The Gunslinger's Man (7 page)

The longing in his voice prompted Asher to ask, “What happened?”

“Ranch got shut down.”

“Your old pal Ambrose,” Blackjack put in with a snide little smile.

Asher bristled at the charge but struggled to keep a lid on his temper. He’d walked a fine line last night and somehow got away without a much-deserved thrashing. He didn’t want to tempt fate twice in as many days. “And the horses?”

“Sold,” said Charlie, “for the most part. Few of ’em weren’t fit to ride yet so…”

They couldn’t be put up for profit, Asher understood, so they had to be disposed of. Given the value in horseflesh, an order like that could only have come from Ambrose.

“Good on you for finding somewhere else to work,” Asher said tepidly, concealing a grimace behind his coffee cup.

“True enough, but cattle ain’t the same, you know? ’Course, I could be rustlin’ instead.” Charlie let his eyes linger on Blackjack. “Hear there’s all kinds of benefits to turning bandit…”

Though he must have felt the meaningful stare, Blackjack didn’t raise his gaze from the stain he was feverishly worrying on the steel barrel of his pistol.

“Maybe for some people,” Asher said. “Me, I’ve only ever been good at one thing—”

“Oh, yeah!” Charlie’s whole face lit up when he grinned. “You used to work in Howard Franklin’s shop. Wesley said so. Boy, how you didn’t go cross-eyed from fiddling with all them gears and pins…” He shook his head with what seemed like genuine astonishment.

“Howard’s my uncle. Didn’t really have a choice to learn the trade… I don’t suppose—that is, if it’s not too much trouble—that you could get him a message from me?”

Blackjack looked up, arching his brow.

“Just to tell him I’m all right,” Asher explained, annoyed that he had to justify himself at all. “So he won’t worry.”

“Sure,” Charlie answered. “I mean, if it’s okay with, uh…”

Blackjack paid him no heed. “Did you ask Halloran?” he asked of Asher.

He could lie. What were the odds the Riders would have discussed this among themselves? Asher tightened his grip around the chipped mug. “No, but—”

“Wait until he gets back.”

Asher scowled. “Don’t he have more important things to fret about?”

“You’ll wait,” Blackjack said with pointed emphasis, and went back to attending to his gun.

There was no relief in glowering at his bald, scarred head.

* * * *

The sky was a dark bruise by the time Halloran returned to the house. The clomping of horse hooves outside was the only warning Asher had before the front door was wrenched open. Halloran stepped through with his usual swagger. Dirt marred the toes of his black boots and his duster had been ripped at the shoulder.

The telltale signs of a brawl were replicated in his fellow blood-spattered Riders, who stalked in, chattering among themselves in low, angry voices.

“You don’t know what you missed, Blackjack,” said the only woman in the outfit.

Asher thought her name might be Maud, but he couldn’t swear to it. He was dimly aware of Blackjack volleying a reply, deadpan as always, but couldn’t tear his gaze from Halloran. His frown didn’t bode well. Asher had turned his request over and over in his mind all day. He bit it back now. “You forgot to lock me in before you left,” he muttered without rising from the rocking chair by the fire. Halloran’s chair. Halloran’s fire.

Halloran’s glare. “You think me forgetful?”

“Must be. Otherwise…” Asher shrugged with shammed indifference. Otherwise Halloran had deliberately granted him permission to roam around the house. Otherwise he wanted Asher to have a taste of freedom, knowing full well he’d be brought back kicking and screaming if he tried to take more than was on offer. “You look a mess,” Asher said instead, opting to change the subject rather than beat a horse already dead.

Halloran peered down at himself, as if only then noticing the state of his gear. “So I do.”

“Did you get into a brawl?”

He snorted and proceeded to peel off his duster with care. It was much too little, much too late. The sleeve was a bust and would have to be patched up. The boots could be cleaned, though, and Asher, who’d shined enough shoes for pocket money when he was a boy, winced to see them tossed haphazardly aside. Halloran wore socks underneath, which shouldn’t have been astonishing. What was surprising was the state of them—no holes, not even a stain.

A tidy bandit.
Asher sucked the corners of his mouth to hide a smile.

“You gotta hand it to him,” Nyle drawled, joining them in with a lit cigar in hand. “Ambrose may be a slick son of a bitch, but he knows how to do business.”

