Page 63 of Thorn Season
The blade met resistance.
The man bellowed, tossing me aside so hard that my neck whippedup-down. I lost the knife and side-smacked the vanity, biting my tongue. The vase wobbled—then tipped and shattered, roses showering my arms, my gown, the floor. Their scent lifted and mixed with the coppery taste of blood.
Nausea threatened to buckle my knees.
The man straightened, leather trousers blood-slicked from where the blade had skimmed his thigh. His eyes leveled on me, and I knew I had to move—torun. But I could only gasp for air against the vanity, the wood digging into my ribs.
“Highborn scum.” He spat on the floor and prowled forward. “Someone needs to teach you a lesson.”
My specter grew frantic, lashing me from the inside out. I tried to scramble upright. If I exposed myself now, the copycats would know what I was. I would never be safe again.
Unless he never got a chance to tell the others.
It would be so easy to wrap my specter around his throat and squeeze. To let my secret die with this brute who’d murdered Marge. His pulse would throb under my hold, quickening then dying out. His lips would turn blue, his eyes white from rolling back.
My breaths rushed out in wet puffs, and I felt myself swaying. Plummeting back toward that day at the Opal, with the crowd and the heat and the roses everywhere—strung and potted and crushed under wooden staffs. Petals tumbling under sunlight, carrying the reek of blood and sweat.
I knew how it would feel to watch a life slip away. I knew it would tear open the wound inside me.
The man’s fist reared back, and I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t end his life before his knuckles landed.
I shrank back just as silver spun in my periphery.
The man roared and pitched forward. We toppled together, limbs tangled. A knife hilt stuck out from his arm.
I whipped my head around, heart hammering—confused, until I saw the sharp outline of a blazer in the dark.
Garret wrenched the man’s weight off me, yanking out the knife in the same movement. The man spun, swinging his fist, and his knuckles whooshed through empty air. Another swing. Another miss. He blinked, as though seeing Garret for the first time.
Garret smiled. Then he attacked.
Where the man was slow and solid, Garret moved like a blade—each dodge precise, each strike deliberate. Boots scuffed the marble; ornaments rattled and smashed.
The man was losing. He knew it. And maybe that was why he hurled himself at Garret in a clumsy, desperate tackle, slamming them both against the wall.
Garret made a pained sound, and I knew it was over.
The man whipped toward me, and I prepared for the blow of his fist. The smash of his boot into my ribs. But he just sneered and staggered out, wounds gushing.
Three seconds later, the lounge door slammed shut.
In the spluttering silence, I vaguely registered Garret struggling to stand.
“Grayday vigils were clogging the streets,” he panted, supporting himself against the dresser. “I was late, and you weren’t in the gardens.” His voice sounded far away, muffled through the ringing in my ears. “We could’ve questioned him. Why didn’t you do anything? Did he use dullroot?”
I blinked numbly.
Garret looked at me then, and he paused at what he saw. I’d landed in the mess of sopping roses and vase shards. Warmth oozed down my lip from where I’d bitten my tongue.
He pushed off the dresser, crystal clinking. His knees bent; his eyes wavered before me. He reached for my face. “You’re bleeding.”
His thumb grazed my mouth, and I flinched. He stilled, palm hovering above my cheek. A smear of my blood darkened the pad of his thumb.
“He’s gone,” Garret said, as if that should stop my trembling. As if an equal threat wasn’t still in the room, breathing hot streams against my face.
I knew the moment he saw the change in me.
His brows drew in tight and his hand lowered, catching the strands of my hair on the way down. He rocked back on his heels, mouth pressed thin. “I won’t hurt you, Alissa.”
