It lay smashed into his sternum.Blood oozed up around it, framing a design distinct from the one hidden in Bastion’s saddlebags but still displaying the intricate cutwork and precious gemstones indicative of the desert folk.
Bastion’s gaze narrowed, then slid to Ulla, now bound and restrained.A larger pirate stood behind her, a meaty fist wrapped around one of her horns.He bent her head back.She had a dark, feral look in her eyes, like she was aching to gut someone with her bare hands.
“If he won’t talk,” Buck mused, “maybe she will.”
He stalked over to Ulla, slow and predatory.Bastion tried to rise and got backhanded again, his lip splitting against his teeth.Buck drew out a pair of gloves and put them on, his expression eager.
Ulla struggled, but she couldn’t do much with her head pulled back and her balance off kilter.Buck seized her jaw in one large hand.The man behind her released her horn, took her bound wrists, and pulled them up so she had to pitch forwards.
“Why,” Buck purred, “are you traveling with a battle-trained Thatian, hmm?”
She refused to look at him.
“Answer me,” Buck whispered.
Ulla kept her eyes locked on Bastion.Renewed anger and terror ricocheted through him.Now that the crew had turned their attention to her, true panic lanced him.
“Answer me!”Buck roared.
She didn’t flinch.
He released her and reached for his knife.The panic now flooded Bastion fully, threatening to choke him.Again, he struggled, surging forwards.Buck licked the blade of the knife, a sadistic light in his eyes.
“She can’t hear you!”Bastion shouted.“She’s deaf!”
Buck paused.The crew looked at each other.
“What are you doing with a deaf Yvri?”
“She’s a healer!”Bastion exclaimed.“She hired me to escort her.”
“Shit job you’re doing,” someone said.A series of chuckles rippled through the men.
Buck slapped the flat of his knife against his palm as he considered Bastion.
“How have you been communicating?”
“What does it matter?”
Buck was in his face, pressing his knife to Bastion’s throat before he finished.
“Itmatters,” he hissed through his teeth, lips peeled back, “because I say it matters.”
They glared at each other, eye to eye.Bastion frantically cataloged all his options, trying to come up with his next move.
Perhaps he took too long to answer.Or perhaps Buck saw the iron in Bastion’s spine.Whatever the case, he suddenly withdrew to Ulla’s side, taking all Bastion’s air with him, and he lifted his knife.
“NO!”Bastion cried.
Like lightning, Buck sliced it across Ulla’s cheek with surgical precision.She winced as a thin line of blood rose along the edge.Buck grasped her chin again and leaned in, licking the cut, slow and languid, watching Bastion from the corner of slitted eyes.
Ulla struck like a viper.She seized his lower lip between her teeth, fangs tearing through tender flesh.
Buck roared.The man behind Ulla grabbed her horns, yanking her head back.Flesh came away with her, and blood dripped down her chin.She grinned, vivid red pooling between her pearly teeth, vertical pupils so narrow they nearly vanished.She spat a chunk of Buck out.The wad of flesh hit his chest with a wetsplat!and fell to the ground.
He back-handed her.
Bastion’s vision went red.He struggled to the point that he was sure he’d dislocate his shoulder.He yelled a string of curses until someone hit him across the face with the hilt of a blade.
