Page 71 of King Among the Dead

He did make a sound, then: a deep gasp.

Beck cut his throat, shoved him back, and he toppled off into the steam and was lost.

Another reared up to take his place, and another, coming at them from opposite sides.

Rose caught Beck’s gaze, one fast exchange, and felt her mouth curve to echo the tiny smile he gave her. Then they spun away from one another, backs together, blades raised.

The guards were strong – too strong for her to have fought them bare-handed. But she didn’t have to; they couldn’t catch her. She ducked swipes, dodged the muzzle of a gun, and struck. The give of skin, the hot rush of blood, and she was already moving, stabbing, striking, slashing. Blood spattered her neck, her face; she licked its saltiness off her lips.

Behind her: grunts, a curse, a gasp – none of them Beck’s. He fought silently, the only sound the rustle of his coat, and thesnickof his knife through fabric and flesh.

The first two guards fell, and were replaced by three more, four more.

The steam began to clear – but by then, there was no one left to face them. Rose looked up and over the ring of bodies that surrounded them, and saw the chaos of the factory: people running, shouting, hurrying. She spotted another member of the death squad, the man who’d poured the conduit’s blood into the vat. He had his gun in his hand, and he locked gazes with her, his eyes dark, his jaw clenched. He didn’t fire, though. She wondered why.

“Rosie,” Beck said. She heard him pull the pin on the smoke grenade he’d brought, and green smoke boiled up around them.

She sheathed her knives, covered her mouth and nose with one hand; gripped Beck’s hand with the other. Their palms slipped, both slick with blood. But his fingers were tight, and his footing sure as he headed back for the vent.

Behind her bloody hand, Rose was grinning like a loon.

TWENTY-TWO

“He’s dead.” Beck paused in the act of unlocking the back door, and turned to face her, the first time he’d made proper eye contact since they fled the warehouse property. The drive home – they’d left the Jag parked down a service street half a mile from the main driveway – had been silent, humming with a kind of giddy, positive tension. Beck hadn’t spoken, and she hadn’t dared to, afraid she’d do something as undignified as giggle. She wondered why anyone did drugs when it was possible to feel this high without them.

Beck shoved his hands – sticky now with dried blood – back through his hair, holding it off his face. The rain had stopped, and the cloud cover was patchy enough to give the moonlight a path to his face; it gleamed silver off his forehead, and his sharp cheekbones; dazzlingly bright in his eyes. “He’s dead.” He smiled at her – beamed, all his teeth showing ivory in the gloom, sharp canines winking. “Rosie, he’s dead. I killed him!”

She smiled back, so wide her face ached. “You did. You really did.”

He stared at her a moment with unabashed, boyish glee. Joy, triumph. Her heart swelled until she thought it might burst, seeing him like this, being a part of this moment with him.

Then his eyes shifted, head tilting a fraction, as hunger stole across his face. A bright spark of need that was almost violence – before he cupped her face, stepped in close, and kissed her.

It was filthy: his tongue pressing for entry straight off, hot and insistent, cracking her jaw wide. He bit at her lips – and she bit back. Gripped the front of his jacket and held him to her. Lifted her leg and hooked it around his hip, drawing his lower body into hers, hips to hips. He was already hard, straining at the fly of his tight jeans. She could smell the blood on his hands, feel its tackiness as he framed her face, urging her jaw even wider.

They rocked against one another, stumbling. Too many clothes, too much effort to get inside, and get naked, and get someplace horizontal. She needed him now, and she could feel how much he needed her, with the smell of the kill, and of victory, fresh on their skin.

Beck staggered back against the door, one of his hands gripping her waist, hauling her even closer. They couldn’t be too close.

“I need you,” he murmured between kisses, throaty, and honest, and broken. All of her insides clenched in response. “Rosie…”

She heard the lock click – he’d fumbled back to turn the key – and then the door swept open, and they stumbled across the threshold into the dark kitchen.

One of them, she wasn’t sure who, managed to kick the door shut, and they fumbled at one another until the edge of the island bit into her back – not as fiercely as his teeth latched into her throat.

“Ah!” She couldn’t stop the breathy cry that left her mouth; kicked her head back to give him better access. They were wet with rainwater, and blood, and sweat, fully clothed, strapped with knives – but it wasessentialright now that he be inside her. “Beck…”

He growled in response, and hoisted her up to sit on the countertop. They fumbled at each other’s clothes, fingers catching on buttons, and belts, sliding against sweat. But then, finally…

They both groaned when he sank inside her. That first breach, the hard stretch of it.

He set a fast pace. Sharp snaps of his hips as he held fast to hers, pulling her forward onto his cock, kissing and licking and breathing harshly at her throat. She gripped his shoulders, nails digging into the slick leather of his coat.

Orgasm hit her like a truck. A dazzle of spark and light and rippling waves of pleasure.

When she returned to herself, she was lying back across the counter, breathing in great gulps, pinned beneath Beck’s weight. He was still inside her, but softening, lips moving against her throat as he murmured endearments.

She raked her fingers through her hair. “I can’t believe we did it.”

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