Page 81 of King Among the Dead

It was smoking, she saw first.Steaming. An indistinct, onyx shape that didn’t look human.

Rose stared at it, and became aware that the chanting had stopped. No one uttered a sound – but she could hear breathing. Ragged, and deep, but regular. Coming from the black shape at the foot of the statue.

“Rose–” Lance started. She felt him grab at her.

She ducked away and crossed to the shape. Circled it. Her heart wasracing. And she knew, she knew…

It was him. Naked, curled up on his side, arms and legs drawn in, flanks quivering, ribs heaving. She knew that skin, and those muscles; would have known the shape of him anywhere.

But his hair was wrong: still too long, and silken, gleaming in the candlelight, but jet black. And there was…something amidst it. Something hard, and solid.

A flicker of movement caught her eye down by his feet. She thought it was a snake at first, the way light glimmered on sleek, flat scales. But the head was not a head, but a sharp spade, and the flexing, coiling black length was…

A tail.

And in his hair, those were…horns.

“Beck,” she whispered.

His eyes snapped open, gold as before, butgleaming. His mouth opened, and his sharp canines were even sharper, and longer.

He struggled upright with a low, rumbling sound in his chest like he’d never made before. And the black, leathery shape around him was not a cloak, but wings.

They opened, and fanned. Nearly too wide for the room, sleek, and deadly, and hooked at the top.

Rose stared.

Lance whispered, “Whatthe fuck?”

Beck rubbed his eyes with black-tipped fingers. Yawned. Stretched. He tipped his head back, shook his hair off his shoulders – and, yes, those were horns, thick, and spiraled, curving back over his ears like a ram’s.

He opened his golden, lion eyes, and found her. His gaze cleared.

He smiled. “Rosie. Hello, sweetheart.”

He held out a hand to her.

And she placed her hand in his.

THE END

~*~

To Be Continued…

---