Page 10 of Touch

“I’ll fucking sleep it off when you apologize for twisting her ankle.”

In the bookstore, beautiful Holly had mentioned an earlier incident between her and Andrew, which had to do with her ankle. She must be the one Griffin is talking about.

He tips his head. “Was that your pathetic attempt to get her attention?”

“Maybe if I were still twelve,” Andrew remarks.

The implication earns him a glower, the makings of a grudge swarming through the adversary’s blood. “Then again, I forgot. Someone like you doesn’t need to work that hard for attention, right? Must be an ego trip, earning an upscale living from writing about monsters who fuck.”

Love regards Griffin flatly. Evershire is a tourist village, a destination in which the residents require inheritances or self-made fortunes to afford property. So unless this brute is a squatter, he’s no different than Andrew. Although considering the latter’s house, his affluence might indeed surpass most people here.

Still. Mortal privilege is mortal privilege.

Andrew grimaces but stays quiet. It’s a wise move. Best not to contradict this adversary, for it will only sharpen the brute’s incisors and won’t change a thing.

“Doesn’t matter, either way,” the troll sidekick remarks. “Holly’s off limits.”

Griffin spreads his arms. “We’ve talked about this, haven’t we? Haven’t we had nice talks?”

Andrew slits his eyes in mock bafflement. “Nice?”

“You don’t think I know how to be nice?”

“Hell. I didn’t even know you could pronounce it.”

Love drops her head into her hands. Cursed mortal!

The brute’s jaw clenches. “What’s not nice is getting in my woman’s way all the time. I was on the phone with her not too long ago, and what a coincidence. You two bump into each other again.”

Love recalls Holly talking on the phone in the bookshop.

“She hung up on me,” Griffin says. “Then she called back and said you ran into her in some store. You hear me,asshole?” The man punctuates the last word by shoving Andrew, and he doesn’t stop. “You need to watch where you’regoing. Were you trying to get herattention? You want mywoman?”

Shove. Shove. Shove.

“Just goes to show. When you don’t come out of the hermit hole you dug for yourself, even fame and that fucking photogenic face of yours only goes so far. Women like their men to actually leave the house for more than handiwork at abookstore. As if you have a decent track record of keeping a female around,” the man slurs. “Even your mother didn’t find you worth sticking around for—”

Andrew’s fist smashes into Griffin’s face. Blood splatters the snow as the brute stumbles backward and hammers into his friend.

Fury contorts Andrew’s features, though it doesn’t serve him fast enough to deflect Griffin’s answering blow, which cracks into the side of Andrew’s jaw. However, he ducks the next punch and backhands Griffin, breaking open the man’s lip and spritzing more crimson.

All appears victorious until the troll sidekick takes Andrew down by sweeping under his legs. At which point, Love seethes, forcing herself to be still, to keep her hands off the archery.

She can’t intervene. She simplycannot.

Griffin kicks Andrew in the stomach, making him keel over and cough into the snow. As the brute squats to complete the job, Andrew jolts into motion. Well played, for the bluff gives him an advantage as he seizes Griffin’s throat and barrels his knuckles into the brute’s mandible.

Bone cracks. The brute howls and staggers while Andrew lunges to his feet, unaware of the troll charging at his back.

Arrows would be too clean a kill. Instead, Love rips a metal bar off a bicycle rail. She leaps, strikes, and rotates away so quickly the inferiors barely see the object flying toward them. But oh, they feel its impact. The bar flips and pivots. It pitches the troll sideways, sending him spinning into the snow, and before he’s landed, she wheels and rams the makeshift weapon into his ribcage. He coils into himself like a snail while hacking up globs of blood.

Meanwhile, Griffin catapults toward the bar. Although he can only perceive the floating rod and not Love, Andrew seesthe man’s trajectory and unleashes a feral growl. Bolting in front of Love, he snatches Griffin’s arm, cranks it at a vicious angle, and lands another blow to his skull. At the same time, Love circles around Andrew and lashes at the backs of Griffin’s knees, depositing him on top of his friend.

Andrew looms over them with a murderous expression. In unison, Love falls into a crouch at his side, each of them braced for another round.

The men belt out a string of “Fucks” and flee the premises, several of their bones bent at misshapen angles. Love launches to her feet and whirls toward Andrew. He twists at the same time, staring at her in disbelief. They watch each other, clouds of frost slicing from their mouths as winter returns to its customary, silent self. His gaze burrows deeply, surveying her condition, looking for injuries and finding none, then consuming the other details about her that don’t belong in this world.

Thank Stars, she’d kept her wings concealed. It is bad enough that Love has brought this mayhem upon herself.

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