Darkness Becomes Her by Jaime Rush Page B

his lids, fighting to open. She sat down in front of him and mirrored his posture.
    That got him to open his eyes. “What are you doing?”
    “I want to know how it feels to sit out here.”
    “It’s cold and uncomfortable.”
    Yeah, she got that, even with the coat on. “How long have you been out here?”
    “Since four.”
    Almost an hour. He shivered from time to time, but his voice gave away no hint of how cold he was. Magnus had told her, back at the carnival grounds, that his brother was unbalanced. Breaking into her apartment proved he was on the edge of crazy. It also showed his devotion to his brother. In the end, Lachlan hadn’t been so crazy after all. He’d seen a vision of the future, one that had come true.
    He was beautiful in the moonlight, shifting beyond humanity to a silvered demigod. That stirred her in a place she’d never felt before, drawing her to him, to the dangerous edge of him.
    An alarm beeped. He got stiffly to his feet and regarded her for a moment before holding out his hand to her. “Come on, go back to sleep.”
    As though he were beckoning her to his bed. A different kind of stirring now, lower, deeper.
    She let him pull her to her feet. “Are you going back to bed?”
    “No.”
    He walked in the other direction, to the back portion of the house. She remained there, watching him go into a door. Lights came on, revealing a long room with wooden floors and a mirrored wall at the rear, like a ballet studio. He walked into another room and out of sight. She took a few steps closer to the wall of windows, tucking herself behind a tree. A few minutes later he returned to the main room, wearing jersey pants but nothing else. He took a sword down from a wall that she could now see was covered with different types of weapons, mostly swords.
    He’d tied his hair back and shaved his beard. He didn’t look so rough or primitive with his face clean-shaven. His expression, though, was still fierce.
    He moved with deliberate grace, like tai chi with a sword, stretching his body at angles that pushed his ribs against his skin. His movements quickened as he warmed up, lunging, slashing, moving as one with the sword. She saw none of that weird electricity she’d seen during his fight with Russell. He was quite skilled without it.
    Oh, yes, he was beautiful in a fierce sort of way, and suddenly the coat seemed too heavy and warm. She started to pull it off but remembered she wore no shirt beneath it. She opened it down to the dip between her breasts, chilling the drops of perspiration gathered there.
    “You might as well come in out of the cold.”
    She looked up to find Lachlan in the doorway. “How did you know I was out here?”
    “I could feel you.”
    Whoa. She walked inside. “I can’t sleep. You don’t mind if I watch you . . . do whatever it is you’re doing?”
    “Practice, every day from five to six. Stay clear.” He pointed with his sword to the far corner. “Over there.”
    “Don’t worry about me. Pretend I’m not here.”
    He made a sound suspiciously like a grunt. “Then you’d better close your coat.”
    She jammed the edges together, her cheeks warming, and quickly changed the subject. “The bruises. Did I do those?” She walked up to him, taking a closer look at the ugly purple bruises on his shoulder.
    He looked at them. “You fight like a hellcat.”
    She couldn’t help herself, reaching out and gently touching the skin next to the bruised area.
    He flinched but didn’t move away. “Don’t touch me.”
    She met his gaze at the soft order. “Does it hurt?”
    “Yes.”
    Her fingers had barely grazed skin that had no bruising. She let her hand drop and walked to the place he’d indicated before.
    He faced an imaginary opponent, bringing his sword around. He pretended to meet his enemy’s sword, his blade pointing downward. Then, rotating the sword above his head, he delivered a fatal, slashing blow.
    The sword was black metal, with what looked like a