Page 13 of The Hero Within
He'd... thrown Black Tom off her into a wall? Her would-be assaulter staggered to his feet, blood dripping from his nose. The stranger turned and drove a fist into Black Tom's gut, and the bastard slammed back into the tin, making a strangled sound.
Then a tanned hand wrapped around his throat and her rescuer pinned Black Tom to the tin, whispering something in his ear as he lifted himoff the ground.
She caught a glint of silver in the stranger's hand, and Eden somehow crawled to her feet and grabbed his wrist.
"No," she said.
Tension locked through his wrist. All she could see was her rescuer’s black hat, dragged low over his brow. "He doesn't deserve mercy. Men like this don't go after women just once. Thisputa madreknew what he was doing."
"I wasn't talking about mercy." She might have once, but she was a little older now and the world a little starker. "If you kill him, they'll set the warg dogs on you."
She knew how it ran in towns like these. Black Tom had been sitting with friends when she'd entered the bar.
The stranger froze, his head tilting to the side, almost as if he was listening to her.
Dark stubble marred his jaw, and his skin was olive enough to hint at some indigenous heritage—or perhaps Latino. Maybe a mix.
"Please don't kill him," she said, swallowing down the lump in her throat and trying to rein in her racing pulse. Every part of her was trembling.Adrenaline. Its just adrenaline. Eden tried to force a joke, partly for herself. "You just saved my life and I'd prefer it if the local scum didn't lynch you for it. A dead hero's not much use to anybody."
"I'm not a hero."
"You'remyhero," she pointed out.
Another faint twitch of the muscle in his jaw. She caught a glimpse of his mouth and that soft lower lip.
"Remember those words," he said softly. Then he pulled the blade back and drove it in lower. Right between Black Tom's legs.
Black Tom screamed and crumpled to the ground, blood pouring out of him. Eden gaped. There wasn't enough blood for him to have hit the femoral artery, but....
He just....
"You just stabbed him in the dick," she blurted.
"Justice," said the stranger, sounding satisfied. "I daresay he'll never try that trick again."
A part of her relished the bastard's pain, but the rest of her instincts were pressing her to see to the wound. Black Tom deserved it—the stranger was right, it probably wouldn't have been Black Tom's first attempt to harm a woman—but she was a healer. Eden pressed a hand over her lips, capturing her strangled groan. Her fingers twitched as if her body wanted to spring into action and stem the blood flow. Instinct. Habit. Difficult things to fight. Black Tom cupped his groin, his face white and blood welling between his fingers as he screamed.
"Leave him be," the stranger said, wiping his knife clean on Tom's shirt. He sheathed it. "If he lives, then he lives. Come."
Dogs were baying nearby and a man called out for them to "shut up" in a guttural accent. Something smashed, as if it had been thrown.
A hand locked around her wrist.
"Wait!" Eden grabbed her bag, and then almost tripped into the stranger's hard body as he yanked her back. "Thank you—"
"Don't thank me just yet." He stepped past her, pushing her behind him as he faced some threat in the mouth of the alley.
"Eden?"
She couldn't see a thing, but the tension in her shoulders suddenly dissolved.
"CJ!" she cried, shoving past, and throwing herself into the young man's arms.
She only had a moment of relief. Dogs were baying like they could smell a fox in the henhouse and wanted to get at him.
CJ. They could smell CJ.
"What happened? Are you all right?" CJ drew back and cupped her shoulders. "I heard you scream."
