Rian suddenly bursts out of the corner and slams into him, and the arrow the man lets loose zips by my head to lodge into the wall.
I come up, tossing back my hair, my chest fucking pounding. I glance at the arrow that nearly skewered me.
“You’re welcome,” Rian prompts, and then immediately launches himself at the next sentinel. His hands are bound, but he manages to use his body weight to knock the man to the floor.It’s so tight in the kitchen that they slam into the water barrel. It topples over, sending suds everywhere, dirty tankards clattering all over the floor.
One of the dishwashers loses his balance and slams into the table corner with a sickening crack.
And then, all hell breaks loose.
Gaez comes at me with a sentinel’s shield, slamming into my chest so hard my breath shoots from my lungs. I crumple forward, clutching my middle, and he raises the shield to slam the edge on my neck.
I shoot forward before he can, striking him in his gut, knocking him back.
We both collapse to the back room floor, grappling for the nearest weapon.
Behind me, Folke and Rian are taking the four sentinels in the kitchen. The other dishwasher is gone—probably ran out to get more reinforcements, which means the clock is ticking. We can take five men, maybe. But not a dozen.
“Folke, stop the fucking dishwasher, he’s getting away!” I shout.
Folke slams his elbow into a sentinel’s face, then disappears into the alley, the door swinging behind him.
“Brother, catch,” Rian calls, and I look up in time to see a rolling pin hurtling my way.
I grab it and immediately bring it down on the back of Gaez’s head.
He gags and slumps forward, stunned, but only for a second.
“Don’t call me that,” I snap at Rian, pushing to my feet and raising the pin again. Gaez pushes groggily to his knees, and I slam it down on his head again. “I’m not your fucking brother.”
Rian, a knife between his shackled fists, swipes it down toward one of the sentinels as he scoffs, “I’ve called you that for years.”
Gaez still struggles to get back to his knees, and I slam my boot on his back, knocking him prone on the kitchen floor, pinning him there with my weight while I toss the rolling pin aside and reach for a sword from his weapons cache.
I swing it in an arc as one of the sentinels rushes me, slicing him across the chest.
“Yeah, a brother you’d muzzle, right?” I say to Rian. “Chain like a hunting dog?”
Rian knees a sentinel in the gut, and when he straightens, gives me a quizzical look. “What the fuck are you on about?”
“That’s what you said to Captain Tatarin,” I spit, and bring down the blunt end of my sword on another sentinel’s head, all the while Gaez struggling to get free under my boot. I shove him down harder, shaking with fury—but I realize it isn’t for him.
It’s forRian.
“She warned me about you. Captain Tatarin. How you planned vengeance on the man you considered a brother. You said you’d muzzle me, wasn’t that the word? Chain me? Break me like a dog?”
The truth slams into me.
Thisis why I’ve been so furious.
For what Rian did to Sabine, yes. But for what he did to me, too. The gut-punch that Rian had already stopped seeing me as his brother long before all this. That maybe henever had.
“Captain Tatarin…?” Rian stares at me in confusion, but it doesn’t last long. A sentinel hurls a tankard at his head, and he ducks just in time, then grabs a bucket handle and swings the wooden bucket into the man’s ear.
“You fucking idiot,” he cries, eyes widening in realization. “I wasn’t talking aboutyou!”
The air halts in my lungs, and I have to forcefully drag in a breath. Gaez gets a hand free and slams a fist into my boot, but I bring down the sword next to his neck.
I can’t kill him—we need him for the fae to pardon—but I’m getting tired of this dragged-out bullshit.
