Apprentice in Death (In Death 43)

Eve looked down at Richard Troy’s body, at the blood seeping from more than a dozen wounds.

“I did that, and I’d do it again.”

“Because you’re a killer.”

“Because he was a monster.”

“Who says you get to choose and I don’t? People hurt my father, now they’re dead.”

“Your father’s a selfish, twisted son of a bitch.”

Willow smiled again. “Yours, too, but my father loves me. He taught me, helped make me what I am. So did yours.”

“I made me what I am, despite him. How did she hurt your father?” Eve pointed at the dead girl in red.

“I didn’t like her. Show-off. The kind who thinks they’re better than me. Like you do. When I’m done, I’ll come back for you.”

“When I’m done, you little freak, you’ll live in a concrete cage. You and your old man.”

Willow threw back her head and laughed. “You’d kill me if you could, because that’s who you are. But you won’t find me. I listened to my father, bitch. I learned, I worked, and I’m not finished. Before I’m done, I’ll check off every name on my list, then I’ll kill everyone you care about. I’ll save you for last.”

Willow raised her assault rifle. Eve drew her weapon.

“And then,” Willow said.

They fired together.

Eve woke with a jolt, Roarke’s arms around her.

“Shh, baby, it’s all right. Just a dream.”

“She said we’re the same, but we’re not. We’re not the same.”

“All right now. You’re cold. Let me light the fire.”

But she wrapped around him. “We’re not the same. Sick bastard fathers don’t make us the same. But she won’t stop and neither will I. What does that mean?”

“It means she’s as sick as her father. It means you’ll do your job. You’ll do whatever you can to protect others, even while you stand for the dead, for those she’s killed. Not the same, darling Eve. Opposites.”

“We could have been the same. We could have.” She pressed her face into his shoulder, a shoulder that was always there when she needed it most. “How much is you?” She drew back, framed his face with her hands. Even in the dark she could see the w

ild, wonderful blue of his eyes. “I love you.”

“A ghrá.” He kissed her softly. “My only.”

“I love you,” she said again, pouring herself into the kiss. “You saved me.”

“Each other.” He laid her back, covered her with his body. “We saved each other.”

She needed him, the tangible act of loving. Mouth on mouth, hands on flesh, heart beating to heart.

Not the cold, the dark, not the ugly pulse of red light and blood black against white. But warmth and beauty and passion, and all the brilliance he’d brought to her life simply by loving her.

Whatever she’d been, whatever she’d become, she was more because he loved her.

So strong, he thought, and so vulnerable. The two aspects of her in constant conflict. But that pull and tug made her what she was. And what she was, here and now, was his. Only his.

So he soothed her with long, gentle strokes. And aroused her with depthless kisses. And took the gift of her for himself, saturated himself in the feel of those long limbs, those tough muscles under soft skin.