To my annoyance, the man named Han leaned forward, too, and took a couple of exploratory sniffs. I clutched the sheet to my chin again, and made mean eyes at them both.
“Holy shit,” Han said, his eyes widening.
“Language!” I snapped.
He looked curious. “Pardon?”
“Your language. There’s no reason to be so rude,” I said, and returned to my plan of escape. Maybe if I screamed and banged on the wall, the person next to me would complain, and the manager or someone would come up to see what was going on.
“So you smell it, too?” the first man, whose name I gathered was Ciaran, asked his friend. “I wasn’t just imagining it? It’s pretty faint.”
“You didn’t imagine it.” Han leaned forward and sniffed again. “It’s not terribly strong, but it’s there. Holy everlasting shit. Who’d have thought?”
“Right, that’s it,” I said, standing up right there on the middle of the bed. With a dramatic flourish, I pointed to the door. “Out! I’ve had enough of you both! It’s bad enough that Giovanni, or that man who threw me into the car like I was a sack of groceries, or Carlo, or whoever hired you to kidnap me, has sent you in here to ogle my frontage and scatter profanities like they were wildflower seeds, but you needn’t be insulting, as well!”
“I never insulted your breasts,” Han said, giving them a considering look. “On the contrary, they’re quite nice. Merrick is a lucky man.”
“I don’t care what you—” I stopped, the words finally filtering through my brain. “Wait, what did you say?”
“Merrick is a lucky man.” He smiled and sat on the edge of the bed again, and patted the sheets. “Make yourself comfortable, sweetness. We have a few things to talk about.”
Slowly, I knelt down, wary of him. “Talk about what?” A horrible thought occurred to me. “You haven’t done anything to Merrick, have you? Because if you’ve hurt him—”
I didn’t let the thought finish. I threw myself forward onto Han, knocking him down off the bed again, but this time I went with him, slamming my fist into his nose at the same time I tried to knee him in the groin. My knee missed the mark, but my fist hit true, and I had the pleasure of seeing blood on his face.
“I swear by all that is holy if you’ve hurt him—” I got my hands into his hair with the intention of slamming his head on the floor when I was summarily yanked backward.
“That will be quite enough,” Ciaran snapped, jerking me against his body when I lunged forward, intent on beating the truth out of Han. “Stop fighting me, woman. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You ass,” I yelled, snarling with frustration, and struggling to get free of Ciaran’s hold on my arms. “He hurt Merrick. No one does that and gets away with it!”
“I haven’t hurt Merrick in decades, but that’s only because he refuses to box me since I broke his nose sometime in the 1930s.” Han sat up, touching a finger to one nostril that was leaking blood.
“I remember that match,” Ciaran said. “Didn’t he break your collarbone and three fingers?”
Han got slowly to his feet and waved away the idea with a bloody hand. “Possibly. I don’t remember the exact details. Luckily, our fiery little morsel of delight didn’tquitebreak my nose, although it hurts like hell.”
“I am not your fiery morsel of delight.” I almost spat the words at Han. “I’m Merrick’s morsel, and so help me, if you have done anything to him—”
“That’s three times she’s threatened you,” Ciaran told his friend.
“Shut it.”
“And knocked you down twice.”
“I said shut it.”
“And she got in a punch.” Ciaran released me and gave me a shove that had me stumbling backward to the bed, where I sat down suddenly. He gave me a little nod. “You ought to be proud of yourself, Red. It’s not many people who say they have bested a Horseman.”
“I wasn’t bested,” Han said with a roll of his eyes. “You think I can’t defend myself from a woman?”
“Hey,” I said, the anger that had blinded me with rage slowly fading. It was as if my brain had gone into a reboot mode, and now it was done and back to normal function. “Horseman? You’re one of the Four Horsemen?”
“Two of them, actually.” Han nodded toward Ciaran, who was going through a leather satchel that held Merrick’s clothing. “The fourth is on his way, although what he’s going to make of a Beloved, I don’t know.”
I sat up straight at that and stared openmouthed (I was doing a lot of that lately, but there was a lot to be stunned by during this past week). “You know I’m a Beloved?”
“Yes, we know.” Ciaran looked at Han, who was now in the bathroom dabbing at his nose with a wet washcloth. “What comes as news is that you are Merrick’s.”
