I pivot, slash low, and feel the bite of my blade slice deep through his thigh. He grunts—not in pain, but surprise—and I follow through, sweeping his legs out from under him. He hits the floor hard and immediately springs back up with predatory grace to face me once more.
“Back to that, are we?” he says, a smile blooming like this is a great game. “Fine, little one. I’ll be the bad guy if that’s what you need. I was only doing what I thought best.”
“My mind,” I snarl, advancing, tracking his every movement, “is not a maze for you to fucking play in.”
“Noted.”
“Oh no, Horseman.” I circle him, forcing him to turn, to react. “My point hasn’t been made yet, but when more of your immortal blood stains these blades, it will be.”
His eyes flare, wolf-bright, a feralness replacing all else. “Going to make me pay for my sins?” he asks with derision. “Make me repent?”
“You’re damn right I am.”
I strike again, faster this time, power singing through my arms.
He blocks with his forearm, then twists aside and back as my second blade whistles past his throat.
“You think I need another man,” I sneer while advancing, “bending my thoughts to his will?”
“Should I start my Hail Marys now,” he taunts, retreating a step, overturning a chair with his heel to keep distance between us, “or would a caning suffice as punishment?”
“Pollock!” Orán shouts as he steps forward.
Pollock doesn’t take his eyes off me. He lifts one hand, palm out. “No. You stay out of this.”
Then his voice slips into my skull—silk-wrapped steel, intimate and infuriating.
This is between you and me. Isn’t that right, Anam-cheangailte?
“Fuck you!”
His gaze traverses down my bare body. Oh, I plan on it, he murmurs back, satisfaction threading through the words. But first, it seems we have a few things to work out.
The unholy screech that leaves me is not fully human. “Get out of my fucking head!”
I go back further and recite the names to those faces inside my mind. Before our identities were stripped from us. Before the day we began to bleed. No more than children, but forced to bear unimaginable abuse and pain over and over again. To have things stolen from us that never should have been. Forced to bend. Forced to obey. This asshole has no idea what true punishment is, but he will.
I leap across the room, jump over the overturned couch, and let one of the daggers fly.
He catches it out of the air and fires it back at me. It whizzes past my face and buries itself in a kitchen cabinet with a thunk.
I stomp on the floorboard beneath my foot and kick it aside to reveal a hidey-hole. I bend slowly and keep my eyes on Pollock as he circles the couch.
When he sees his sword, his eyes flash with recognition and narrow on it.
“Look familiar? I’ve gotten quite good with it.” Dagger in one hand, his blade in the other, I attack.
Pollock doesn’t dodge. He takes the dagger in the gut so he can get within my reach. A painful grunt that borders on a growl leaves him. One hand clamps around my other wrist with crushing force, bones screaming as my fingers slacken and his blade hits the floor.
I twist the dagger in his stomach and take a bit of merriment in the agony that crosses his features. His brows pinch together, and his jaw flexes as it rearranges his insides.
Through gritted teeth, I say, “The last fucking thing I need, Mate, is another man asserting dominion over me.”
I rip the dagger free. Blood—dark and luminous—spills down his abdomen.
His other hand lashes out, knocking the blade from my grip as I try to drive it back into him. Metal skids across the floor. He crowds me, pressing forward, forcing me back step by step until my shoulders hit the wall.
I bring my knee up and crush his balls with all the strength I can manage. He folds forward. I headbutt him, then force him back with a shove. One kick sends him stumbling over the hole in the floor. His growl is all animal—rage and frustration tangled together—as he loses his footing and drops.
