Page 41 of King Among the Dead

“Have you ever done this before?” she asked. “Brought someone home. Bought them clothes. Let them live with you. Shown them your library.”

He took a measured drag, and swallowed, throat clicking audibly. “No. Never.”

“What about Kay?”

“Kay is a different story entirely.”

“So why me? Why not – cut my throat and leave me in the pie safe?” Her voice trembled, not from fear, but from sadness. What if hehaddone that? What if she’d never had the chance to know him?

He set his glass down slowly. Crushed the last of his cigarette out in a crystal soap dish, and pushed off the counter. Crossed the few steps to get to her. Reached to cup the side of her head, fingers sliding through her hair. “Because I wanted to,” he said, simply, and slipped away to turn off the water.

The tub was full. A few last droplets plinked down from the faucet, sending ripples across the steaming surface.

Beck stripped off his shirt and let it fall. Held his hand out to her; hair ruffled, gaze bright, jaw still tight with fierce emotion. “Do you trust me?”

Completely. And that was all that mattered, really.

She placed her hand in his, and let him pull her to her feet. Met his gaze another long, fraught moment that left her skin buzzing. Tonight had changed – everything. No going back now, she knew. There was only forward.

He released her and turned away so they could undress. Quick, perfunctory. She knew without being told that this wasn’t a moment heatedlike that. He wasn’t going to pounce on her. Restraint still lingered in the way he carefully didn’t glance below her chin; in the chaste hand he offered to help her step over the tall rim of the tub. It should have felt strange and mortifying to be naked together, but like every other part of the night, it felt right. Fated, almost.

The water was hot as blood, she reflected, as she sank down into it. Hot as the blood she’d spilled tonight: across her toes, up the side of her face. Welcoming, soothing. Beck settled back against the rim and pulled her in between his legs; urged her back to lie with her head on his shoulder.

She stared up at the ceiling, the steady beat of his heart thumping against her shoulder blade, and the heat of the water slowly soothed her tense muscles; drained the chill from her fingers.

He rested his cheek against the top of her head, and she got to listen to his breathing slow by degrees; the way it went from harsh and open-mouthed to soft, then silent. She could feel his chest expanding, still, though, the press of his ribs against her spine. His hands moved across the surface of the water, displacing it with a quiet shush, and he gripped her shoulders lightly, his arms crossed over her body. Holding her.

She couldn’t ever remember feeling so at peace.

Between the heat of the water, and the heat of his body, she drifted. He was hard – she could feel that he was against the small of her back – because the night’s activities had excited him, but he didn’t grind against her, didn’t try to draw her attention to the fact. It was a simple state of being: he was hard. Just like they were naked, and in the bath together, the water slowly swirling with pink film across the top as the blood washed from their skin.

He’d told her to ask anything, and that he would answer. She said, “The portraits out there in your room.”

He took a breath and let it out slowly; it whispered through her hair.

“You aren’t Simon.” Technically, this wasn’t a question, but she was sure, now. She didn’t have to ask. “You’re Arthur.”

Another breath. “You’re right. I’m Arthur.”

In the pause that followed, she wondered if she’d have to ask; she knew it was rude, and none of her business besides, but they were naked, skin-to-skin, and she wanted them to be naked in another way.Intimacy. She’d never known it, and never thought to crave it until now.

But he said, “I was the black sheep of the family. Simon was the good one – the responsible one. He went to school, and took care of our parents in their waning years. He managed the finances, and invested widely; he kept the family afloat despite the havoc the Atmospheric Rift wreaked on society. The golden child. He was supposed to carry on the Becket name.

“And I was the fuckup. A junkie, and then a gangster. A hired killer.

“When Simon got sick–” His voice faded. A tremor stole through him, one that shivered into her. “He turned to vice. Quietly, elegantly, like he did all things – he wanted the pain to go away.

“The cancer would have killed him…but Castor got to him first.”

“Oh, Beck. I’m so sorry.”

His hold on her tightened; he drew her back against his chest, and he wasn’t hard now, not anymore. Wracked with tremors, his breath quick and sharp. “I assumed his identity so I could keep the house. So I could keep his good name alive, the way I couldn’t keep…” He let out a shaking breath. “I will kill every last one of Castor’s people. Clean him out root and branch, conduit or no.”

He panted against her neck for long moments, caught in the grip of old grief that felt fresh, and a fury that had his blunt nails digging into her shoulders. Rose kept still, letting it wash over him, and then slowly bleed out into the warm water, joining the real blood that scummed the surface.

Finally, he gave a deep sigh and pressed his face into her throat. She felt the hot wetness of tears on his lashes. “Oh, Rosie. I should apologize to you. I really should. I’m an awful man who’s done terrible things – but I saw you tonight.” His voice shifted to that velvet register that always left her breaking out in pleasurable goosebumps. His lips shifted up her throat to her ear, warm and damp. “You liked it, didn’t you? Youunderstandit.”

She thought of how easily the knife had slipped into the man. The salt of blood on her lips. “Yes.”

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