“Hey, Faythe, good to see you again.” The voice was vaguely familiar, and the sour mental aftertaste called forth unfocused memories of pain and anger. I rolled my eyes upward and forced them to focus on the towhead whose huge hand squeezed my throat.
I knew him. How did I know him? Without more oxygen, I couldn’t place his face or remember his name.
“Damn it, Dean, let her breathe,” Alex swore. “That’s my future wife you’re choking.”
The hand around my throat loosened, and I sucked in several short, sharp breaths. But I still dangled above the floor from his grip on my neck. I still clawed at his fingers, trying to pry them from my throat. “She’s not yours yet.…” Dean leered down at me, and his gaze landed south of my neck. He could see right down my shirt.
“Not. Ever,” I gasped, struggling to open my mouth in spite of the pressure his grip put on my jaw.
“Anyway, I think this particular puss is more than you can handle,” Dean continued, still looking me in the chest. “She throws a hell of a left hook.”
And suddenly I remembered. Tall goon with white-blond hair and more muscles than brains. Colin Dean. The idiot Canadian import I’d knocked out in order to save Brett Malone in Montana during my trial.
“Put her down,” Alex growled. Dean shrugged, then lowered me to the floor, his hand still around my neck. Still pinning me to the wall, though my fingers pried at his.
I threw my right knee up, but he blocked it easily with his free hand. “You’re going to make me get rough, aren’t you?” The gleam in his eyes said that’s exactly what he wanted.
“You. Work. For. Malone?” I gasped.
Dean grinned. “For about a month now.”
Malone was recruiting from outside the country. The bastard was drawing neutral parties into our civil war. That could not end well.
“Let her go,” Jace ordered from the floor where he’d fallen, on the lower edge of my vision. His eyes were clear; he was back with us, thank goodness. But where the hell was Marc?
Dean laughed without turning, and Jace growled until Alex kicked him in the ribs. Jace grunted and tried to curl around his new injury, but with his limbs bound, the best he could do was pull his knees up as far as they’d go.
I tried to yell for him to leave Jace alone, but my effort ended in strangled coughing. I wasn’t pulling in enough air to shout.
“Let the poor girl breathe,” Alex ordered, and Dean’s grip loosened a little more. His blood was sticky beneath my nails, the scent fragrant, now that I could inhale properly.But I only had eyes for Alex. “You touch him again, and I’ll kill you,” I swore, still trying to dislodge Dean’s grip.
Alex’s brows shot up. “You’d kill me over Jace?” He stepped closer to me, and Jace growled again. Alex glanced from me to him, then back to me, and when I flushed, his eyes narrowed in sudden understanding. He knelt and jerked his brother’s head back with a handful of hair, then leaned down to stage-whisper in his ear. “Are you fucking my future wife?”
Jace’s jaws bulged with fury, but he could only writhe uselessly without the use of his hands or feet. I struggled harder against Dean, kicking and clawing, but kept my mouth shut for fear of incriminating myself. Marc was probably right outside, waiting for the best time to lunge through the open door.
Alex glanced up at me. “I don’t think this is what they mean by ‘all in the family.’” He turned back to Jace. “You know I’d kill your bastard kitten while it’s still bloody, right? Just like my dad should have killed you. Guess the honor’s all mine now…” Alex pulled the hammer over his head with both hands.
“No!” I let go of Dean’s hand and slammed my left fist into his ribs. He grunted and blinked, then pinned my arm to the wall over my head with his free hand. “Alex, no! Please,” I begged, blinking desperate tears from my eyes so I could focus on him.
Alex glanced at me. Something moved at his feet. I looked down to see Jace’s right hand whip out from behind his back. He grabbed his brother’s ankle and pulled.
Alex hit the floor hard, stunned. Jace rolled onto his knees and leaned over Lance, who still lay on his left. He straightened an instant later with a folded pocketknife in his hand. Alex swung up with the hammer. Jace blocked his brother’s forearm. The hammer thudded to the floor.
Metal clicked. Jace twisted around behind his brother, still squatting. He pressed the knife to Alex’s throat, and Alex froze. “Get up slowly,” he whispered, and they stood in tandem.
Jace’s left hand was now a fur-covered paw. He’d cut through the duct tape with his dew claw, a technique I’d discovered just two weeks earlier.
