Chapter Seventeen #2
“Very well, I only have to break one of you.” At the man’s frown, he added. “Oh, you don’t know yet. The one who stabbed me is also in our hands. He’s with another brother of mine. That one hates to speak, loves to convince, if you get my meaning.”
Drake dragged a chair closer and dropped into it, elbows braced on his knees as he studied the damage he’d done to the cockchafer’s face.
Both eyes were already swollen half shut, all manner of color blooming along his jaw.
He’d been doing this a long time. Long enough to know when men would talk and when they’d endure.
This man would endure. At least for today.
Tomorrow or the day after was another matter.
He studied the man for a moment longer. Considered the wisdom of what he was about to do.
What the devil did he have to lose anyway?
Might as well ask for some advice from someone who wouldn’t tease him to the underworld and back.
“While we’re on the topic of stabbing someone, have you ever had a lover? ”
The man’s scowl turned fierce. “What?”
Drake merely cocked his head. “Have you ever had a lover? The long-term sort, not the one-night sort?”
The man spat his way.
“If you answer my question, I’ll let you be for the rest of the day.” A big bloody concession, considering. He could vent his frustration all day long.
“Is this some sort of trick?” the man snapped.
Drake spread his hands, the picture of patience. “No trick. Though, I suppose you’ll have to take my word for it.”
The man stared at him, pulled his lip up in a sneer, then growled. “Of course I’ve had a lover. What man hasn’t?”
This man. “Then tell me,” Drake said evenly, “what do you do when you’ve offended her?”
“Depends on how you offended her.”
Drake sighed. “She asked if we were lovers and I didn’t answer. No, I did answer. I asked her what she believed lovers to be.” The most foolish damn question in the world.
A snort, as the man settled with his back against the wall, still vigilant, but less guarded. “What did she say to that?”
“To forget she asked.”
A contemptuous laugh. “You’ve put your neck in the noose. Just find another bird.”
Drake scowled. “I don’t want to find another bird.”
“Then why the bloody hell would you answer her like an imbecile?”
Drake kicked the man’s outstretched leg. “Why don’t you tell me a few ways I can make this right? I’ll consider it a favor and ease up on the fists.”
The man laughed, a mocking, deuced annoying laugh. “If you must ask advice from your own prisoner, you are in a sorrier state than even you imagine. There is no bloody advice that can help you.”
The man was just asking for a beating then. “I don’t accept that.”
“Isn’t she just some chit? There are plenty of them to warm a bed.”
No, there weren’t, and no, she wasn’t just some chit.
Given her bold nature, it was easy to forget she likely hailed from the aristocracy in some fashion.
Drake had not cared at first. He did not judge in this regard.
His own cousin was an earl, the Earl of Dare, so he did not share Maxen’s aversion, despite the irony that his brother had married the daughter of one.
“She’s not replaceable,” Drake reaffirmed.
The man snorted again. “If she was so dear to you, you’d not have hesitated to stake your claim and make her yours.”
Stake his claim, heh? By what right would he claim her?
He was the bastard of a duke, acknowledged only enough to be useful, never enough to be safe.
A man with no legitimate name to offer, no clean history to present, no future that did not carry the shadow of everything he had built and everything it had cost. The ruler of Brighton’s underbelly, sure.
He had made himself powerful in the only world that would have him, and that world was not one a woman like Violet—bold and bright and deserving of better—ought to be drawn into.
Here, loyalty was bought in blood and kept by fear. Enemies did not knock before striking. Protection came with violence attached and consequences that did not stop with him. Sometimes did not stop at all.
You still want her.
Yes, he still wanted her.
The knock came sharp and sudden, and Drake’s head snapped around.
Before he could bark an answer, the door shoved open, its hinges groaning in protest, candlelight spilling into the dungeon right before Deveraux stepped in, an unrepentant smirk on his face.
A riot of red hair followed his brother, her chin lifted in unmistakable defiance.
Her piercing blue eyes locked on him at once.
Drake shot to his feet so fast the chair scraped harshly across the floor. “What the devil are you doing?” he demanded from Deveraux, cursing when Reaper, expression grim, appeared at Violet’s back. “Why the hell did you bring her here?”
“Don’t ask me,” Reaper muttered. “This is all our new brother’s grand idea.”
“The girl has a right to know about all the dangers,” Deveraux remarked offhandedly. “Especially since this now concerns her.”
Drake’s gaze never left Violet. Could not. His gut tightened so viciously he thought it might squeeze the breath from him altogether.
Those beautiful eyes held his gaze without flinching, not a trace of apology anywhere on her face. “I’m here because I want to be.”
The words were like a double-edged sword, yet he was a fool who could not discern which edge would demand the greater share of blood.
Behind him, the man laughed.
“Well, well, well.”