Page 24 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

‘Don’t,’ Kade warns him, scowling. ‘Just eat your steak.’

Lachlan rolls his eyes, but he eats regardless. The steaks are bloody.

‘So.’ Lachlan glances between them. ‘You understand about your bond thing now?’ he asks Kade, who takes a bite of his French toast, taste buds responding like sunflowers to sun.

‘More than I did before, yeah,’ Kade tells Lachlan.

‘Will you tell me?’

‘It’s called a Death Knot. It is what you said, a kind of bond between Riley and me. He’s been, uh…’ Kade glances at his boss, gets a nod of approval. ‘We can heal each other’s injuries.’

‘And share emotions, right?’

‘Why do you think that?’ Riley asks.

‘Because sometimes I see a little Julian Penhalyx in you, Harker.’ One steak is already gone. Kade’s never seen anyone eat so fast. ‘This is fucking fantastic, by the way. Outstanding.’

Riley is unreadable. ‘I had a hunch you liked it a certain way.’

Lachlan grins darkly. ‘Did you spit in it?’

‘The idea of my spit in your mouth is grotesque.’

‘That wasn’t a no,’ the former bodyguard chuckles, eating anyway. ‘So if you can share injuries, that’s why you didn’t mind hurting him, I guess.’

‘Correct.’

‘How does that even work? You take the internal portion of the injury? You halve it?’

‘I don’t know how it works, except that whichever of us gets the injury has the least healing to do.’

‘Why is it called a Death Knot?’

‘It’s a bargain made in death to stay.’

‘Explain it to me.’

‘No.’

‘I’ll tell you about my ritual if you do,’ Lachlan offers. ‘One for one.’

‘My interest was the book, not your ritual.’

‘So what happens if one of you dies?’

‘The death is transferred.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means,’ Riley says, ‘if you shoot him, I’ll die.’

Lachlan’s eyes narrow. ‘You’ve known about this the whole time?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘And you never told him?’

‘I couldn’t tell him.’