Page 41 of The Rebel and the Rose
Something inside him had snapped. A red mist clouded his thoughts, and he forgot what side he was on. In truth, he didn’t care. He was on his feet in one heartbeat, squaring up to those soft-jawed brutes in the next, his mind tunnelling until all he could hear was the satisfyingthwackof his fist striking their faces over and over again.
He could have lost his own head for it and destroyed the Daggers’ good standing with the Crown while he was at it, but by the time he was pummelling the breath out of those smarmy assholes, he found he didn’t care much for his own head. Seeing the spitfire again had punched a hole in all that careful resentment he had been stockpiling over the winter. One look at her, sitting on the other side of that table with her chin raised like a battle-worn princess, had made him weak for her all over again. Had he taken Shade tonight, every soldier in that room would be dead.
When the king arrived, Ransom’s blood was still fizzing with adrenaline.
Bertrand had called him a beast for it.
Ransom had felt like one.
Hestillfelt like one.
And try as he did, he could not keep his eyes offher. He had been starved of Seraphine Marchant for far too long. Her delicate heart-shaped face. Those searing blue eyes flecked with bronze. That soft, smart mouth.
The spitfire was bad for his concentration. Bad for his blood pressure. Bad for business.
She’s the enemy.
Three times, Nadia had pinched his leg under the table. Reminders that Seraphine Marchant wasnotone of their own. All winter, she had been methodically dismantling their trade, screwing with their livelihood, and now the king himself had all but accused her of being a rebel, a potential traitor to the Crown.
No, Seraphine Marchant was no friend of the Daggers.
She was a threat: to the Order and to the kingdom. To his own furious heartbeat.
But there was a greater, more powerful enemy at play now.
‘So, just to be clear, you want us to kill someone who might be an actual, literal saint?’ said Caruso, with a flatness that told Ransom he was struggling to believe it.
‘I want you to kill a traitor,’ said the king. ‘Do you have a problem with that, Dagger?’
‘No.’ Caruso shrugged. No great moral quandary there. Saint or sinner, a mark was a mark. ‘I like a challenge.’
‘Me too,’ added Nadia, after a beat. ‘The sooner the city settles, the better.’
‘Hale?’ asked the king.
They were hardly in a position to refuse, and Ransom wasalready long past morality. Stamped and damned, and waiting for hell. He dipped his chin. ‘Consider it done.’
Killing the king’s nephew wasn’t just about money, though the reward would be considerable. It was a matter of their continued protection. The freedom to go on doing whatever the hell they liked, without consequence.
The silence across the table was palpable.
The Shadowsmith’s face was like stone, his tanned skin marbled with bruises.Versini, the king had called him earlier. He’d plainly hated it. Which made Ransom warm to it.
‘Flames?’ prompted the king. ‘Lost your tongues?’
Seraphine hesitated, looking to Versini. ‘We’re not assassins, Your Majesty.’
‘But sheisa killer,’ said Nadia, coldly. ‘She just does it for free.’
Seraphine cut her eyes at her. ‘I don’t hurt people, for sport or coin.’
Ransom stifled a groan. Couldn’t she see there was no choice here? The king hadn’t extended an offer to them; he had given an order. And if she refused it, she wouldn’t walk out of this place alive. Hell, she’d barely got here in one piece.
‘But we can help,’ said Versini, engaging some actual survival instincts. ‘Whatever Your Majesty commands. Of course.’
‘Of course,’ Seraphine added quietly.
‘Very good,’ grunted the king.
