For a moment, he looks completely confused. “What…scream?”
“Do not act dense!” I hiss, tossing my head down the hall behind me. “If you’re here, you have to have heard it!”
His eyes slide to the dagger in my hand. Slowly, he says, “Marcella, why do you have a dagger?”
I shake my head, taking another step back from him, but he follows my movements, maintaining our same distance. Another and another until we’ve caught a quick pace and I raise my blade to his throat.
He freezes. Hands splayed wide before his face. “Marcella,whydo you have a dagger?”
“I found it,” I grunt.
His eyes narrow. “I’ve always known you as a liar.”
“Perhaps I just never liked you enough to trust you,” I spit back.
“Or you’re still upset I turned you down.”
I scoff, then it turns into a laugh as I press the blade to his neck. “Oh, Devin. Memories or not, you could never trick me into thinking you’re attractive. And even if I thought you were, your personality would be enough to disgust me.”
A corner of his mouth lifts as he looks from my feet and back to my face. With a single gauntleted finger, he pushes my blade down off his neck. “Good then. I didn’t quite enjoy flicking you off every time you came dropping to your knees before me.”
My grip tightens on my dagger’s hilt as I rip the blade out from under his fingertip. Ignoring him, I press on, “You heard that scream, too. You’re lying.”
“Marcella, you’ve had a long day. You’re hallucinating?—”
“Now who’s the liar!” I snap.
“Perhaps…you’re not in the right state to have that dagger.” He takes a step toward me.
I ready my stance once more as I warn, “You will not take it from me.”
Another step closer as he says gently, “Marcella…give me the dagger before you hurt yourself.”
“Take one more step, and the only one I’ll be hurting isyou.”
He sinks into a crouch, as if readying to crawl to me. He mutters under his breath, too low for me to discern. Unable to take my eyes off him for long, I take step after step back from him.
He launches at my legs, and I lunge out of the way as he captures my skirts. We both hit the floor with a solid thump, before I scramble onto my forearms. I kick my legs to free myself from his grip, but he works his way up. His hard body slides up the backs of my legs, over my rear, onto my back. He pins me down with his chest, shoving me to the floor as I spew, “Get off of me!”
“Give me your dagger. Now!” he barks.
Worming my way out from underneath him, I twist until I’m looking up at his face. Rearing my head back, I slam my forehead into his nose as hard as I can.
Bellowing, he crumples, taking one hand off my forearm as hecups his bleeding nose and tries to keep his weight on my waist. His strong legs bracket me, while his other hand pins my wrist with the dagger.
It’s too damn bad that he either forgot—or didn’t know—I can wield with both hands.
I flip my dagger from my right hand and slice it across his chest plate as he dodges just in time to land it to his throat.
“Don’t make me do this, Marcella!” he snarls.
“Get off me!” I snap back and swipe again toward his face.
Grunting, he rolls off me as I follow him up off my back and onto my hands and knees. He grabs a vase nearby before I can scramble away, and slams it into my head.
Everything turns black.
Twenty-Three
