Page 68 of A Heart of Crimson Flames
The Taigosi drunkard was either too stupid or too arrogant to be fearful. “You can’t fault a soldier for following orders,” he said, looking between us.
I reached for the blade on my thigh. “I think you’ll find I can do whatever I like.”
The man’s gaze dropped to my bare skin, trailing up to my breasts visible beneath my dress. I laughed with vicious glee as he took me in, and his leering gaze grew wary.
“You know,” I hedged. “I always thought of my body as a weapon.” Confusion crossed his face, but he continued to stare, drinking in my nakedness. “I thought I was meant to use it to persuade, to suggest, to seduce. But better yet, I can use it to distract.”
The blade had left my hand before his eyes ever lifted from my breasts, too hypnotized to dodge my strike. My knife embedded in the meat of his thigh, and he bellowed out a curse. Ripping the knife from his flesh, he threw it to the side. He balled his hands into fists instead of wisely attempting to stop the loss of blood. Clearly, he’d already lost his senses to the ale.
“You fucking bitch,” he seethed.
I shot Maez a look, showing the man I wasn’t afraid to take my eyes off him. “I love it when they call me that.”
“Indeed,” she replied with a laugh.
On swaying feet, he charged me. I ducked and weaved out of the reach of his lumbering arms. He pawed at my shoulder, but my oiled skin slipped from his grip, and I laughed.
Too cavalier.
He moved faster than I expected, and before I could decide my next attack, he backhanded me across the face. My cheek stung, my vision blurring at the periphery as I dropped and grabbed for my discarded knife.
With a sickening crack, the man cried out, the hand that had struck me now twisted at a nauseating angle. I glared at the flicker of magic. Maez was like a mother Wolf maiming a deer for her pups to practice the hunt. But I was no pup.
“Let me handle this myself!” I barked and Maez held up her hands, a smile still stretching from ear to ear.
“Sorry, love,” she said mildly. “He’s your kill.”
“I...” the man searched the air around him, panic rising. “I can’t shift.”
“Another little spell of mine,” Maez added with a shrug. “I much prefer to watch you fight in this form.”
Focusing more on my approach, I charged at the man again. He squared off on me and took another swing that I darted under, raking my blade across his side. It took a surprising amount of effort to pierce through his clothes. I learned more with each movement, how hard each blow needed to be to inflict damage. There could be no timidity. I sliced him again, cutting a little deeper.
“That’s my girl!” Maez cheered. “Use his size against him, the oaf. He is a bull, and you are a snake, Briar. Strike fast.”
With that encouragement, I repeated the action, attacking from the side of his injured hand, using more force to stab him between the ribs.
His cry of pain was belabored and watery, the sound telling me I’d pierced a lung. The mountain of a man held a hand to his side as blood wept between his fingers. A glazed confusion slowed his responses.
When I attempted the same tack a third time, though, he’d learned my approach. He grabbed for my throat, his hand too slick with his own blood to grab hold, but his leg stuck out and tripped me, sending me colliding cheek first into the wall.
“Gah!” A tooth cracked, piercing my tongue. My mouth filled with the coppery tang of blood.
“Bring him down, love,” Maez whooped, clapping her hands.
I groaned, spitting blood and tooth shard onto the floor as I lifted my knife again. I felt Maez’s magic swirling around us. A buzzing pall hung in the air. A power begging me to reach out and toy with it, use it. My resolve grew, my hands clenched, until I was filled with the same burning fire.
The man’s chest rattled with the exertion of a deep breath, but still he glared hatefully back.
Fear me, I silently demanded as I ran at him head-on.
To my great satisfaction, his eyes widened in fear as I skidded across the wet stones. He lifted his good arm to clock me, and I crouched, impaling my knife in his groin—deep.
He howled out in pain, blood spraying faster than I’d ever seen before, coating the room in a scarlet mist. Dropping, his kneecaps cracked against the stone. I didn’t wait. I punched him, hearing the satisfying crunch as his nose broke. He fell like a stone, eyes rolling back as his life finally drained away.
I toed his lifeless body with my bare foot. Towering over him in victory, I smiled. I was no longer a pawn in a world ruled by men. Between Maez and I, we were now moving all the pieces on the board.
Maez slowly clapped. “Impeccable, darling.”
