On the Edge

you’re honest. I like that you’re patient and kind to the boys and that you’ve watched over them. I didn’t like that you hung Emerson upside down on the tree and then scared me half to death.”

“I was frustrated,” he said. “You weren’t happy.”

He had made her a present and didn’t understand why she wasn’t thrilled. Just like Jack. “I appreciate the thought behind it. I still wish you hadn’t done it.”

William gave her a suspicious look.

“Once George and an older boy got into a fight. The older boy hit George in the mouth and knocked him off his feet. Jack decided to jump in. He beat the older boy very badly. Broke his nose and knocked out a tooth. He thought he was a hero. I grounded him for a week. If he had punched the boy and left it at that, I would’ve let it go. But he had done too much. Hanging Emerson off the tree was too much.” She sighed. “Believe it or not, Declan and I had this same discussion. I don’t want anyone to fight my battles for me. It’s my business, and I’d like to handle it myself.”

He considered it. “Fair enough.”

“I do have feelings for you,” she said. “Gratitude for trying to watch out for the boys and for checking on me when I’d lost my job. But they aren’t the same feelings as I have for Declan. When Declan’s gone, I miss him very badly. It’s like something isn’t quite right with the world.”

“I get it,” he said. “But what does that make you and me then?”

“We could be friends,” she said. “Friends make the world bearable. It’s an honor of sorts. Of all the people that a person knows, they pick you to be their friend, and you try to be worthy of that friendship. Or at least I try. I don’t really know you, but I feel we could become friends if we had more time.”

William’s face darkened.

“You can tell a lot about the person by the company they keep,” Rose said. “For example, you have a friend —Declan. You must be a glutton for punishment.”

William said nothing.

“He’s been trying very hard to find you,” she said. “That time when you were on the phone with me and I wouldn’t give it to him, he almost bit my head off.”

No response.

“What’s the deal with you and Declan?” she asked gently.

“We were in the Legion together,” he said. “Did he tell you that part?”

She nodded.

“It’s easy to be in the Legion.” His voice went dull and toneless. “They tell you when to get up, when to sleep, when to eat. What to wear. Who to kill. All you have to do is be where they tell you when they tell you and don’t ask questions. We were in for a long time. Most people don’t survive that long. He kept to himself, I kept to myself. We’d talk once in a while. Never said much, but he had my back and I had his. He dragged me out of a burning ship once and swam through the night until a cutter picked us up. I was out of it, a dead weight. I asked him why he did it, and he said because I’d do it for him. I thought he was like me, you see? A damaged twisted sonovabitch with no place to go.”

He looked up. His eyes were full of fury.

“Do you know he has a family? His parents love him. He has a mother, and she loves him. His father thinks the sun rises and sets on Declan’s word. They’re proud of him. He has a sister, and she loves him, too! I went to see them when I became a noble, and she hugged him. He stood there, and in my head I saw all the blood we spilled dripping from him, and I knew that they wouldn’t care. All this time I was thinking he was fucked up and alone like me, just hid it better. But no. The bastard could’ve left the Legion anytime and they would take him back and love him anyway. You tell me, what kind of a sonovabitch walks away from a family like that?”

She didn’t know what to say. “It isn’t his fault that he has a family, William,” she said finally.

“No. But I can’t forgive him for it. I have nothing. The clothes on my back? I stole them. What you see is everything I own. The Legion was everything I had, until they took it away from me. Even that Declan threw away.”

Rage emanated from him. William would kill Declan if he got his hands on him; she was sure of it. She had to steer him away from violence. “Declan didn’t want to leave the Legion. He doesn’t care for being a noble. He doesn’t want the responsibility. He did it to help you.”

“I didn’t ask him to do it,” William snarled.

“But he did it anyway,” Rose said. “I didn’t ask you to attack Emerson, but you did it anyway.”

“It’s not the same.”

“It is. Sometimes people try to help us even when we don’t want the help. What would you have done in his place, William?”

“I would’ve broken him out,” William said.

“And some people would’ve died in the process, you would be wanted criminals, and then Declan would be pissed off at you.”

William leaned back. A long growl reverberated in his throat.

“Why did you follow Casshorn out here?” she asked. “Because you knew Declan would come and you’d get a chance to fight him?”

“No. Once Casshorn ‘adopted’ me, he started hinting that he wanted Declan out of the way. I told him no. The thing between me and Declan would happen on my terms. It didn’t sit well with him. He gave me a house on the edge of some woods, made sure food was delivered to me, but other than that, he let me be. Then three weeks ago he invited me to come with him ‘on a little adventure.’ I declined. He smelled . . . odd. After he left, I went to his place and broke into his study. He had papers prepared blaming me for this entire mess in case things went sour. So I tracked him down, but he had too many hounds by the time I found him. He tried to hunt me, and I went into the Broken.”

“So you’re here for revenge?”

William shook his head. “No. What he’s doing is treason. I swore to protect the realm.” He looked at her. “There are rules I will never break. They’re in me too deep. Treason is unthinkable.”

“Declan’s here to enforce the rules as well. If the two of you murder each other now, Casshorn will win.”

William growled again, a purely animal sound of warning and contained aggression. Every hair on the back of her neck stood up.

Rose forced herself to sound calm. “Casshorn’s gone insane. He wants to eat the boys. I don’t want my brothers to die. I don’t want to die either. Is there any way you and Declan can act like adults and postpone your reckoning until we kill him?”

William gave her a wary look. His eyes had cooled to an almost normal light brown.

“You’ve waited this long. Surely you could wait a little longer. Please?”

He leaned back and sucked in the air through his nose. “All right.”

“Thank you.” Rose smiled.

William’s head snapped up. He bared his teeth, his eyes flashing amber.

A moment later she heard it, too, a thudding of horse’s hooves. A rider burst from around the curve: Declan atop Jeremiah’s dark horse.

Rose stared, speechless. He just had to show up right this second.

Declan brought the horse to an abrupt halt and dismounted in front of the house. “Hey, Will.”

William inhaled deeply. “Declan. How did you know?” “The boy called me.”

She whipped about and saw George’s face go white in the window when he saw her expression. Little fool.

Declan unbuckled his sheath and leaned it and the sword against a shrub. William pulled out a large bowie knife and thrust it into the porch. “You’re good?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

William blurred. He struck so fast, she failed to see it. Declan dodged and rammed his elbow into William’s ribs. William spun, snapping a kick. Declan jerked back, and they broke apart.

They clashed in a whirl of kicks and punches, too fast to follow, dancing across the grass, lethal and quick.