Free Shadows of Asphodel by Karen Kincy Page B

“You aren’t that tolerable.”
    Wendel laid his hand over his heart and pretended to wince. “A mortal wound to my pride.” His smile was devilish. “Nothing I could say would convince you that we should spend those three hours wisely?”
    “There’s nothing wise about it,” she said. “Reckless, maybe.”
    He stepped close enough to touch. “There’s no shame in recklessness.”
    “Wouldn’t I be disappointed?” she teased.
    “I very much doubt that.”
    “Oh? Aren’t you wounded?”
    Wendel leaned into the curve of Ardis’s neck and sighed. His lips brushed her skin and sent a jolt of lust through her blood.
    “Not too badly,” he murmured.
    She doubted that, logically, but it was hard to remain logical with him so close.
    “Liar,” she said, breathless. “You should stay. Recover your strength.”
    He met her gaze, his eyes sharp, the amusement gone from his face.
    “Ardis,” he said, “I can’t.”
    She leaned back to give herself room to breathe. “Why?”
    Wendel wouldn’t look her in the eye. He retreated from her with stiff shoulders, backed into the opposite corner of the platform, and leaned there in an artificially casual way. She edged closer to him, but not too close.
    In the distance, the skyline of Budapest grew closer against the clouds.
    Ardis looked sideways at him. “Why are you running from the Order? Konstantin called you one of their favorite minions.”
    “Minions?” Wendel laughed darkly. “That presumes they can control me.”
    She felt an ambiguous thrill slither through her belly. She had thought the necromancer worked willingly for the Order of the Asphodel, but then why would he want to leave his family forever as an eleven-year-old boy?
    “You want revenge,” she said.
    He arched his eyebrows. “Is it that obvious?”
    “I understand the feeling.”
    He studied her face for a moment, clearly judging how much he wanted to tell her. Then he shook his head, his mouth a thin line.
    “I doubt that,” he said.
    “Is this the first time you have disobeyed them?” she said.
    “No.” With a grimace, he rubbed his hand over his eyes like he wanted to erase everything he had seen. “Far from it. But never anything this serious. They always expect me to come crawling back like a whipped dog.”
    Ardis stared at his shaking hands, and she resisted the urge to hold them until he calmed.
    “You’re wrong,” she said. “I do understand.”
    “I’d rather not share my life story,” he said glibly.
    She ignored his sarcasm. “I’m an outlaw in America,” she said. “I’m wanted for the murder of a powerful man. He was so rich he thought I wouldn’t refuse him. I didn’t stick around to hear what the police thought.”
    Wendel’s eyebrows descended. “That was the first man you killed?”
    “Yes,” she said. “And I still escaped my past. I left it all behind.”
    “Did you?” he said, and he didn’t look convinced.
    Wendel slipped the black dagger from his coat pocket. He ran his thumb along the flat of the blade, then polished it on his sleeve.
    He spoke with a quiet intensity. “I worry only death will stop the Order.”
    Ardis wanted to tell him that killing was never the only way, but knew she would sound like so much of a hypocrite. She wished she weren’t a mercenary, and he weren’t a necromancer. She wished she could save him.
    “Wendel,” she said.
    He pressed his lips together. She rested her hand on his shoulder, but he retreated from her touch and returned Amarant to his pocket.
    “Let me help you,” she said.
    Wendel narrowed his eyes. “You think of yourself as a hero, don’t you?”
    “As if you are,” she said, blushing.
    His lips parted in a sneer. Wonderful. He thought she was being sanctimonious again.
    “Forgive me,” he said, “if I don’t believe in the redemptive power of love. It sounds too much like fairytales to me, and all the fairytales I ever heard ended badly.” He waved at himself. “Three hours.