Dree clenched her fists around handfuls of Marie-Therese’s raven-black tresses as she fell backward, dragging Marie-Therese down to the floor with her.Yeah, we’ll see who looks Instagram-ready now, bitch.
Blast waves collided with her ears when Rogue Security blew the doors.
Screaming shattered the air.
Marie-Therese writhed, clawing and striking at Dree behind her head.
Dree wrapped her legs around Marie-Therese’s torso and wrenched her head back with her hair.
Marie-Therese shrieked again, her red lipstick smearing on her bared teeth.
A few shots blasted in the air.
Boots stomped the marble floor all around her.
Marie-Therese dug her nails into Dree’s arm, leaving red trenches.
Dree jammed her foot into Marie-Therese’s solar plexus with a strong heel-strike. Marie-Therese screamed and cried, but she let go of Dree’s arm.
Wussy little noble lady,Dree thought as she wrestled Marie-Therese around.She’s probably never been in a proper playground fistfight, let alone a good ol’-fashioned, hair-pullin’ ass-whuppin’ with several siblings.Marie-Therese tried to bite her, so Dree yanked her hair again.
Marie-Therese flailed and half-managed to roll over, so Dree pushed her over onto her stomach and straddled her, shoving her face down on the cold marble floor.
Dree yelled at her, “Call them off! Call your goons off!”
“No! Guards, shoot nnn—”
Dree pulled Marie-Therese’s hair, lifting her head, and then slammed her face back down on the hard marble. “I said call them off!”
“Not my face!Not my face!”Marie-Therese screamed.“Fine!Back off!Stand down!”
The fighting quieted.
Dree had fistfuls of Marie-Therese’s hair snarled around her fingers, but she could see out of the corners of her eyes that the Rogue Security guys were standing over her, pointing their guns outward at the crowd and the other mercenaries.
Maxence shoved people aside and reached her. “Dree!” He grabbed her around her waist, picking her up, and she shook Marie-Therese’s hair out of her fingers as the other woman squalled. “Are you all right? Jesus,are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Dree told him, and then something went wrong with her lungs or her throat because she couldn’t breathe.
Her sundress was still pristine-white. She hadn’t been shot.
She was entirely fine except for some scratches that would need to be irrigated because human fingernails were filthy.
And yet—
Choking.
She pointed to her throat.
Maxence checked her over briskly with an efficiency that would make a nurse proud. “I can’t find any wounds. Show me.”
Dree tried to suck in air, but her throat seemed to collapse further.
Max said,“Oh!Calm,calm.”His arms tightened under her legs and behind her shoulders. He pressed his lips to her temple, her cheek, and her lips.
Dree’s throat opened, and she gasped air.
And then she yelled at him, “Did youseethose jerks? What thehellwas going on here? Marie-Therese tried to killyouandmeandeveryone in this room,and dammit, that’scrazy!”
