Page 336 of Hunters and Prey

Dragon Trial

Chapter 1

I’d never broken someone’s kneecap before, and the crunch and the resounding squeal were a delight to my ears. Who knew that the hilt of my double-headed axe Jezebel would make the perfect club?

“Stop, please stop!” Rae cried from her crumpled position by the hearth behind me.

Her face was a mass of bruises, her lip bloody and swollen.

“Are you kidding me right now?” I turned my back on my target, her sobbing abuser Mal, and walked over to her. “Have you seen your face? Is this what you want?”

She shook her head. “He loves me.”

Damn, her mouth was so swollen her words were thick and garbled, but I got the picture. Behind me Mal was panting and gasping in pain. I shot him a glance over my shoulder.

“Nah, he doesn’t love you, Rae. Love isn’t black and blue. Love doesn’t make you bleed because you overcooked his fucking steak.”

“Just finish it, Anya.” Helgi stepped out of the shadows, her jagged teeth bared as if baying for blood, which she kind of was. “Take the other one. Do it.”

Rae let out a piercing scream. “Fuck you, fuck you, Helgi; you promised. You promised you wouldn’t touch him.”

Helgi crossed her arms and grinned down at her ex-lover. “Yeah, I did. And I haven’t laid a finger on the bastard.”

No, that was my job. I was Helgi’s wrath tonight, and it was way past due. Mal was an abusive arsehole, and he’d been whaling on Rae for weeks now. Rae, who’d been Helgi’s first love, the woman who Helgi had been unable to get out of her heart and her mind.

I raised my makeshift club, ready to take out the other kneecap, but Mal was shuffling away, pleading, crying, and yeah, this didn’t feel good even though it should, even though he deserved it.

Rae rushed forward and threw herself across Mal. “How dare you? How fucking dare you?” Rae spat the words like bullets, her anger forcing her battered mouth to form the words clear as a bell. “You had no right. No fucking right. You couldn’t have me, so you don’t want anyone else to have me?”

The look of raw devastation on Helgi’s face was too much.

I lowered Jezebel. “We’re trying to fucking help you.”

“I didn’t ask for your help.”

Anger, hot and potent, bloomed in my chest. “No, you just wandered around with bruises all over your face and a woe-is-me look in your black and blue eyes.”

Rae shot me a lethal glance. “You should have minded your own business. Mal has a temper, but he loves me. He doesn’t mean to hurt me.”

Those words. Those damn words. Every time I heard them the urge to shake some sense into the speaker had me cutting crescent moons into my palms with my nails. But shaking her wouldn’t help. She was blind right now, and all we could do was hope that when she finally opened her eyes to the truth it wouldn’t be too late.

Helgi’s jaw tensed. “He’ll kill you, Rae. One day he’ll hit you so hard you won’t get back up.”

Rae flinched and took a step back. “Fuck you, Helgi.”

Helgi’s chest rose and fell rapidly. “Don’t let it be too late. Please.”

Rae opened her mouth to say more, but I held up a hand. “We’re leaving. Now. Before I lose my temper and show you how much I care.”

Yeah, it was a mean, insensitive thing to say, but right now the only person I gave a shit about was Helgi. I turned my back on the pair. Something slammed into my back, clinked off, and hit the ground. I turned slowly to see a throwing dagger lying on the ground. I raised my eyes and pinned them on Mal’s red-rimmed ones. He looked just as shocked as me. Rae, then? Fuck.

She lifted her chin, defiant and unapologetic.

Thank god for the scales on my back, otherwise…

“Motherfucker.” Helgi took a menacing step toward the pair.

I grabbed her arm to halt her. “No. Not worth it. They deserve each other.”

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