Page 2 of Savage Knight
He raised his fist and she braced herself for the hit.When it landed on her cheek, the chunky ring on his index finger spilt her skin.By now, however, she was completely numb to the agony he inflicted.
“It’s time I found a new wife,” he hissed.
It only took a second to understand what he meant.There was no divorce in their world.No way out of her inevitable fate.Instead of fear and denial, however, she embraced what was about to happen.She may not want to die, but death was preferable to the nightmare of her marriage.When he yanked her to the balcony railing, she didn’t fight him.It was no use.Scias Mailliard grinned evilly as he positioned her, then he pushed.
The last thing she saw was the big, luminescent moon.She threw up a desperate plea to Saint Rita to make sure her death was quick and painless.Then ...nothing ...as her neck broke upon the ground below.
Chapter One
Lowen stared objectivelydown at her shattered body.Her head twisted at an unnatural angle as blood seeped onto the paving stones beneath.The dead woman was thin and pale.A corpse long before her heart stopped beating.She had no feelings to her corporeal self because death was the only guarantee in life.
Tendrils of mist slowly crept toward her, as a swirling light formed, the intensity building with every second.Oblivion beckoned, so perhaps the last wish she made had been answered.Just as she took a metaphorical step toward it, a voice reached out.
“If I marry this man, he will destroy me.”
She turned, cocking her head.A spirit shouldn’t be curious, but she was.
“I’m not ready to die.”
No, she hadn’t been.Nonetheless, here she was.
“Here, please take my handkerchief.A beautiful woman should never cry.”
Another voice.Deep.Male.One faintly reminiscent from a snapshot into her past.
The light grew brighter and inside its core she saw shadow people waving to her, urging her to come to them.
“I can take you away from here.You don’t have to marry him.”
Like a tennis match, she looked between each end of the mist.The peace she had desperately craved when alive, or a chance to reset a despondent life.If she took the road less traveled, would she be making a mistake?Would she be jumping out of one fire and into another?She had to choose, and it was the nagging memory that she didn’t want to die that kept drawing her attention back to the unexplored route.Making her decision, the mist swallowed the path she decided not to travel.Lowen turned to her past and stepped into the pivotal moment that changed everything.
