“Why did you come after us alone?” Thor asks the question. It’s a reasonable one. We should be overrun with Vikar if the jarl has found us.
“We took the chip out,” I add. I want him to know that I endured the removal, that I am stronger than he thinks.
“You think I am stupid enough to not know a tracker chip can be removed?”
I look into Drako’s eyes and I feel a magnetism that should not exist between us. How dare he be arrogant now? He just lost. He is alone and he is caught and he is among enemies. He should be shitting himself.
“You seem pretty fucking stupid to me,” I say. “You look pretty fucking stupid right now too, tied up like a fucking dumb animal.” I kick him in the ribs, then I take the survival knife I used to make the snare and I crouch down, holding it to Drako’s neck. The bloodied man laughs with what sounds like a kind of sick glee.
“Are you going to cut me, pretty little wench? Fuck me first. Let me die like a warrior.”
I seethe with loathing.
“You’re going to die like a trussed rabbit. I’m going to stick you like one. And then I’m going to cut you up like one, and I’m going to cook you over the fire.”
“You’ve a little cannibal,” Drako says, looking at Thor. “Good luck with that. Once creatures like these get a taste of flesh, they don’t go back.”
I press the blade to his neck. I am going to do this slowly, because that is what he deserves. All the pity I reserve for prey would be wasted on this predator.
Thor’s shadow falls over me. He reaches down between us.
“You can’t kill him,” he says, gently taking the knife from my hands.
“Why not?”
“He is more useful alive. And he has friends.”
“If his friends were in earshot, he would have yelled for them,” I say. “His friends are either very far away, or…”
I have a strange feeling in this moment. Drako being in the trap doesn’t make any sense at all. He was the leader of his crew. There should be dozens of them following him.
If this was a trap for us, they would have caught up with us now. We’d be surrounded. I look around. I don’t feel surrounded.
“Where are the rest of your crew?” Thor asks.
“Dead.”
“What?” I kick him in the ribs again. Thor pulls me back. I kick Thor.
“Sorry,” I say. “Reflex.”
“They’re dead,” Drako repeats. He’s not choked up. He says it like it’s just simple fact. They were alive, and now they are dead. What is anybody going to do about it? Nothing.
“He’s lying,” I say. I give him another swift kick. “They couldn’t be dead. Not all of them. There were hundreds of people there.”
“Stop kicking him,” Thor tells me. “If you break his ribs and penetrate his lung…”
“He still won’t have suffered enough,” I interrupt. “If you knew what this piece of shit did to me, and actually gave a fuck about me, you’d kill him yourself.”
“Better get your woman under control,” Drako says to Thor.
“I’m not his woman. And I’m not yours. I belong to myself, and you’re a liar.”
Thor grabs me and pulls me away before I can kick him hard in the ribs again. It’s annoying that this big man is intervening. I should be kicking the hell out of Drako. I should be taking him apart and making him suffer. But no, we have to listen to his stupid lies about everybody he knows suddenly being dead.
“How did they die?” Thor asks the question with a calm kind of assurance. He thinks this man is telling us something true. That’s a mistake. Thor is an honorable man. He’s not talking to one.
“Eaten,” Drako says.
