Page 74 of Close Quarter
"What do you want?" Rhys asked again.
Silas spoke the truth to the wind and sea and to Rhys. "Hope. A future. Not to care when the sun sets and rises. To be free of this pain. To stop seeing Isatis's lemur. Stop hearing his screams."
Rhys said nothing. Young, beautiful Rhys.
"You deserve so much better than I can give you." Silas gestured at the blood-strewn deck.
"Look at this. Look at my life. I'm...a shell.
Nothing but pain and hatred and blood."
"You're lying again." Rhys sat down next to him on the wooden trunk. "Or you really don't know yourself. One of the two."
Silas stared out at the dark ocean. A bit of both, most likely. He had been running for so very long. "I want to give you the world. There's so much you haven't seen, that you don't know." He exhaled. "A week in bed sounds like a fine place to begin."
"Yeah. Well, there's still the whole walking- off-the-boat bit before we can get to that."
"Quite." He didn't like saying the next words.
"You're right. I need to stay here."
Rhys didn't smile. He simply turned his head and kissed Silas. His lips and mouth were warm and tasted of rosemary and red wine. Tender and sweet.
It had been a very long time since anyone had kissed Silas so.
When Rhys drew back, more truth slipped free from Silas. "I love you."
This time Rhys did smile. "I know."
He didn't ask how and refused to ask if the feeling was mutual. Later. Later he would, if Anaxandros didn't kill him first. He clutched his side, though it wasn't his liver that hurt.
Rhys caught his chin again, brushed a thumb over his jaw. "Silas."
"You should find Vasil." His voice was as raspy as the ocean against the ship's hull. He pulled away. The burning in his throat was not from any wound.
"Te amo."
It took a moment for the words to register.
Gods, his pronunciation. They'd have to work on that. Then the meaning hit, and for the third time that night, he had trouble catching his breath.
"I mean it," Rhys said.
"You don't know 'quintus,' but you knowthat?"
Rhys shrugged and looked out at the ocean.
"There was a guy once who made me memorize 'I love you' in fifty different languages. Had me recite them when he fucked me."
Idiots. Self-absorbed plebeians, every single man who ever let Rhys go, who ever treated him with such disrespect. "Does he have a name?"
"No." Rhys's eyes were dark in the fluorescence of the ship deck. "You're not allowed to kill him." The corner of his mouth, though, was fighting against a smile.
"I won't kill him." Silas shifted. When he made it to New York, he'd start a different kind of hunt. "I'll only break a few of his fingers."
"No." The smile won. "Save the violence for the vampires." Rhys stood. "I'll go find Vasil."
"Take your coat," Silas said. Blood stained the side of Rhys's white shirt. "I can't glamour you when you're gone."
