Page 39 of Matched to the Alien King
Oh, hell no. I rolled deftly midair and kept rolling when I hit the desk with a thud. On the other side, I landed on my feet tucked in a vibrating, fuming crouch.
Then, I rose, slowly, meeting his intense glare on the other side of the desk with one of my own.
“You were my worst mistake,” I told him through gritted teeth.
“Tell me where it is, and I’ll let you leave.”
“I already did. It’s not here.”
Once again, he was between me and the door. The now unlocked door. Time to turn the tables, both figuratively and literally.
Using all my muscle, I tipped the desk over into him. He lunged backward out of the way, and with him momentarily distracted, I ran for the door.
He grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back. I cried out in pain, but I quickly recovered and attempted to flip him over my shoulder. He used his agility to spin out of the maneuver, but I landed a well-placed kick to his side anyway for shits and giggles.
Then, once again, I ran for the door.
His breath breezed through my hair from right behind me. His fingers grasped at the back of my waistband.
And then I remembered something from when we were married.
Something that could help me get out of here. Something that could bend him undermythumb.
Instead of going through the door, I went up it. Two light steps hit the heavy wood, and then I was spinning myself into a roundhouse kick targeted at one of his kidneys.
My aim was true. He stumbled sideways with a loud groan.
When I landed, I spun around to his back, reached into his waistband, and found exactly what I was looking for. Two small, holstered daggers he always kept hidden in case of emergency.
He spun to stop me, but it was too late, both for him and his balls.
I held the twin blades between his legs, primed for maiming if he so much as breathed wrong. “Good to know some things never change.”
His jaw muscles pulsed with anger. He practically shook with it. “You’ve been training with Mosely, I see.”
“What else do you think I’ve been doing the last ten years?”
Faster than I could process, he unsheathed a long, curved blade from his side holster and pressed the cold edge against my cheek. “Not grieving our daughter obviously.”
His words punched a hole right through me. I shrank back, a terrible sting slicing across my cheek as I did so even though he held the blade steady, but the sharp pain was nothing compared to his implications.
“You have no right to say that to me.” My voice came out shaky and thin. I didn’t have to hear myself to know that. Tears brimmed and tumbled over, mixing with the blood trickling from the cut on my face. “Grieving is all I’ve been doing. All I willeverdo.”
He stayed silent, immobile, completely unaffected by my outpouring of emotion.
“I’m leaving this room.” I switched one dagger to the other hand so I could reach behind me and open the unlocked door. A blast of cool air breezed over my skin, offering a taste of something other than sweat and a destroyed marriage. “And I sure wouldn’t try to stop me if I were you.”
“The daggers,” he said through gritted teeth. “They stay.”
“No.” Slowly, leaving the daggers firmly cupping his balls for the time being, I took a single step back. My gaze remained locked on his blade in case he did something nasty with it. “The daggers most definitely are not.”
“They were my grandmother’s,” he spat.
“She called you a brat at your own wedding.”
His hazel eyes flashed wickedly. “That’s nothing compared to what she called you.”
“I’d be careful who you choose to have a pissing contest with, Mike.” I took another slow step back, dropping the blades from between his legs. “Next time you might not have anything to piss with.”
