To Best the Boys(27)

Lute slows, then drops his hand from my back and flips around just as I reach out to shove us both into the nearest wall. He crowds in, facing me, and uses his back like a shield to hide us from the dull, glowing eye sockets we both know are accompanying that sound.

The clicking turns into the long, low moan of a ghoul’s telltale cry, and Lute’s body freezes with my own. The thing is searching for us. The light from some street oil lantern must’ve glinted off us and drawn it in.

I shut my eyelids to make us harder to find and begin to count my heartbeats to keep my nerves focused. Except the salt-breeze infusing Lute’s heated skin and hair fills my head and lungs, and pretty soon the scent is making my head spin. Because I’m suddenly aware of his heartbeat picking up beneath chest muscles that’ve been honed from years at sea.

My own heartpulse quickens to match his until I can’t distinguish between them. Just like his soft breath that’s so close it’s tangling with my inhale.

I open my eyes and peek up.

His gaze is locked onto mine.

I stall. The flicker in his expression isn’t scared—it’s conflicted. He looks as if a weather system he wasn’t prepared for just appeared, and he’s trying to decide how thunderous it’ll get before handling it.

I open my mouth and his gaze drops to my lips, then promptly retreats to my eyes. Where it stays.

Until the look expands into something more. Something bewildered and rattled and captivated.

The three men’s voices heighten and I jerk as the ghoul’s moan suddenly alters. The ruffians must hear it because they erupt in shouts and their footsteps pick up pace, but this time heading away from us.

Neither Lute nor I move as we listen to the grotesque moaning just before the sound stutters and veers in the direction of the men’s boots hitting the stone cobbles. The sick sulfuric smell dissipates as quickly as it came. Lute’s arms relax against mine, and the next second he drops them and steps away so quick it’s like I’ve scalded him.

“You okay?” he asks.

I nod and try to catch my breath that for some reason has thinned. “My cheek’ll bruise, nothing more.”

Lute makes a choice comment about having a “chat” with Booth tomorrow, then, as if remembering the company he’s in, closes his mouth and scrutinizes me. He rubs a hand through his hair. “You sure?”

I shrug and start to assure him that yes, I’m perfectly fine, but his unsettling gaze fastens so tight onto mine it occurs to me he’s not just asking about the run-in with those men. He’s asking if in the midst of everything surrounding tonight, I’m honestly all right.

My mind darts to the pub, the drunks, the ghoul. Then to my aunt’s house—with Germaine and Vincent. My throat tightens. A flicker of nausea emerges with the uncomfortable realization that, for whatever reason, I’ve felt safer down here in the midst of a riotous pub and sinister alleys than I did up there. I’ve felt safer being with him.

I swallow and I don’t know how to answer him because all I can think of is how foreign but also pleasant that feels. So I just say, “I’m fine. Are you?” Without waiting for a reply, I add, “You know ghouls don’t actually eat people. They just cut open their chest cavities in search of souls.”

His brow goes up and he stares at me with an unreadable expression. Suddenly his dimpled mouth twitches into a puckered smile. “I . . . did not know that.”

And because I’m not finished making a fool of myself yet, I nod. “They’re looking for a home.”

He clears his throat and keeps eyeing me, but thankfully his expression recedes before I can wax more on the nightlife of ghouls or say anything about how anatomically perfect his lips look right now. He stops rubbing the back of his head and turns, and when he pulls his hand away there’s blood on his fingers.

I frown. “Lute—”

He glances at it and shakes his head. “It happened a few days ago—from a hook on the boat. Must’ve got bumped at the pub and reopened. I’ll be fine. Let’s just get you home.”

“I can get myself there. You go take care of that and your family.” I point at the blood on his palm.

“My family’s fine, but your da would never forgive me for letting you walk home alone in this.” He indicates the fog.

My da.

He’s walking me home for my parents’ sakes.

That realization shouldn’t prick, but it does. I should appreciate his thoughtfulness, but instead a mad desire flashes through me. I can’t help wishing he was walking me home for his own enjoyment. For whatever it was I saw on his face back there against the wall, when he stood closer than any man has stood with me and offered up his breath and space and protective body without requiring anything in return. My neck grows warm and I shove away the strange desire that brings. You’re just tired, Rhen. Get a move on.

Before he can see the blush on my face, I pivot toward home—but the side of my shoe brushes against something firm beneath the mist swirling around my knees. I glance down and an uncouth word tumbles from my lips.

Lute follows my reaction to the ground where a body is splayed out beside me, barely visible through the fog.

A dead body.

What the? I reach down.

“Rhen, wait.” Lute grabs my sleeve and points to the man’s eyes, which are wide open, staring up at us.