28 #2
I shutter my eyes, lightheaded as I imagine the Bloodrot rearing its head at the scent of death, keen to diffuse through my veins.
I shouldn’t have done it. I know that. What other choice did I have though?
I can taste Slade’s fury on the air. Can see from the manic gleam in his eyes that he was itching to take his anger out on someone.
He would have made the man suffer. He would have made it slow.
Death, I think, is only respite when it comes swiftly.
Slade sidesteps the mess, arching a brow. “I hadn’t realized you planned to kill him.”
“Didn’t you?” I fire back, trying not to betray my distress. “We couldn’t have left him alive. He’d sell us out the moment we stepped foot off this boat.”
“I’m well aware. I just didn’t think you’d be the one to do it.”
“It’s my job to do this kind of thing.”
“It’s also a sin,” he points out slyly.
I cant my head to one side, meeting his level gaze. “And I’m a sinner.”
Sparing the sailor from suffering, though, isn’t the only reason I executed him.
I wanted Slade to see me kill someone. Sure, he knows what I did for Gabriel, but knowing it and seeing it are two different things.
I’m tired of feeling like a fragile liability.
I’m tired of being saved by him. I may not have his strength, his invincibility, his power, but when it comes to the things we’re willing to do, I want to show Slade I can match him beat for beat.
Still, I’m too much of a coward to yank up my sleeves and inspect the marks on my arms. I don’t want to see what they look like. Especially not here, with Slade privy to my reaction.
Mercifully, the sailor got us close to the dock on the opposite riverbank.
“We should be able to jump,” I say. A few agents patrol the nearby shore, which is mostly shrouded by trees. That, too, is good. Ample places to hide. “We’ll just have to wait until nobody’s looking.”
Slade doesn’t reply. He’s procured a length of rope and is occupied with knotting one end around the dead sailor’s ankles.
The other end is looped around an unidentifiable crate sitting at the edge of the room—cargo to be delivered, most likely.
He’s already stripped the man of his Regiment uniform.
Finally he drags the body out of the cabin, the crate scraping on the floor behind him.
“Really?” I ask dryly, following.
His gaze flashes to the shore, then back to me.
Thankfully the cabin blocks us from view of the patrolling agents, because the next moment he heaves both sailor and crate over the side of the boat and into the dark waters.
There’s a sickening splash as they sink beneath the surface.
Slade mimes dusting off his hands, his smile a twisted, self-satisfied thing. “I think they call that teamwork.”
“Those bodies won’t stay down there forever,” I object. “Flesh breaks down, gases build up—”
“They’ll stay for long enough.” Before I can say another word, Slade reaches down to yank his shirt over his head, baring his scarred, tattooed chest to the cool air.
It snatches the breath from my lungs. After last night, he no longer looks untouchable.
Whether it’s true or not, he now looks like something I can sink my nails into.
And I want that.
I shouldn’t, especially after he attacked me, but I do.
The worst part is that he’s aware of it.
I can tell from the way his chin lowers that he sees the hunger in my gaze.
He’s retrieved the dead sailor’s uniform from where he tossed it aside, but he doesn’t don it just yet.
Teeth flash. “I’ve never seen a woman look quite so conflicted. ”
“Just put the shirt on,” I snap.
He doesn’t. Instead, he steps closer, and my shiver has nothing to do with the cold spray of water that breaches the side of the boat.
He comes to a halt when we’re inches apart.
“My lovely little liar. Do try a bit harder to control your expression, won’t you?
I hate to think how you’ll react when I have to change trousers. ”
I scowl. “Just pretend I’m not here.”
“That’s difficult when you’re looking at me like you want to lick—”
I’m not about to let him finish that thought.
“You know what I want?” Now I’m the one who steps closer, my torso nearly brushing his.
It feels like stepping in the path of an electric current.
I lift a finger as if to trace his skin, then jab him hard in the chest instead.
Satisfaction flares when his shoulders flex inward.
“I want to take a knife to every line of your stupid, perfect body. I want to carve my name into your skin, watch you heal, then do it again and again. I want to see your face contort in pain the way it did when I shot you. I want to make you bleed. That is what I want.” I let my arm drop. “Understood?”
I don’t know what I expected. Disgust, perhaps, or disbelief. What I don’t expect is for Slade’s gaze to heat, the silver ring in his nose glinting as he cants his head to the side. He looks as though he’s just made an astonishing discovery, and one that pleases him immensely.
A single, resounding question fills my mind: Is he into that?
We need to get off this boat. I can’t keep standing here—not with him looking at me like that. I don’t trust either of us.
Slade breaks the spell first, exhaling through his nose. “I’d better finish changing. And then, little liar, we’re going to the Reaches.”