Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
Morgan
Kieran’s grip is tighter than any noose. He locks his arms so there is no way for me to wiggle out of this, the bastard. And Evie’s little friends are watching us all aghast like they can’t understand how any of this is possible.
I yell out until even that sound is pushed out of me. Kieran squeezes. His heartbeat thumps through me, through his skin to mine.
I hate him more than I hate his little girlfriend. Both of them, really, because the silver-haired menace is watching us as well. I was so close to beating Evie to a pulp, so close to decapitating Kieran, if my muscles had stopped screaming for one second.
It was almost over.
“I like you like this,” he whispers into my ear. “I like you fighting me. It makes things… interesting.”
Something dangerous unfurls in my chest, something I refuse to name. I only know it’s dangerous. And if I dare put a name to it, then there will be no going back.
I’ll be lost. I’ll like it.
“Get your hands off me.”
The words fall flat and provide the spark to ignite his laughter. “Why would I? It seems we both like my hands exactly where they are.”
I shiver, glance up at the rest of the students watching us, but none of them seem to see my reaction. If they do, none of them care. Astrid helps Evie limp to the door and then the bodies close behind them again, blocking the exit.
Kieran isn’t letting me go.
I lose my breath when he spins me around, forcing me to face him, staring at me with hunger in his eyes. And for less than a second, for the smallest blip of an instant, I’m lost. I’m sinking into those dark depths while heat starts in my chest and tingles the tips of my toes.
My heart spikes, blood pounding in my ears.
His expression pushes against the natural order of my thoughts. It carves room where I don’t want there to be room, space for other things to slip inside. Less savory things.
Things like want.
It goes hand in hand with my loathing. This man is a clever beast who never lets anyone get the better of him, but I hold my ground and for the barest pause, we’re equal.
Maybe he let me. Or maybe I’ve managed to surprise him with my cleverness when he expected less.
His brow lifts a fraction of an inch before his gaze dips to my clavicle. His expression darkens in a way I’m sure he doesn’t anticipate, and I’m rooted to the spot, trapped.
Why is he looking at me this way?
My skin shrinks around my bones.
Morgan! Kill him.
Revenge wins out over whatever this is. And in his pause, I free one hand to reach for the blade, knocking his wrist aside.
If I can get the dagger back then I might have a halfway decent chance of making it out of this room in one piece.
Whether the scraps of my dignity will remain is another question.
“What do you think you’re doing, princess?”
He’s got a row of blades sheathed across his belt and the largest one strapped to his thigh. Kieran adjusts his body and uses his shoulder to block me from a direct path to him.
Is he toying with me? Testing me? Figuring out which angles I favor and where my weak points are? Every new angle keeps me from my prize and I growl, flashing him teeth. Nothing works.
We’ll go around in circles, endlessly, maintaining the charade.
“You are such a pompous splinter-wit,” I say through clenched teeth.
“I’m a splinter-wit because I won’t let you gut me?”
His conversational tone pushes red across my vision. “Yes!”
He grunts out a laugh. “I’m sorry I can’t be more accommodating.”
Accommodating? He’s been nothing but a burden since he found me, like an ax slowly swinging over my neck with only inches to spare, neither making contact nor slowing. The anticipation is slowly eating away at me.
I lash out with elbows and fists, with knuckles and knees, anything to make a dent in his implacable armor. I don’t want a simple chink. I want the man to crumble.
What a pretty picture it makes in my head. A phantom smile flickers over my face before I slam my knuckles into his chest. He’s much taller than I am, so the hit lands with a little less power behind it than I want.
“You aren’t even in the same realm as accommodating,” I snap.
He ducks his head as my fist sails and comes up with a punch of his own. I step back but he makes contact near my shoulder.
“What can I do to make it up to you then? Please don’t be trite and tell me to die. I’ve heard it before.”
His voice is a murmur of darkness gliding over my senses. I need him to be silent.
So why had I hesitated the first time?
Why hadn’t I sliced his throat clean and been done with this whole business? The witnesses don’t really matter. Everyone knows it will be the word of the wealthy against the word of a servant. It tends to skew one way versus the other in every single instance.
But I’m headed to the mines anyway. There’s no way to save myself.
Why not take the general’s son down with me? If I’m damned, then I’m going to make sure that space inside of me is enough to give Kieran to the Void as well.
