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For a second, her smile disappeared. “Really?”
I nodded, trying to appear pitiful.
As if she didn’t believe me, she wrapped the coarse rope around my hand, and started pulling my limb to the chair.
I cried out and stifled a sob.
She bit her lip and then started gathering the dishes, leaving my hands unbound. She looked at me over her shoulder while stacking my cup on the plate. “If you try anything, you’ll regret it.”
I whimpered in response, and then she hurried out of my presence.
It wouldn’t take long now.
In fact, I had less time than I estimated. It had barely been five minutes before Omar burst in alongside the next patron. Omar’s eyes went to my unbound wrists immediately, and a muscle in his jaw feathered.
The man, tall and athletic, stumbled through the door, already drunk and leering. I could tell this one fancied himself a dabbler in magic—he wore garish rings on every finger, covered in fake gems and occult symbols.
I stared at the rings as he reached for me.
“Santa Renata,” he breathed.
I recoiled in my seat. “I am no one’s holy woman.”
He fell to his knees before me, pressed his masked face against my bare knee, and his shoulders shook. “La Santísima Reina.”
I kicked him off me, and he slumped to the side. Digging my heels into the ground, I shoved my bodyweight backward and clutched the armrests.
Omar stepped forward, eyes burning on me. “We’re putting your bindings back on.”
There was no time to respond before the man stood up. “Wait, leave her as she is. I paid to-to see her blood.”
The Comerciante Nocturno nodded, and his gaze flicked to me. The man turned around. His muscular physique towered over me, and I looked around for a place to hide, some way to cover my bare skin. Instead, the man reached into his pocket and brought out a set of scissors.
“Santísima Reina, please forgive me. But I must know, for the sake of my people.”
The pandering sound of his voice was ugly, and I wanted to shout at him. Instead, I remained deathly still while he gingerly picked up my hand and swiped the open blade from one of the scissors across it.
My eyes burned, and then the gold spread across my body. It pinched my nerves and irritated my skin, but I healed.
The man dropped my hand and stepped back. “San Volcán.” He swore. Then stepped forward, threaded his fingers through my hair, and tugged a fistful of golden locks. He angled his strong hand back to expose my throat, and revealed the interlocking scars along the top of my chest. He studied every inch of me, with wonder and a kind of hunger that made me afraid. I had been stabbed and sliced, but this was much more than a sick sense of possession and greed. This was desire.
It was unclear whether Omar would mind watching while someone took advantage of me.
As if hearing my thoughts, Omar cleared his throat. “Your time is almost up.”
Snip. A lock of golden hair drifted to the floor.
My eyes went wide. I hadn’t realized that he had wanted to cut a piece of me. The lock stayed gold, and the man bent over to pick it up.
Rage simmered in my veins, as scalding as the golden blood. The rage had kept me alive for the last week. It was rage that fueled my magic that would give me the strength to escape this place. His cut had been shallow, and the effect was already faded.
He looked up at me. “I will tell the others that it is true. I will show them this.” He held up the hair, and then his hand went back to my knee.
The look in his eyes was so heated, so forceful, that I reached up and bit down hard on my thumb and smeared it across the man’s hand.
The man shrieked as my blood turned to gold, scalding his hand. He tried to jerk away, but I held fast, burning him deeper, vengeance a sweet song in my veins.
Omar roared with fury and came at me with something in his hands. I released the patron just as something slammed into me, hurling me against the wall.
