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“You bitch.” He reached for her and she brought the point of the blade down right through his hand, impaling it to the ground.
The screech echoed into the adjoining woods.
Rafe walked over and sent a brain-bashing kick to the man’s head with his bare foot, his motions cold and sure. Whether he’d just knocked him out or killed the man, she wasn’t sure.
All she knew was that the screeching stopped.
Then silence.
Silence all around them.
Only Rafe’s heaving breath above her.
She looked behind her. All three of the other men lay prone on the ground, daggers still clutched in two of their hands. All of the limbs didn’t look quite straight. One stared sightlessly up at the sky.
She shuddered.
Had Rafe just killed these men? Coldly? With not the slightest pause in doing so?
The archway of Rafe’s bare foot went on the brute’s wrist in front of her, and he bent over to yank his blade from impaling the man’s hand. He stabbed the dagger into the ground three times, letting the dirt and snow clean the blade.
The dog came tumbling over to her just as Rafe held his hand down to her.
She scooped the puppy into her right arm and grasped his palm with her left hand. He hauled her to her feet. For how cold and callous his actions were, his dark eyes were furious, searching her face and then pausing as they studied the welt already puffing about her right eye where she had been punched.
The rage in his eyes spun into a maelstrom and he dropped her hand, turning back to the brute lying on the ground next to his feet, and he lifted his heel, stomping directly on the man’s throat, crushing it.
So, not dead before. Dead now.
He did it silently. Ruthlessly. Just as he had taken down the other brutes without a sound.
Who in the hell was this man?
He turned back to her, the storm of anger in his eyes spinning less furiously, but still spinning.
He wrapped his arm around her and guided her forward, walking at her slower pace as she had to shuffle along with his boots on.
They rounded the corner of the stable and started back toward the door of the inn when her body suddenly lost all control, shaking furiously. Her arms, her legs, her hands.
So much so she had to pause and drop the puppy to the ground.
Rafe stopped, worry filling his eyes as he looked down at her. “Are you hurt? More than the eye?”
She couldn’t answer him—could only just shut her eyes and shake her head, her body trembling out of control.
“Aww, hell, Vic.” He dragged her into him, clutching her like he wanted to hide her deep inside his chest where no one could touch her.
She kind of wanted that too.
He held her there, his bare feet in the snow, his hand stroking her spine for long minutes until the shudders racking her body eased enough that she could open her mouth. “How did you find me?”
“Your warmth had disappeared from the bed. And I saw those cutthroats last night in the tavern so I came looking and then followed the noise of the barking dog.”
“Did you kill them?”
His body stilled around her for a long moment. “Most likely.”
“Why?”
