A knife buried into the wood beside her head.
The sting on her ear told her enough about how accurate her opponent’s aim was. She turned, her vision clearing with a new wave of self-preservation.
Nic’s face was twisted and bloody, his breathing labored from the pain and inconvenience of a broken nose. He extracted a second knife from his coat, and then a third, and pointed the tips at her chest. He’d found his own feet but made no move to close the distance and restrain her. With those knives, there was no need.
He toed the glass at his feet, blood flecked and shining in the afternoon glow through the front windows. His voice filled with manic glee. “A glass? Magnificent.”
Camille’s fingers itched to pull the letter opener from her pocket, but the action would draw his attention, attention she needed elsewhere. “So glad you enjoyed it. There are a few left unbroken; I can always break off the others in your head next time and save that mangled face.”
His gaze sharpened. The step he took in her direction was slow, deliberate. He knew she blustered, and he’d take his time proving she had lost.
He reached out his hand, looking every bit a gentleman; the bloody gashes on his face revealed the monster underneath. “Come with me now, pet. I will break whatever hold that mutt has over you and you will see the truth. We are made for each other.”
Camille’s hand automatically went for the handle at her back. Once he caught her, he’d never let her go. Her accusation came out on a whisper. “You’re delusional.”
Instead of taking insult, Nic seemed pleased. “Willfulness and intellect. You are a rare creature, Camille. It is a shame youcan’t see how well we suit.” He patted at the cut above his eye and smiled as he held out his blood-coated fingers. “You see how beautiful and clean the color is? How easy it is to wipe the filth of our enemies away in a pool of beauty? You have such a knack for brutality. A rock, glass. I couldn’t engineer a more perfect partner.”
The sight of the blood, and the knowledge she’d been the cause, twisted Camille’s already upset stomach. She backed away, her hands raised as if she could block his words. “You’re wrong. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Don’t you?” He stalked closer, his eyes lit with hunger. “Did you not wish to see those men slain for what they tried to do to you?” He pointed to Hawkins’s body. “Is it not better that animals like him are shredded to bits? Food for the crows.”
“No!” She may have hated Hawkins and men like him, like her father, for taking advantage, for believing superior strength and a sick desire entitled them to do as they wished with those unwilling. “They deserved to be thrown in prison. Locked away where true justice meant living with their actions every day in a tiny cell.”
“Cells are easily avoidedand escaped from. A well-acted stomachache, a naive guard, an easy snap of the neck, and a quick wardrobe change. I walked right out the front doors without a single objection.” Nic shook his head. “Imprisonment. An honorable sentiment, but men like them never see the wrongs done, only the people responsible for keeping them from their fun.”
Like you. She knew better than to say the words out loud.
Nic was a man beyond reason or self-awareness. In his mind, only his fun, his desires, mattered. Even now, after she’d half-blinded him with bar glasses, he moved as if he had every advantage, as if it were a lovers’ quarrel and not a statement of her desire to be rid of him.
“No more games.” He offered his hand to her again. “Your efforts were commendable, but shortsighted. Admit defeat and submit to me, and all is forgiven.”
Camille stared at his hand, feeling a crack opening in her chest. Not a crack; it was her spirit breaking.
For every second of doubt over the past year, for every moment she’d hidden from Renard, the man she loved, Nic had truly won. Now she was alone and the only person to stand between those she cared for and a gutter grave.
Camille closed the distance between them and made to take his hand, but his fingers slid into her hair instead, where his fingers twisted at the strands painfully.
“Now you are mine.” He leaned down. His lips hovered over hers in silent threat before he ordered, “Say you belong to me.”
Camille watched victory and malice light his eyes and saw what horrors lay in her future. Even knowing his strength and the danger he posed to her family, the last of her spirit rallied, not yet done fighting.
Her hand slipped into her skirt pocket and tightened around the handle of the letter opener. She stuck out her chin, bringing them nose to nose, and said, “I am my own.”
The door to the tavern banged open. A tall creature staggered in, his skin and clothes red as blood.
Renard was bleeding!
Drenching his fair hair, running down his face, and staining his collar, the wound was a bad one and needed medical attention before he fainted from blood loss. He held his arm and walked with a limp, as if more than his head were injured. His gaze fell on Hawkins’s body on the floor and his eyes went wide as he swayed dangerously on his feet.
Letter opener forgotten, Camille rushed towards him, only to be yanked back by the relentless grip in her hair.
Nic wound her hair around his wrist, dragging her closer. His gaze narrowed at their new addition. “Someone got the jump on you before I could, Lux. What a pity. How did you find us?”
Renard smiled through the blood, but it looked like even that small gesture hurt. “I followed the silence.” His gaze went to her. “A friend of yours says ‘hello.’”
She must have mistaken the flash of something unidentifiable in his eyes. Was he feverish? “My friend? Is that who did this to you?” Was there more than Nic she must contend with? One of the creditors?
Renard leaned against the door as it closed behind him. He winced in pain, though Camille noted the action looked forced.
