His breath turned shallow, his body tensing against mine. I suppose that should have been warning enough, but suddenly he flew forward. My tailbone cracked against the stone floor as he caught my wrists, scrambling to secure me beneath him.
“Youwhore,” he gasped into my face. “What in Aalto’s name—”
I wrestled my arms away. “If you think that just because I’m not touching you, I can’t—”
“Attacking a guard is punishable by death!” He shot for the iron cuffs still in my hand. I whipped them away, and they lashed against his face with a heavythwack. An angry gruntrolled from his chest. He slammed the sharp point of his elbow into my throat as he jostled for the cuffs.
I sputtered, though the pressure was nowhere near what Burian’s had been. We grappled for a moment, shoving each other’s hands away until he finally caught both my wrists in a single fist, wrenching the cuffs from my grip.
A drop of blood streaked down his cheek where the sharp edge of the iron had sliced into him. He lifted a shoulder to wipe it away, scooting on his knees to sit higher over my waist. I’d be damned to the stars if I let Kye hang tomorrow just because I lost my confidence now.
“I’m warning you,” I growled. “You put me in those cuffs, and I’ll make sure you never bed another woman.”
Marik let out a disbelieving chuckle, and the cold metal clanged as he snapped it against my left wrist.
“The last man I warned didn’t listen, either.”
“Stand up, whore.”
“He called me that, too.”
Indecision flickered in Marik’s eyes.
“Last chance,” I snarled.
His fingers closed around my free wrist, readying the empty cuff. I grabbed the back of his hand.
Knuckles. Forearm. Shoulder. Waist. I tracked his blood like a bolt of electricity, flashing straight down to his groin. A smallpopmet my ears, muffled under his weight.
His eyes met mine. He screamed.
We’d both been quiet until that moment, each of us intent on avoiding discovery. But the threat of his comrades uncovering his illicit activity with an unknown woman who’d been sent as a gift to his captain seemed to vanish from his mind as he pulled his hands into his lap and rolled away.
I shoved him off my legs and stood, snatching the knife from my hip and thrusting it under his chin. “How many men are in Cenek’s office?”
He gaped at me, understanding snapping into his gaze. But boots sounded on the other side of the door. It opened, and I threw an arm in its direction, the moisture in the air slamming it closed.
“How many?” I shouted.
“You’rethe pirate girl we left behind?”
The door rattled, angry voices on the other side. “Marik!”
They shoved. The door wavered against my call. I couldn’t hold it for long.
“You say a word to them, and I’ll do to your tongue what I did to your balls,” I threatened.
“Help me!” he shouted. A final thrust came from the other side of the door, and I dropped the moisture to the floor and froze it as the first set of boots charged inside. The intruder’s feet slid out from under him. He went down hard over the clear, shining surface. Another tumbled in after him, a third on top.
Now or never.
I shoved the door open, climbing over them to the hallway, only to run into three more.
And Kye.
They stared at me in surprise—dress unlaced and open, hair and eyes wild. The closest one reached for me. I threw a sharp shard of water up his nose.
He choked as it shot down his windpipe, and another one took his place, this one blue-eyed and stern, his uniform more embellished than the others. Captain Cenek. He grabbed my shoulders, bracing me in the door frame as he stepped close.
