Page 73 of Close Quarter
"What did you do?"
"I beat it in the head until it let you go." Rhys looked at his hands. "I think I broke its skull."
"You think..." There were little flecks of brain matter on the deck. Words fled Silas. Once more, Rhys had injured Anaxandros when he couldn't even lay a finger on the soulless.
"I didn't kill it...destroy it. Whatever. It went back the way it came, up the steps." Rhys stood, wiped his hands on his pants, and held one out to Silas. "I thought about following, but I couldn't leave you bleeding like that."
He hated the tremble in his limbs and the malaise in his body, but losing that much blood was one of the few injuries he couldn't heal quickly. He grasped Rhys's hand and climbed to his feet. It was far harder than he wanted to admit.
Every inch of his flesh felt battered. The ship lights seemed to dim and brighten, and the world felt more tenuous than he liked. If Rhyshadfollowed Anaxandros, he wouldn't even be standing now.
On the teak planks of the deck, his sword lay in a large puddle of blood.
"We should find Vasil. Ash will blow away.
But this?" Rain at sea wasn't something he relished, but just this once, it would have been nice. Stars studded the achingly clear sky.
"I should find Vasil," Rhys said. "You should stay here and hide the blood. Glamour up some caution tape or something."
If only it were that easy. He ignored Rhys and walked over to retrieve his gladius. Or rather, he tried. After a few steps, he collapsed into Rhys's arms. Agony traced like lightning in his veins.
"When will you fucking listen to me?" Rhys dragged him over to a wooden chest set against the bulkhead.
LIFE JACKETS, the sign read. "God, Silas. That thing had its hand in your side. That's not something you just walk away from."
"Says the human."
Rhys gripped his chin and forced Silas to look up into his face. His bloody and sticky fingers smelled like iron. "Says the quarter-fae who has more than a little bit of your memories."
Rhys's grip was like iron too, for Silas couldn't turn away.
"I don't want to die," Rhys said. "I don't want you to die either."
Unease stirred in Silas, like a forgotten memory triggered by a smell or a song. "I have no plans to die."
"You could have fooled me."
Silas grabbed Rhys's arm and struggled to push him away. It was rather like fighting against a mountain. "This isn't the time or the place to have this argument."
"Yeah, well. Here we are." Rhys let go and straightened. "What do you want, Silas?"
Not the question he'd expected. "I... What do you mean?"
Rhys looked down the ship deck, toward the stern of the ship, his profile strong, proud. "My life was chaos when I got on this boat. No idea what I wanted, what I was going to do when I got home.
God, there are a thousand people clamoring to take my money and run. Funny how being hunted by vampires changes your worldview." Rhys licked his lips. "I want to walk off this boat in New York with you. Then spend a week in bed, preferably fucking you. Then I'm going to tell those thousand people to go screw themselves."
"After that?" The rapid rate of Silas's heart had nothing at all to do with his injuries.
Rhys turned to face Silas. "I don't know. It gets kind of fuzzy after that. Something about spending the rest of my life with you."
Silas leaned his head against the bulkhead.
"You hardly--"
"I know you better than anyone else in this world." He paused and added, "And you know me."
There was no defense against the truth. Oh, he cast about to find some lie to throw in front of Rhys's words but found nothing. Fate had thrown them together, Quarter and fae. He knew Rhys.
