Free Shadows of Asphodel by Karen Kincy

“I wasn’t.”
    His laughter died. He regarded her with a piercing stare, but said nothing. Her mouth dried, and her words dried up with it.
    Why didn’t he say something? Why did he keep staring at her like that?
    “I would appreciate it,” he said in a low measured voice, “if you didn’t think of me like that. I have no use for your pity.”
    “Maybe I was sanctimonious,” she said, “but that wasn’t pity.”
    Curiosity flickered in Wendel’s eyes. He slid his thumb along the rim of his coffee cup, the muscles in his jaw tightening.
    “You made it very clear that you find me disgusting,” he said icily.
    “I did.” Her face warmed with shame. “But now I’m not sure what to think of you.”
    “Less disgusting, apparently?”
    Ardis glared at him. “It’s not that simple. You’re not that simple, necromancer.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “You say it like an insult.”
    “Wendel.”
    “You say that like an insult, too.” He managed a smile. “Maybe I was mistaken. But what should I think of you?”
    Behind his smile, she could sense his fear. She reached across the table, not caring that her hand was sweaty, and clasped her fingers around his. Her pulse raced, and adrenaline spiraled through her blood.
    She forced herself to look into his eyes. “Why don’t you find out?”
    Wendel’s surprise knocked the cool smile off his face. He stared at her with a look of raw interest that sent electricity down her spine. But she still saw the fear in his eyes, still felt it in the tenseness of his hand beneath hers.
    “Are you joking?” he said.
    “Are you?”
    Wendel narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. Ardis knew her hand would start shaking if she let go of him, so she didn’t.
    “What,” she said, “speechless?”
    “Give me a minute,” he said.
    The waiter returned and set a plate on the table with a thud. Wendel slid his hand from Ardis’s and picked up his knife and fork. He wouldn’t look at her, and there was some color in his pale face. Deliberately, he sliced a section of his omelet, then divided that into smaller sections. He stabbed the egg with his fork.
    “I don’t understand,” he said in an unreadable voice.
    “What?”
    “Many things.”
    Wendel ate his omelet at a maddeningly polite pace. She wondered if this was his way of tormenting her, of punishing her for being a fool. He had already told her not to touch him. Ardis stared into the dregs of her coffee, because suddenly she couldn’t find the courage to look into his eyes. Why had she been so bold?
    “Ardis.” Wendel pushed his chair from the table and stood. “I… I’m going. Out.”
    “Out?”
    He turned his back on her, and strode from the dining car to the platform between the cars. She hurried after him, though she didn’t know why she was so eager to meet her disappointment. She had made a mess of things.
    The cold wind was bracing. It prickled her eyes and whipped her hair.
    Wendel’s black hair streamed behind him, and he narrowed his eyes against the sun. He gripped the iron railing, his knuckles standing out in his hands, and leaned into the wind. When he spoke, his words were blown away.
    “I can’t hear you,” Ardis said. “What did you say?”
    He turned to her, and his face was at once open and closed, with a guarded fragile hope softening his eyes and his mouth.
    “Was I wrong?” he said.
    God, why was it so much more terrifying to face Wendel here than on the battlefield? There was something so incredibly disarming about him. He found a way through her defenses with a few well-placed words.
    Ardis didn’t know how to reply at first. But then she did.
    She closed the space between them with a swiftness that didn’t give her time to think, time to doubt herself. She traced his cheekbone with her fingertips, then curled her hand behind his neck and dragged him down to her.
    She kissed him.

Wendel froze, his pulse hammering beneath the heel of her palm, his body tense.
    A second