Asher’s blood went cold. “Ambrose?”

Most of the Riders had kept their distance while Asher had been tied up in the bedroom. The few times they’d had cause to venture upstairs, they’d ignored his pleas and generally treated him like he was part of the furniture. Not Nyle, though. If he’d been a dog, his tail would have been wagging at the attention.

“You didn’t think he threw that little bash in
your
honor, did you?” Nyle snorted, rolling his wide eyes. “Breather arrogance.”

“Nyle.” Halloran’s voice was a low warning.

Asher ignored it. “You mean to say…you all work for Ambrose?”

Of course they did. Why else would they have been granted the keys to Willowbranch and allowed to come and go as they pleased? Humans weren’t the only regimented species in Ambrose’s town.

Confirmation didn’t come from Halloran, whose lips were a thin line of displeasure and whose frown had deepened, but from Nyle. “You’re just getting that now?” He snorted. “Sure, if by work you mean culling his rivals, then yes. We work for him. Thanks to you…Señor Anarchist.”

Tension vibrating in him like steam through a copper chimney, Asher stood from the rocking chair.

A brief flicker of surprise manifested on Nyle’s smug face. It quickly gave way to a snicker.

No wonder—they thought Asher was a joke. Halloran didn’t see a need to cuff him anymore. He’d been convinced by Asher’s placidity. He probably believed Asher to be broken.

He wasn’t wrong.

An impotent display of anger was just about all Asher could give. Anything more and he’d be pounded into dirt.

Before he felt compelled to test that hypothesis, Asher rounded on his heel and made for the stairs.

“Asher.”

His name in Halloran’s mouth was as effective as a fishhook snagged in his throat. Asher stopped in his tracks.

Was it his imagination or did a hush fall over the room as the other Riders took notice of him at long last?

“I’ll want your blood tonight.” Halloran didn’t even bother shaping it into a request.

Asher gritted his teeth. “Lucky me…that you couldn’t find anyone better to abduct.” Powerless to refuse, he turned for the stairs. Once on the landing, he slammed the door behind him so hard it rattled its frame.

Though satisfying, the reverberating echo did little to quell his wrath. He could imagine Halloran taking offense and coming up to teach him a lesson.

Let him.
His back against the door, Asher slid down until his backside met the creaking hardwood boards, and put his head in his hands.

Chapter Eight

The telltale creak of footsteps on the landing sent a spike of adrenaline down Asher’s spine. He squeezed the pillow with both hands, determined not to give Halloran the satisfaction of seeing his panic.

If it was like the last time, it would be over as quickly as it began. Halloran wouldn’t stick around to mock him.

He was a different sort of monster to Octavian.

Closer now, the steps faltered outside Asher’s bedroom door.

What was he waiting for, a written invitation? Asher let out an exasperated breath, knowing full well that Halloran could hear him, wanting him to know this show of dithering wasn’t doing them any favors.

The hinges creaked.

Moonlight cast a new shadow over the bed, over Asher. The bruise on his neck, already dulled to a fast-fading brown, began to ache with phantom pain.

It hadn’t hurt so much the last time, but Asher hadn’t stepped on Halloran’s toes then. He kept as still as a dog playing dead. The mattress dipped, his heart threatening to leap out of his chest.

Just do it already.

If it hurt to have his throat ripped open, then it would hurt. Halloran wouldn’t kill him—Asher was mostly certain of that—because to do so would be to deny himself the pleasure of tormenting Asher further.

He tried to take comfort in that flimsy logic as he registered the touch of cold fingertips at his nape, astonishingly tentative. A shiver swept through him. He got the message. Pressing his face fully into the pillow beneath his head, Asher braced himself for what was to come.

He didn’t expect to feel Halloran’s fingertips travel to his jaw and bring him back to the way he had been—right cheek exposed, the corner of his quivering mouth visible. His treacherous eye open.

“Is it so bad?” Halloran asked, voice little more than a whisper.

“What do you think?” Asher snorted. “Why do you care?”

The answer, he would have thought, was simple. Halloran didn’t. Blackjack had called what he was doing to Charlie
supper
and while Charlie didn’t seem to mind it much, he was an exception. The few times Asher had been mauled, he’d felt the pull of abraded skin for days after. The sense of humiliation had lasted longer.

