It bucks again. Squeals. Thrashes its hind legs. Carved twin trenches in the mud that fill with dark water.
Dash holds.
The amber glow in the tusks flickers. Dims. Goes out.
The boar wheezes. Grunts once. Goes still beneath him, sides heaving, red eyes fading to a defeated orange.
The field goes quiet. The other couples have stopped. Todd is standing on a barricade. Petunia's got her phone out. Mom's champagne glass is frozen halfway to her lips.
Dash lifts his head.
He's unrecognizable. Mud covers every inch of him. His hair, his face, the ruined suit, the scars. Only his eyes are clean, golden and bright and absolutely volcanic.
He looks at me. Scans my body. Checks my ankle, my arms, my face. Something shifts behind those eyes when he confirms I'm intact. Something that isn't in the contract.
Then his gaze tracks across the field.
To Mark.
Mark's hand is still behind his thigh. His fingers have stopped moving. The grin is gone. In its place, something pale and tight and very, very aware.
Dash rises off the boar. Slowly. Mud cascades off his shoulders in sheets. He straightens to his full six-foot-nine and lifts one massive hand.
One finger. Extended. Pointed across the churned lawn like a siege weapon finding its target.
"You."
Mark doesn't move.
"When this weekend is over. You and I are going to have a conversation about what you just did. And I will be doing most of the talking. With my hands."
The pinned boar whimpers.
CHAPTER 8
DASH
The boar tastes better than expected.
Slow-roasted over an enchanted spit that turns itself, seasoned with something the elven kitchen staff calls "heritage thyme" but smells like regular thyme with a superiority complex. The country club serves it on porcelain plates rimmed in actual gold. I eat four servings. The waiter stops making eye contact after the third.
Magnolia sits beside me at the long banquet table, her mud-soaked dress swapped for a borrowed green cocktail number from Petunia's suitcase. Too tight in the shoulders. Too long in the hem. She keeps adjusting the neckline and it keeps sliding back.
I focus on the boar.
Across the table, Mark occupies the seat furthest from mine. He arrived late. Changed seats twice. First from the spot beside Magnolia's mother, then from the spot across from Magnolia's uncle, who has been staring at me with open fascination and twice offered to arm wrestle. Mark has settled in a corner where a massive floral centerpiece blocks his direct sightline to me.
He thinks the flowers hide him. I can smell his cologne through the lilies.
"So, Dash." Magnolia's mother sets her fork down with surgical precision. "Magnolia tells me you're in... security?"
"Private military contracting."
"How exotic." The wordexoticdoes a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. "And is there much demand for that sort of thing these days?"
"People always need protection from things that want to hurt them, Mrs. Jenkins."
I don't look at Mark. I don't need to. His heartbeat is audible from here. Fast. Rabbit-speed.
