Chapter 31
Chapter
Thirty-One
PIERCE
Ineed you. Haven’s voice pulled me from the depths of sleep. I struggled to open my eyes. Nope, too much trouble. I gave up and snuggled deeper into the soft bed.
Please, she pleaded. I’m desperate.
She sounded breathless, and my cock hardened. Painfully.
I forced my eyes open and found myself alone. Haven wasn’t in my bed, and Grayson was gone.
I need you to come, she begged. Now!
I threw off the covers. “Haven?”
She didn’t answer, but I was filled with the sudden certainty that she was downstairs and in trouble. The men at the bar had eyed her like candy. What if—
Please, she begged.
I slung my weapons belt around my hips, and my fingers touched the hilts of six throwing knives. Next, I grabbed my sword and threw open the bedroom door.
The hallway was eerily quiet, except for the moan of a man in terrible pain and Haven’s cry of alarm.
I ran, barreling down the stairs to the taproom.
Blood splattered the walls. Soaked the floorboards. It collected in pools. And its metallic scent perfumed the air.
Haven, who was surrounded by a ring of bodies, stood over Grayson’s fallen form and parried a thrust from a man to her right as she sank a dagger into another attacker’s arm.
He dropped his sword and retreated, leaving her to focus on the man to her right. A man easily twice her size. She stopped the arc of his blade. Barely.
My heart rose to my throat, and I raced toward her, throwing a knife at her attacker as I ran. The blade glanced off his back. Fuck! I turned my attention to the man she’d wounded, dispatching him with a quick slice across his neck. “Haven!”
The man attacking her heard me and hesitated.
Haven kept fighting. She ran him through.
Blood bubbled at his mouth, staining his lips as he looked down at the sword buried deep in his belly.
His eyes squeezed shut. Then he collapsed, and the weight of his falling body nearly pulled the sword from Haven’s grasp.
“Fucker!” She tightened her fingers around the sword’s grip and yanked the weapon from his belly as she fixed her gaze on the remaining man.
“I was wrong,” he said, sounding almost pleased. “You won’t die tonight.” Then, before I could react, he leaped through the broken window and disappeared.
Forcing my hands to remain steady as the adrenaline ebbed, I drew a breath into my lungs and held it. Caustic fear coated my tongue—not fear for myself, but bone-deep terror for what I’d almost lost. For whom I’d almost lost.
I forced myself to focus on the present. Haven was alive. The immediate threat was over. My gaze scoured the bloodied room. “Where did they come from?”
Rather than answer, she surveyed the room. “Are they all dead?”
I created ice spears and sent them through our enemies’ hearts. “They are now.”
The silence that followed felt deafening.
My heart still hammered against my ribs, and I couldn’t tear my gaze away from her face.
Blood stained her cheeks and colored her hair, but she was alive.
And, aside from a few cuts, unharmed. I swallowed hard against a lump of emotion I didn’t care to examine.
She knelt next to Grayson.
Grayson—a lake of crimson surrounded him.
“Where is he injured?” Panic tightened my throat. I was no healer, and Grayson obviously needed one.
She ripped his shirt away, and we both took in the wound in his gut. Agony, worse than any inflicted by a sword, welled in my chest. My friend—my brother—was as good as dead. He’d bleed out before we could get him to a healer.
“Let’s hope this works.” She pressed her hand against his abdomen.
“You’re a healer?” My voice was harsh.
“Grandmother tried to teach me.”
“Tried?”
Her hand was glowing. The light made the blood coating her fingers look sinister. Deadly. I reached for her arm.
She shook me off. “I think it’s helping.”
I had no choice but to trust her.
She glanced around the bloody room. “Where are Teal and Flynn?”
The question reminded me how alone she’d been. How she’d nearly died while my brothers slept peacefully upstairs. If I hadn’t awakened … my jaw clenched at the thought. “I assume they’re asleep.”
She frowned. “They didn’t come? I called all of you.”
“You were in my head.” I hadn’t imagined her voice. “How?”
She caught her lip between her teeth and lowered her chin to her chest. A strand of her hair brushed against her cheek. Resting on her knees, covered in blood, she was the most beautiful, mysterious woman I’d ever seen.
“Haven?”
Her lips pursed. “It only works when we’re nearby.”
“How does it work at all?” Telepathy was incredibly rare.
“It just does.”
“Can you read my thoughts?”
“No.”
That was a relief. “What other gifts have you been hiding?”
A mulish expression settled on her gorgeous face. She had no intention of telling me anything more.
“I’ll keep your secrets, Haven. I swear it.”
