind her.

The silence afterward was filled with the gentle drumming of the rain, and the unsteady rasp of Beck’s breathing.

Rose’s body was tired, and still sore from helping to wrestle Beck up the stairs and into bed, but her mind was unquiet, and she knew sleep wouldn’t come soon, if at all.

The silver light kissed his closed eyelids until they gleamed; highlighted the way his eyes moved beneath, restless dreams plaguing him.

His hand lay on the sheets in front of her, fingers curling every so often, little spasms that lifted his chest and arched his throat when he pressed his head back in the pillow. When the next one came, she reached to cover the back of his hand with hers.

He stilled. Coincidence? His spasm ending?

Or could he sense her there? Did she bring him real comfort?

Rosie.

Every king needs a queen.

She glanced toward the portraits on the wall, Beck and his brother. The last rays of slanted light fell upon the portrait of Arthur Augustus, leaving Simon in shadow. She knew that smirk, that tilt of the head, that gleam in the eyes.

She turned back to Beck, thumb stroking along the vein that ran blue just beneath his skin, threading between strong, scuffed knuckles. “You’re not Simon, are you?” she whispered. “You’re Arthur.”

He stirred; feet kicking under the blankets, mumbling something hoarse and indistinct.

Rose leaned in closer, and tightened her hand around his. “Beck? I’m here.”

His eyes cracked open, bright as polished brass from the fever. Kay was weaning him off the morphine, relying on Ibuprofen and Tylenol to battle the fever – but the meds could only contain it, and not kill it. He stared at her, bleary and exhausted and pained, but himself – a version of himself. Wounded, and vulnerable, and full of a pleading he never showed when he was well.

“Rosie?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” She lifted his hand and put her other beneath it, cradled his big palm and long fingers between her own. “I’m right here.”

His gaze shifted wildly side to side, tongue coming out to wet his lips. His breathing went quick and shallow. He was panicking.

“Beck.” She reached to brush a stray curl of hair off his forehead, and his other hand shot up; he latched onto her wrist, a bruising-tight grip that shocked a gasp from her.

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