“What’s the matter, Morgan? Are you having second thoughts?”
Kieran stays one step out of the way and slides his hands behind his back to give me an easier target.
“Second thoughts about what?”
“About hurting me. I think there is some small part of you that knows you aren’t a killer.”
“You.” I punch. “Know nothing about me.”
I kick and clip the side of his calf. His leg buckles slightly before he locks his knees, pivoting. Rushing him like a charging bull is a mistake. With the red edges creeping closer, threatening to overtake my vision, I’m hardly better than an animal.
I’m less effective for sure.
Laughter trickles like water against a pebbled shale shore. The others are watching us, Evie’s little creeps. They know Kieran is only toying with me before he goes in for his finishing shot. I have no chance of getting out of here without his permission, in whatever form it comes.
I lash out at him with my teeth and take him by surprise. He expects me to punch but not bite. Kieran rears back, his gaze narrowing, and I reach for the dagger again. Using my knee to hit against the side of his opposite leg to knock him for a loop.
Kieran moves faster than I do. He gets out of the way before I hit and steps up. One stride is all it takes before he grabs my arms and pins them to my side.
“Got you.”
Intent laces the words.
I hate his smug smile, the way the corners of his lips pry upward, tugged by an invisible string. His typical male ego gets under my skin. Almost like he knew it would. The smile remains in place without shrinking or growing.
It stokes the raw nerves with cold fingers. I stomp on his boot. The flimsy slippers have no sole to speak of, the better to keep the maids quiet and able to slink along the corridors unnoticed. It all comes down to intent.
I flex my foot and grind my heel down, managing some solid weight on top of his foot, and Kieran curses.
The smile is in place again instantly, as though it never dared slip in the first place. “You’re going to have to do a whole lot better than that if you want to—”
“What?” I interrupt. “If you knew the things I wanted to do to you, you’d have nightmares for the rest of your life.”
I pictured ways to end him too many times for the fantasies of revenge to be anything less than lifelike and seeped in color and detail. Killing him will accomplish two things at once, I remind myself; it will destabilize his father’s campaign and erase my desire.
Right now, those two things are battering at me, each one demanding more attention than the other. Scorch me but I’m not sure which one is more important.
I can’t do what I need to do to avenge my village and my family if I’m distracted by Kieran. He knows it, too. Without words, he understands what he does to me.
He’s known the entire time.
He’d stepped in when his cousin played games with me in the cave, hadn’t he?
His arms loosen enough for me to slip through the band. I drop to my knees and roll away but the movement is unnecessary. Evie’s friends have closed around us, leaving me nowhere to go, and Kieran is less inclined to claw after me than I assumed.
My muscles ache, drawing tighter and more liable to snap under pressure.
Then he makes a small come here gesture with his hand, crooking his fingers toward him, and I do snap. I round on the infuriating man and lift my right arm, angling it toward his face.
He ducks to the side in anticipation of the right hook. So instead, I pummel my opposite fist into his gut. A slight oomph drives the air from his chest and he curves forward around me.
For show? Or did I do something unexpected?
It isn’t my luck. More than likely, he’s doing all this to egg me on, to get me ruffled enough to manipulate.
We’re surrounded by people but for me, there’s only the two of us. Kieran is the only one I see. My attention does not waver and neither does his. We may as well be in a dark room, the dark paneled walls our only silent witnesses.
Their noises of concern and arrogance, which might have egged me on once upon a time, fade into a low drone. The ringing in my ears helps me focus.
Helps me tune into Kieran and the grace of his movements.
“Has anyone ever told you? You pack a fierce punch, princess,” he growls. “Maybe I need to choose a different name for you. Princess implies you’re soft and supplicant.”
“Easy, you mean.”
Blood splatters decorate the wooden floor beneath us, and the grain sucks it up hungrily. Some of it is mine but most of it is Evie’s. Hopefully it will soon be Kieran’s as well.
In my village, it isn’t unheard of for potential riders to fight. It helped distinguish them from the rest of the others fairly young. Nature isn’t the only place where survival of the fittest determines pecking order.
I haul my fist toward the stubble decorating Kieran’s sharp jaw again. I don’t need the top spot. I only need to get out of this place.
“Like a little viper, perhaps?” Kieran whispers.