Page 11 of Gilded Whispers

Both.

Whatever.

I shrug. “Or don’t. Be as stupid and blind as I was. He doesn’t love you. He wants to dominate you, control you and the second you don’t please him or show that you have your own opinions he will throw you away and use his fancy legal license and contacts to make surehelooks like the victim.”

All I get in return is a sneer.

Sometimes you just can’t help people no matter how hard you try.

I hear William’s roar of rage before I see the beefy fist coming at me. William’s expression is murderous. Catching him off guard with an uppercut is one thing, but a full on toe-to-toe fight is a whole other situation I am not prepared for. Self defense lessons prepared me for a lot, but not this. My eyes dart around the lounge. There's no time to move. I have tables spread out behind me, more to my left and a solid bar and stools to my right.

I sense a presence beside me but I don’t take my eyes off the devil coming at me.

But it doesn’t come. A large hand fills my vision, grabs William’s and suddenly everything moves in a blur. Wood cracks then there’s a bleeding William laying on top of broken tables.

I back away, wanting only to find the nearest exit and fade into nothing from embarrassment. Tonight was about rediscovering my sexuality and setting my inner woman free. The second I get home I never want to leave.

“Step back, ma’am.” A large figure walks past me to loom over a stunned and whimpering William.

The bartender, my stunned mind realizes. He holds a hand up, a finger pointing directly at me. “Don’t leave. We need to talk.”

He turns back to William and grand his arm, ripping the sleeve of his shirt to reveal his forearm. “You. Your name. Proof of membership.” the bartender reveals a golden key inked into the skin. I don’t see where the bartender pulls the long blade from. Could be from an ankle holster. But what he does with it has my eyes wide.

Razor thin metal glides through skin and ink, blood spilling instantly.

“What the fuck are you doing?” William squirms on the floor but the bartender is stronger.

“Looks can be deceiving, can’t they?”

The bartender looks back at me and winks as he speaks to William. “You think those weaker than you are beneath you? I think it’s time you learn how wrong you are.”

William fires off a string of insults I’m all too familiar with, but it doesn’t stop the bartender from lifting the blade and adding another slash through William’s skin.

His screams set something right inside me. I don’t know if that makes me as bad as him, but I don't fight the thought of satisfaction as it takes hold either.

“Your membership has been revoked. I strip you of Gilded Key access.”

“What the fuck gives you that right?” Spital drips from Williams curled lips.

The bartender pulls back his sleeve to reveal a large golden key but this one doesn’t look like William’s. There’s an all-seeing eye at the top that resembles the one on the dollar bill and there are words in latin etched along the side of the key. I don’t speak the language, but something tells me this man is more than a simple employee pouring drinks.

“You are no longer allowed in my establishments. Here or any other city.”

Oh, shit. So, that answers that.

If my feet didn’t refuse to move, I would already be out of here. The bartender–err, make that owner of the freaking Gilded Key Society–keeps rattling something off to William, but my mind is focused on how to get as far away from here and him as possible.

How the hell am I going to explain this to Luna? She’ll put me under a twenty-four-hour guard after this. Good luck with finding any privacy now. She won’t let me out of her sight after tonight.

More men dressed identically to the Society’s owner surround me. Despite the human wall around me, I still feel the burn of Society members' eyes on us. Mortification spills through me, but there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. I finally know what all my heroines feel like when I write them into a corner and they want nothing more than to die where they are standing or let the floor swallow them whole out of mortification.

I swallow thickly.

“Ma’am.”

My brain clicks back online. “Excuse me?”Shit get it together, Stella.

“Do you want to press charges? If you do, I will need you to stay. I’ll personally take you to my office and have the authorities here within a few minutes to get the process started.”

---