Halloran’s bite was no exception.

“You’re my property,” he said, eschewing both questions.

“Thanks for reminding me. As if I could forget, as if—”

“You’re my property,” Halloran repeated, harsher, “and I
care
if you are hurt.”

Liar.

Halloran could claim to own his body and control his movements, but until and unless Ambrose worked some of that black magic to rule Asher’s mind, his thoughts were his own. And in his thoughts, Halloran’s soft murmurs could be challenged and picked apart like the falsehoods they were.

He shivered when Halloran touched the two scars on his neck, one pinprick for each canine.

Halloran must have felt it too. He sighed. “I see.” He relented, though, and began to lower the coverlet instead.

On instinct, Asher seized hold of it with one cramping hand. He wasn’t naked this time, but a flimsy cotton shirt wouldn’t be much barrier against a vampire—or the effect he had on Asher.

Halloran huffed out an exasperated, gratuitous breath, and grabbed his wrist.

Asher had always been told he had stupidly large hands, ill-suited to the fine work Uncle Howard did in his workroom. There was something slightly comical about Halloran trying to envelop his big, clumsy fist within his rough grip and failing.

At least, it was amusing before moonlight caught on his ivory-white fangs and Asher forgot how to make his lungs work. His muscles locked with terror.

He was keenly aware of Halloran behind him, the thin bedspread doing little to disguise the unnatural chill of his body, of Halloran’s free hand just grazing his shoulder—of nothing at all, as Halloran pierced his flesh with sharp canines.

A muted gasp escaped Asher.

The sting of the bite was less painful than pricking himself with a sewing needle. The strange, not entirely unpleasant sensation of Halloran coaxing out his blood was harder to quantify.

Asher buried a whimper into the pillow, shaking as Halloran dragged his tongue over the small wound, greedily lapping up his blood. He felt drained by the sensation. He felt cocooned in warmth, which was perceptibly impossible. It was common knowledge that vampires ran cool.

It was also known that any human who didn’t find their bite repulsive was asking for it.

Asher tried in vain to tuck a knee against his chest to give himself some reprieve, but Halloran misjudged his fruitless wriggling as an attempt to shake him off. He pressed more pointedly into Asher, his barrel chest as heavy as ballast, weighing Asher’s rib cage down.

It should’ve hurt. At best, it should have worried him to have his breaths shortened and Halloran’s grip on his lax hand turn almost brutal.

Halloran wrenched his mouth away with a wet sound. “Would you stop—”

“I
can’t
,” Asher panted, at once angry and ashamed.

Whether uncomprehending or simply frustrated to have his meal interrupted, Halloran stilled against him. “Again?”

Asher’s face burned with mortification.

Why should it surprise him that Halloran had noticed it the first time? He’d probably told Nyle and they’d had a big guffaw about the whore upstairs. For all his scruples against screwing Madame Melva’s girls, Halloran seemed to have no compunction about using Asher.

The mattress dipped, the cool evening air slithering over Asher’s feverish back. For a moment, he thought he’d managed to put Halloran off and felt strangely bereft at the prospect. But Halloran didn’t go far. Sliding an arm around Asher’s chest, he tugged him back, their bodies aligning as he deprived Asher of even the minute friction he’d been able to enjoy against the sheets.

“What,” Asher started, only for his throat to clamp shut before he could say more.

Halloran wasn’t finished. The touch of his warm lips to Asher’s wrist sent a bolt of need deep into his belly.

Fuck.
Gripping the bedding only tided Asher over for so long. His cock arched away from his body, twitching with interest at every flick of Halloran’s lips. It was as if a wire connected wrist and erection.

Asher was too weak to deny himself for long. Guilt gnawed at him as he curled his free hand around his length. He was in bed with the man who had betrayed him, who had as good as murdered his friends. A monster. And he was coming within a handful of strokes, jerking in Halloran’s hold like trout on a line.

Halloran steadied him, his hand splayed over Asher’s heart. He could have reached in past the mess of bone and organs and plucked out the thudding muscle if he’d so wished. He could have done anything to Asher, and no one would call it unlawful.

What he chose, instead, was to release Asher’s hand and slip his arm free. The bedsprings creaked.