She didn’t let that stall her.
She let it fuel every move.
Selene halted the breath of men. Spilled blood. Closed eyes forever. Tomorrow, she’d remember their faces. Today, she only felt the way her blade slid through skin. One day, she’d mourn the loss of her innocence.
At least she could say it was in defense of her people. These simple, wonderful Pereans.
Still, they lay hurt and dying. Entire livelihoods up in smoke.
And somewhere, above the smoke and dying, a shape circled inside the dimming glow of the sun—impossibly large, silent as grief.
Exhaustion ravaged her. She was little more than ripped muscles and burning lungs. Sweat slicked her skin. Frustrated screams bound inside her throat every time a man replaced one she’d just slain.
Selenewouldhold this line until reinforcements arrived. What choice did they have?
Tristan Thorne, through it all, hadn’t moved.
He watched.
He stood in spotless boots, with empty hands.
She cut down another man, then turned, breathless, straight into Thorne’s devouring gaze.
“You’re slowing,” he said, voice irritatingly calm.
“I’m fighting for my people. What are you doing?”
Cannon fire sounded from the bay.
Thorne perked his ear toward it. “I just love that sound, don’t you?”
Selene didn’t know when the cannons started firing, but realized she’d been hearing them for a while. Somewhere out there, Augustus was still fighting.
“You’re mad,” she snarled.
A thick brow kicked up. “Mad? Or patient?”
Sharp, resounding pain cracked across her cheek before she realized he’d swung, all knuckles and thick, gold rings.
She hit the ground, chest first, air ripping from her lungs in a torrent. One of her knives had skittered out of reach.
Vision blurred, and with trembling fingers, she gripped her one remaining knife. The cobblestone darkened around her, almost as if night was falling in the middle of the day.
A boot struck her in the ribs.
She rolled with the shot of pain, teeth clenched around a scream. She didn’t dare take a breath—not yet.
Thorne stood over her, wiping her blood from his rings with a white cloth. “You can end this any time.”
His focus slid across the ground, and Selene followed it to the nearest body.
Myron’s face was unrecognizable after a particularly brutal beating. His throat open and oozing.
A cry leapt from her chest and scraped past her raw throat.
Selene rolled to her knees and crawled toward Myron, finding his large, calloused hand still warm. Fat tears fell onto his bloodstained tunic.
“I’m so sorry,” she choked out.