Alex stood with his hands loose at his sides, eyes wide and angry. One flick of Jace’s knife and he’d be dead. Jace pulled his brother to the side, and we could all see one another.
“Let her go or I’ll kill him,” Jace said, and my pulse thumped against the hand at my throat. He’d do it. I could see that in his eyes.
“Let him go,” Dean countered. “Or I’ll kill her.” He could break my neck with one squeeze of his huge fist.
“You kill her and Cal will hang your bones from the porch for a wind chime. If Alex doesn’t do it first.”
“Cut her,” Alex ordered, and I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right at first. But Dean didn’t hesitate. Without losing his grip on my neck, he dropped my arm and snatched Gary’s knife from the counter where I’d dropped it.
I threw another punch he barely noticed. An instant later the tip of the knife pressed against my left cheek, just in front of my ear. Panic flooded me, and I froze. “Let him go, or I swear I’ll slice her up.” Dean stared down at me, eyes gleaming in anticipation.
“You guys need her. You not going to cut her,” Jace insisted, but I knew better. In Montana, I’d bested Dean physically, then proved him a coward and a liar. He’d been sent home in shame, and he was eager for payback.
“Do it,” Alex said, and my heart tried to break free of my chest. “It’s not her face I need.”
Dean grinned down at me. My blood rushed so fast I felt light-headed. I couldn’t breathe, though my airway was clear. “Remember that left hook?” He pressed down, and the blade sank through my skin.
Twenty-Eight
“Ask me to stop,” Dean whispered, the point of the knife piercing my cheek. “Beg me, and I’ll stop.”
My hands fisted at my sides. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to claw his eyes out with my bare fingers. But I was afraid to move for fear of pushing the blade deeper.
And I would not beg. For my life? Maybe. For someone else’s life? Definitely. But not to avoid a little discomfort and an ugly scar. Not to indulge some vengeful psychopath’s thirst for power.
So Dean dragged the blade through my skin. I held my breath and fought not to close my eyes. Not to look weak. He cut slowly, tracing the line of my cheekbone, and I stood frozen, screaming on the inside. The pain was minor compared to the jagged gash in my arm, but my eyes watered immediately. Tears stung my new wound, thinning the blood running down my face, dripping from my chin. I could smell it. I could see it, a haze of dark red on the lower left edge of my vision.
“Stop.” The fury in Jace’s voice was as bleak as Dean’s future, as dark as my own rage.
Dean paused but didn’t lift the blade from my skin. “Let Alex go and get down on your knees. The longer you wait, the longer I cut.”
“No,” I whispered, moving nothing but my lips. If Jace let his brother go, Alex would kill him. No hesitation. No self-indulgent torture. No bad-guy monologue. Just a single, fatal blow to the head. I would lose him and Kaci. “No, Jace.”
Marc, where the hell are you?
I rolled my eyes toward Jace, and saw his features twisted in agony, as if he literally shared my pain, as well as my fury. The tip of his blade had pressed a dimple into Alex’s neck, but had yet to break the skin. He took a deep, shaky breath, but held his ground, under my order.
So Dean cut some more. Slowly.
A feline whine leaked from my throat. My fists curled tighter. I wasn’t worried about the wound; they weren’t really trying to hurt me.
I’ll admit it: I was pissed about the scar.
We can heal wounds quickly, but we can’t erase them, so whatever Dean did to my face would be permanent. The bastard was carving his mark into me, and it would be there every time I looked into the mirror or touched my cheek. For the rest of my life, every time I saw my own face I would think of Colin Dean, and of what Alex had told him to do to me. Every time Jace saw me, he would remember.
So would Marc.
When he heard me whine, Jace flinched. “Drop the knife now,” he growled, and my eyes rolled to the right to bring him and Alex back into focus. “Or I swear I’ll kill him.”Dean shrugged, and the blade bit deeper as he dragged it slowly toward the corner of my mouth. “You kill him, and I get the girl. After I’ve prettied up her other cheek.”
Alex growled in protest, but no one acknowledged him.
“What do you think, puss?” Dean continued. “How about a cute little flower on that side? Ooh, or maybe my initials? That way, no matter who you spread your legs for, one look at your face and he’ll know I’ve already been there.”