“Even from Grayson?” Clearly, she knew where my loyalties lay. But, for her, I’d remain silent.
“You pull weapons out of thin air.” My gaze caught on the dagger resting next to her knee. “That came from the gymnasium.”
“I thought it was pretty.” She touched the hilt, and the weapon disappeared.
For long seconds, I was speechless. She was powerful. So powerful. “You returned it?”
“I did.” Her gaze fell to Grayson. His color was better, and the bleeding seemed to have slowed. She brushed a lock of hair away from his forehead and frowned as if his condition worried her.
Grayson had been an ass. Why was she petting him? I pushed away the thought and quashed the urge to bat her hand away from his face.
“What else can you do?”
She stared at me with wide eyes. Gray rimmed with charcoal. I could see lightning in their depths.
“Trust me, please.”
She shook her head. Unwilling to extend me even a smidgen of faith.
Could I blame her? I’d asked for her secrets without sharing my own. “My uncle murdered my parents and sister.”
Her cheeks paled. “Your sister too? Why?”
“Power. My father had it. My uncle wanted it.”
“Where is he now?”
“Sitting on the king’s council. Protected. I can’t avenge my family without risking the noose.” I rubbed my throat. “Some days I think it might be worth it.”
She reached for my hand, and her bloody fingers gripped mine, sending a spark racing through my veins. “One of my gifts is a talent for strategy.”
“You’re being strategic when you push Grayson’s buttons?”
She grinned at me. “That’s just cussedness. But I bet I can find a way to punish your uncle without risking your neck.”
Her offer hit me like a physical blow. When was the last time someone had offered to help me—not because they owed me, or feared me, or wanted something in return, but simply because they cared? “Why would you do that?” The question came out smaller than I had intended.
She studied my face with those storm-gray eyes, as if she could see past every defense I’d ever built. “Because when I called, you came. Because …” She paused, and I saw her own walls wavering. “Because you see me as more than just a shield.”
With my free hand, I cupped her chin, marveling at the softness of her skin beneath the blood and grime. When had I stopped thinking of her as a shield and started seeing her as she was? With my thumb, I grazed her full lower lip.
Her breath hitched at the contact, and I saw my own hunger reflected in her eyes. The air between us crackled with more than just energy that lingered after a hard-fought battle.
I’d defeated a thousand foes. Those victories couldn’t compare to the triumph I felt at seeing the need in her eyes. “May I kiss you?” The words slipped past my lips. “Please, Haven.” I leaned forward until we shared the same breath.
“I’m filthy.” She hadn’t said no.
“You’re perfect.” I kissed her, reveling in the plush softness of her mouth as my tongue tested the seam of her lips.
She let me in, and our tongues danced, tangled, savored. She was cinnamon and rainwater. Spicy and refreshing. Addictive.
Her soft moan went straight to my cock, but I resisted pulling her closer.
This might well be my last first kiss, and I didn’t want to rush through it.
The rasp of our tongues, her soft moans—they were like a drug.
I wanted more. I wanted every inch of her silky skin, every groan, every grasp, every beat of her heart—but I went slowly, savoring.
“Wha—”
I jumped away from her as if she were a shameful secret, and for an instant I saw hurt in her stormy eyes.
My chest tightened at that wounded look.
I wanted to reach for her again, to explain that my reaction had nothing to do with shame and everything to do with a lifetime of guarding my emotions from scrutiny.
But Grayson’s eyes were fluttering as he struggled to regain consciousness, and the moment was lost.
Ignoring me, she focused on the man who’d interrupted us. “Grayson, you’re alive.” She didn’t sound pleased. If I didn’t know better, I’d never guess that she’d fought to protect him or that her healing powers had kept him alive.
“What happened?” Grayson tried to sit, found it too taxing, and collapsed with his head on her thighs.
“You’re injured.” Her crimson-hued fingers hovered above his head as if she wanted to stroke his hair. Instead, she dropped her hand to her lap.
He turned his head, taking in the bodies and the sea of blood. “You finished them.”
“Pierce helped.”
“When I came downstairs, she was standing over your body, fighting two at the same time.”
“You saved me?” Grayson sounded befuddled, almost disbelieving.
Her lips thinned as if she regretted defending him. “What you mean is ‘thank you.’”
“I’m not doubting your skill. I’m just … you could have let them kill me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What in blazes happened here?” The innkeeper stood in the doorway. His eyes were black and swollen, and he clutched his ribs as he surveyed his destroyed taproom.
