Read Online Claimed (The Flash Gold Chronicles, #4) by Lindsay Buroker - Free Book Online Page A

“Or being mesmerized by the shiny sparks?”
    “I was musing that, if we get out of here without being eaten—” Cedar eyed a snake that had slithered closer, “—we might set a trap of our own.”
    “You think Cudgel will come out personally to deal with you?”
    “Probably not. He won’t even know it’s me, unless that girl’s mighty fine with her descriptive words.”
    “You don’t think Cudgel will know it’s you based on big, tall, and talks to himself and his guns?” Kali patted at her pockets, causing a few clinks and clanks, then pulled out a couple of fasteners of some kind.
    “That describes more bounty hunters than you’d think,” Cedar said. “It’s a lonely road. You can’t talk to the people you’re hunting, or they become a little too human in your mind, and the shooting and beheading gets hard. Gotta talk to something.”
    “Perhaps you could get a pet.”
    “As appealing as a dog or wolf can be, I’ve grown partial to this woman that’s been wandering around with me this last year.”
    “Well, she’s not that partial to the shooting and beheading and prefers being back in her workshop, if not her airship.” Kali glanced up from her work long enough to give him a quick smile. “You might talk her into getting you a cat for Christmas.”
    “A generous offer.” Even if Cedar couldn’t see himself sharing the trail with anything less fierce than a wolf or a big ugly dog. “Though I’ve been thinking... that when I finally get Cudgel, I might be ready to pursue a different career.”
    “Does the shooting and beheading bother you too?” she asked.
    Her tone was light, but he sensed that there was a seriousness beneath it. Like she wanted the answer to be yes. She had always been blunt that the work bothered her, even if she allowed that proven murderers deserved to be beheaded, and he had seen for himself how much it disturbed her when her inventions proved more powerful—more destructive —than she intended, and when they caused death.
    Cedar almost said yes in reply to her question, but wanted to be more honest than that. “What concerns me is that it doesn’t bother me much anymore. In the beginning, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done, looking into the eyes of a man pleading for his life and promising he would go straight and never cross the law again, and then shooting him in the heart. You knew they were lying most like, and even if they meant what they said, they’d already committed their crimes and the law is the law. But it was hard anyway. It was always easier to kill a man in a fight, in the heat of the moment. But to look him in the eyes...”
    “I can see where that’d be difficult,” Kali said.
    “Over the years, it got less difficult. In the beginning, you’re consciously trying to harden yourself, to distance yourself from those you hunt, but eventually it becomes a habit. And doing the job... it’s a mechanical act rather than one of... humanity.” Cedar set down the vial and stared across the pit, his senses still alert to the movements of the snakes, though he wasn’t focusing on them anymore. He was seeing the past, the men he’d hunted, the different terrains he’d stalked them across, the inevitable ends for all of them. “When I was younger, one of my mentors—the one who gave me the katana—told me that there’s a fine line between hunting criminals and becoming one of them. The easier it gets to kill, the harder it becomes to draw the line between when to do it and when not to, between a man who’s a stone-cold killer who deserves death and a man who picks a fight with you over cards. One dies as easily as another. One death is righteous in the eyes of the law and one turns you into the men you’ve been hunting.”
    Cedar pushed a hand through his hair. He was rambling, not explaining himself as well as he wished. Kali probably thought he was crazy. So long as he never put a doubt in her mind that would lead her to think she