Kodiak hears it before I do. He is already up, reaching for his pistol, naked as the day he was born. “Ask who it is,” he hisses from the threshold between bedroom and washroom. I slip into my night-robe and tie it shut, fingers clumsy.
“Who is it?” I press my ear to the door.
“It’s me. Byron. From the front desk.”
Mercy me. He has a name.
“At this early hour? What is it you seek?”
“Please, my apologies, Madame. I just spoke to a detective. I would not trouble you were it not urgent.”
For pity’s sake. I glance at Kodiak in the shadows.
“Hell no,” he rasps.
But what’s happened? What do the detectives know? Perhaps he has information we might need. My hand goes to the lock. I ought not. And yet. The metal turns under my thumb.
I open the door and Kodiak sighs, retreating back into shadow.
Byron smiles too wide. “Princess,” he whispers. “A watchman found me and summoned the police. I told them a great brute forced me at gunpoint to open the vault, then fled with the lot. I never breathed a word of you. Not one.”
Relief loosens my chest, though what is the urgent matter he spoke of? “You have been discreet, Mr. Byron. For that, I thank you.”
He pushes closer, and I stumble back a step. “I could have spoken your name, and by morning every paper in the city would print it. Yet I held my tongue for you because you’re here, all alone. Vulnerable.” His fingers brush my sleeve as he steps closer. “Surely you might recognize my devotion.”
I draw back, spine stiff. He’s here for his reward. To trade his silence for my bed. “You mistake the matter, sir.”
He catches at my sleeve, boldness rising. “Only a token,” he pleads. “A kiss, for my silence. For all I’ve suffered this evening on your behalf, you owe me that much.”
“Release me at once.”
“Princess, please. Just one kiss.”
His hands grip my waist, and though he asks for a kiss, his fingers press against the knot of my robe. He forces me back until my legs touch the bed. I jerk my arm free, heat flashing my cheeks. My pulse races, not for me, but for the danger I know lurks in the dark. For the unbridled violence Byron invites upon himself that I’ll soon witness.
He presses closer, breath hot at my temple, hands rising to my breasts. “Princess, after all I risked for you. Please, do not be cruel to?—”
The door clicks shut behind him. He pauses at the sound.
“I got cruel for you waitin’ in this hand,” Kodiak growls.
Byron jolts and spins around. Kodiak stands in the gloom, pistol set aside, hunting knife glinting in his fist, broad, naked, and menacing. His chest heaves with quiet rage.
Byron reels back, attention flicking between Kodiak, me, and the door—latch, hallway, escape. “That voice,” he croaks. Recognition floods his face pale.
“Evenin’, Byron, think the Princess told you to leave her be.”
“Itisyou. Good God…you’re the outlaw.” He turns to face me, the pieces settling together into the puzzle. His brow furrows at me, seemingly betrayed, as though I’d owed him honesty. “Both of you. The detective will know. I’ll tell him. I’ll—” His gaze skitters down Kodiak’s body and snags there. “Y-you’re naked.”
Kodiak takes a step closer, then another, the knife catching lamplight. His voice drops to a lethal hush. “Puttin’ hands on what’s mine is the wrong move to end a life on.”
He cowers back. “Oh hell.” Byron bolts for the door with a ragged shriek.
Kodiak is already moving. He drives a shoulder into Byron’s ribs, grabs his legs, lifts, then slams him to the floor. Byron hits hard, the breath jumping out of him. Before he can draw it back, Kodiak is astride him, thighs like iron cable. His manhood hangs heavy as the knife hovers at Byron’s throat. The violence and flesh together is a grisly sight, and yet I cannot look away.
“Please,” Byron gasps.
“Bear,” I beg. “Don’t hurt him.”