“You!” Grayson’s face was deathly pale, and sweat dotted his brow, but he managed to push himself into a seated position.
The innkeeper was too lost in horror to hear the warning in Grayson’s tone. I understood the innkeeper’s distress—the room was bathed in blood and gore. It was Grayson’s irate tone that had me confused. Why was he angry? Had the innkeeper betrayed us to the assassins?
“You sold her.”
The innkeeper looked at Grayson and then shrugged. “Don’t pretend you care. Guards use shields, same as me. At least when my customers are done, the girls are still alive. You burn through their powers, and then leave them to die.”
Darkness danced at the edge of my vision, and my hands clenched. He’d sold her? “Haven?”
She read the desperate question in my eyes. “No one touched me.”
I leaped to my feet and strode toward the innkeeper, taking smug satisfaction in the fear blooming in his eyes. “You dare disrespect what is mine?” She wasn’t mine—I had no claim on her—but the thought of this filth selling her body made something primal roar to life inside me.
“Yours?” Haven and Grayson spoke as one. She sounded outraged. He sounded appalled.
My focus remained on the odious man in front of me. I encased his feet in ice. He couldn’t run. Couldn’t escape. “What happened to your face?” In addition to the black eyes, a purple bruise marred his jaw.
“I kicked him,” Haven admitted.
“Why didn’t you kill him?”
“Because he was unconscious, and I was more interested in killing all of you for leaving me downstairs with him.”
I looked over my shoulder. “You saved Grayson.”
She gave an exasperated huff, almost as if she was annoyed with herself. “I did.”
Grayson grimaced. Owing her a life debt bothered him. It would rub his sensibilities raw and slowly drive him crazy.
I barely hid my grin.
“Who’s going to clean this up?” The innkeeper fixed his gaze on Haven as if she were a scullery maid. The man was an idiot. Killing him would be doing the world a favor.
“Give me one reason I shouldn’t end you.” My fingers brushed the hilt of a knife.
He swallowed.
“Because you won’t murder an unarmed man.” Haven sounded so sure. How could she know that?
She was right. But, gods, how I wanted to. A slow, torturous death was nothing less than he deserved.
Grayson lurched across the ruined room until he stood next to me.
Seeing his thunderous expression, the innkeeper tugged at his collar. “She’s just a shield.”
“Get out of my sight!” Grayson roared as his barely contained fury shimmered in the air. Grayson had reduced Haven to her job more times than I could count. But when the innkeeper said the same thing, he was ready to commit murder.
I melted the ice at the innkeeper’s ankles, and the man scurried away like a rat about to lose its tail to a hungry cat.
The urge to hunt him down and finish him clawed at my chest. He’d sold her as casually as a baker might sell a loaf of bread. I forced myself to take a steadying breath, to push down the darkness that wanted to follow him into whatever hole he’d crawled into.
“Where are Teal and Flynn?” Grayson demanded. I couldn’t help but think he meant the question as a distraction.
It worked. I put aside fantasies of peeling the skin from the innkeeper’s worthless body. “Asleep.”
“Wake them,” Grayson directed. “We ride out as soon as possible.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Haven frowned and shook her head, clearly displeased with his edict.
He turned on her. “You’re questioning me?”
“You nearly died. You need to rest.”
Watching her challenge Grayson—bloody, exhausted, yet still standing her ground—I found myself lost in admiration. She’d nearly died tonight, had saved Grayson’s life, and here she was still fighting. Still refusing to back down.
“More will come.” His gaze swept over the pile of bodies.
Planting her hands on her hips, she scowled at him. “You don’t know that.” Her defiance after everything she’d been through was magnificent. She was like a warrior queen of lore, and she called to emotions I’d kept buried for years.
Grayson, who wouldn’t recognize a warrior queen even if she stood over his prone body and defended him to the death, smoothed his face into its usual haughty expression, the one that seemed to annoy her the most. “I won’t take that risk.”
“We can defend a building.” Haven wasn’t done arguing. She crossed her arms over her chest. “On the road, we’ll be five tired travelers on four tired horses.”
“Pierce, get Flynn and Teal.”
Rather than do as he asked, I leaned against a miraculously clean bit of wall. “Haven makes a good point. We can stay till first light.”
Grayson swung his gaze to me. I’d known Grayson my whole life.
We were closer than blood, and I could read him, just as he could read me.
Right now, he was ready to explode—a calamitous combination of repressed emotion, unacknowledged lust, and guilt.
“Teal. Flynn. Now.” He spoke through gritted teeth.
With an apologetic glance at Haven, I went to rouse them.