Page 85 of Pride: The Rogue
If Latimer weren’t splintering apart into shards of icy fury, he might have joined in at the sheer stupidity and arrogance of the bastard.
Color splotched Scott’s fleshy cheeks. “What’s so diverting about that?” he asked, indignantly over the raucous mirth. “Unlike you sorry chaps, I’m a squire.”
That managed to quellSquireScott’s detractors.
“In fact,” the pompous prig continued, giving his lapels a tug. “I’m going to say goodbye to you commoners and pay a visit to the lady myself.Weshall see who is laughing when I’m enjoying the chit’scompany.”
With wide, stupid eyes all on him, the fleshy squire hefted his big frame out of his chair and sauntered off.
Latimer narrowed his eyes on the unsuspecting dead man.
Then, when Squire Scott began his ascent, Latimer set his tankard down. It’d been some time, but he headed after his latest kill.
He found the old fool standing in the middle of the hall, twiddling his fat thumbs, and glancing back and forth at the doors on either side of him.
“Which room are you in, lovie?” Scott muttered, still slightly winded from having climbed the brief set of stairs.
“Looking for a certain lady?”
Gasping, the squire whipped around so quickly his corpulent belly swayed as if in slow motion from side to side.
When he faced Latimer, bright crimson stains splotched the squire’s bewhiskered cheeks.
Latimer folded his arms at his chest and glared at the shorter by almost a foot but fatter than five stone, squire.
“I…I…she’s your lady, then?” the gentleman whined.
“No.”
Relief took the place of the lackwit’s earlier fear.
Latimer held the other man’s beady eyes. “Nor is she yours, or will ever be, yours,” he whispered, cracking his knuckles.
Alas, Scott proved too arrogant and stupid to know the danger he was in.
“Ah, you want her, too?” the fool said in his whiny tones. He drew his paunch up. “I have no problem sharing her. I’ll even be the gentleman and let you have a go at her fir—”
Latimer was upon Scott in three long strides.
He had hands around his neck, before the last of the crude words left Scott’s fleshy lips.
Scott’s florid cheeks grew puffed and his mouth moved as he tried to get words out.
Latimer drove the fat bastard backward and pinned him against the wall. “Have you ever tasted your own blood,SquireScott?” he snarled.
The gentleman’s eyes bulged; terror bled from their depths.
Latimer feasted on that fear, growing stronger, more powerful.
“If you think of going near her, if you speak her name or mention she was here…” Latimer tightened his hold upon the other man’s neck until guttural, death-like rasps spilled from his quivering lips. “If you so much as think of her, I’ll make youwishI killed you this day.”
He released his hold some. Even as Scott attempted to suck breath into his lungs, Latimer brought his fist back, and delivered three rear hooks in rapid succession, catching the squire’s right cheek.
Blood gushed from the squire’s broken nose; his eyes rolled to the back of his head.
Crazed, Latimer let go of the unconscious bastard and gave six rapid jabs before the unconscious shit-sack hit the floor.
Bloodlust pumped through Latimer’s veins. His chest heaving, his pulse racing, he stood over the squire’s fat, inert body.
