He hissed as the rope dug into his skin. “I had papers. I had legal authority.”
“Your second mistake was thinking that mattered.”
I yanked the rope and hauled him up until his boots slipped on the frosted floor. He scrambled for balance and found none. I lifted him higher until his face was level with mine and his feet kicked at empty air.
His eyes went wide.
Now he understood.
Men like him crossed galaxies chasing frightened women and told themselves they were enforcing the law. They put hands on people weaker than them and called it duty.
He’d never stood in front of someone who could end him.
I let him feel it. A growl built low in my chest, and his breathing turned ragged.
“Your last mistake was touching her.”
He made a sound behind his teeth. A whimper. A plea. I didn’t care which.
My grip tightened on the rope.
It would be easy. One twist. One hard pull. Humans were fragile, and this one had put his hands on Maisie. He’d scared her. Hurt her. Tried to drag her away from me.
From my home.
From where she belonged.
I’d spent five years telling myself the Bastion was dead. Buried with the rebellion. Left behind with the arena and the blood and the men who’d made me into a weapon.
But he wasn’t dead.
He’d only been waiting.
“Kazan, stop,” Lorkin said from the doorway.
Damnation. Someone had been telling tales.
I didn’t look away from the hunter. “Leave.”
“No.” Lorkin stepped into the cold room, filling the doorway behind him. Soot and forge-grime streaked his maroon hide, and he still wore his leather apron. His hammer was shoved through his belt like he’d come straight from the smithy.
He probably had.
His horns swept back from his skull, blunter than mine where he’d ground them down years ago. Heat still came off him in waves, turning the cold air around his shoulders to mist.
He looked at the hunter. Then he looked at my hand on the rope.
He knew exactly what he was seeing.
That was the problem with old friends. They remembered every monster you’d ever been.
“Do not meddle in my affairs,” I warned.
“Do not make me.” He came closer, slow and careful. “I felt the ground move from the smithy. Half of New Knossos probably did. You roared loud enough to wake the dead, and now I find you in here with a human dangling from your fist.”
“He tried to take her.”
The hunter tried to speak, but I’d gagged him with the cuff of his own jacket. All that came out was a muffled whine.
