Page 14 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

Her eyes blaze. “He’s a cunt, and that’s exactly what you said.”

“It’s exactly what you heard.”

Her mouth opens, and for one split second I think she might throw something at me. I’d almost enjoy that. It would be simpler than the way she’s looking at me now, furious and cornered and still too proud to show the fear sitting under all that steel.

“You are in no position,” I tell her, “to reject the only protection that means anything tonight.”

Her chin lifts. “Watch me.”

I nearly smile at that but check myself just in time before moving, slow enough that she has time to brace herself, and I stop in front of her with just enough space left between us to be respectable if a priest walked in and not nearly enough to feel comfortable.

She doesn’t step back. Good, very good. “Protection,” she says, her voice tightening. “That’s your word for it.”

“It’s the right word.”

“For what? Claiming me before someone else can?”

“Yes.”

Her nostrils flare. “That’s disgusting.”

I let my gaze drop to her mouth for half a second, then back to her eyes. “Fair enough. I say it the way it is, and right now, it’s looking like you’re in a corner, and corners don’t care whether the answer offends you.”

Her shoulders draw tighter, and she presses her lips together before she speaks again. “You think that gives you the right to decide for me?”

I cock my head at her. “I know it does tonight.”

Her laugh is short. “God, you really are unbearable.”

“And yet,” I say, keeping my voice even, “here you are.”

For one second, something flashes over her face that isn’t anger. I don’t have time to sort it before she shoves forward another step, and now the front of her coat almost brushes my hand.

“Do you plan to marry me by force too?” she asks. “Is that in the ledger? Listed girl, transferable claim, wife by coercion, signatures on demand?”

I stare at her for a moment, then let out a breath through my nose.

There’s a dark kind of amusement in this, and I don’t fight it. “I’m old-fashioned,” I say, clearing my throat. “I don’t marry women unless they want me enough to walk into it themselves.”

Her eyes widen just slightly, and something in them drops before she drags it back up and locks it away again. It’s small and interesting, and it goes through me hot enough to make my hands flex at my sides.

Hmm. She looked crestfallen for a second there.

I push my smile down and keep my expression still because I don’t need her knowing what I just saw. She recovers fast, which I expected. “That might be the first decent thing you’ve said all night.”

“No,” I say quietly. “That’s the first answer tonight you wanted to hear.”

Color rises higher in her face. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

I lean in just enough to make her decide whether to hold her ground or give me an inch. She holds it, which is exactly why my attention keeps returning to her no matter how inconvenient that is.

“If I wanted to flatter myself,” I tell her, “I’d mention the look that crossed your face before you remembered you’re supposed to hate me.”

Her breath catches once, and color climbs into her cheeks. She’s beautiful past the body men notice first, though I notice that too.

She speaks again, though her voice is shaking. “You’re making that up.”

“I’m not.”