Page 123 of Lesson In Forgiveness

Inch by inch, she lost her grip on his hair. Lungs feeling like they were on the brink of imploding, she resigned herself to waking up in a torture chamber because she was literally skirting the line between life and death.

Out of her control, her body went limp, her feet twitching as her system shut down.

For a moment, she thought the big brute swayed behind her.

For a moment, she prayed.

In that moment, her prayers were answered.

“What the fuck?”

Her boots hit the ground at the same time her throat was released from the brutal hold. She heaved in a breath, choking on it, before she collapsed on all fours. There was a lull, a quiet ten seconds of contemplation, before two hundred and fifty pounds of male came down on top of her.

Her first instinct was to scream.

It was female instinct, primal, a basic reaction stemming from years of abuse.

Somehow she denied it, biting down on her lip to stop the sound before she summoned the rest of Donaghue’s men. Instead, knocked breathless, she released her panic in a stream of low, forced grunts and growls.

Control was everything.

Kellan shifted, groaning incomprehensibly, and she realized what she’d mistaken for sweat running down her spine was actually blood. A great deal of it, more than anyone could stand to lose.

With only her right hand to help, she struggled to drag herself from beneath his deadweight. Minutes seemed to take hours, energy draining away into exhaustion. By the time she crawled free, she felt fifty years older.

“Fucking bitch,” he slurred, but the words were garbled.

Collecting herself as best she could, Tabitha rested on her knees, sucking in breaths while she tried to monitor her surroundings. Despite the gunfire, no one had come to their comrades’ aid, or to claim a stake in the victor’s spoils.

There wasn’t time to recover. There wasn’t time to sit here on her knees, helpless and vulnerable. There certainly wasn’t time to wish Grit was here, lending her his strength.

Cradling her broken wrist to her stomach, she berated herself until her body responded, clambering clumsily to her feet. Bending, she retrieved her weapons, awkwardly rearranging them where her right hand could easily reach.

Keeping one in her hand, she turned and used her boot to shove Kellan onto his back. Not the easiest task, but she managed it.

Blood spread over the front of his shirt, dark and beautifully red. She thought of the slice she’d carved into his chest, then dismissed that as the cause. It hadn’t been deep enough to hit anything vital, but the two jabs she’d snuck in…

Curious, she ripped open the material one-handed, popping buttons into the pool of blood beneath him, and bent to study the wounds in his flesh. The first cut was actually deeper than she believed, but not life threatening. One jab had made a small puncture wound near his ribs, but the second…

All that delicious red pumped from the hole she’d stabbed in his stomach. She was no doctor despite her clinical knowledge of human anatomy, but she’d guess her blade had nicked his abdominal aorta.

A complete and utter stroke of luck on her part.

“This fucking bitch doesn’t go down easy,” she told him in a tired voice. “I’ve been getting back up after a beating all my goddamn life.”

Whether he heard her or not, she didn’t know. She didn’t bother to give him a chance to respond, if he was even capable of doing so; she just raked her blade across his throat and listened to his last breaths gurgle free.

Four down, at least two to go.

Tabitha straightened, clenching her teeth as the bones in her wrist ground together. It struck her that she might have a choice to make tonight, one she hadn’t really anticipated making for a while yet. One that affected her reality in ways she was, surprisingly, ready to accept.

She frowned, perplexed by the awkwardness of her useless limb. It was nothing but a hindrance now, something to be aware of in an effort to keep safe. Muttering curses, she bent and used the knife to cut Kellan’s pants off around one thick thigh before wrangling his boot off to remove the material.

Using the length of fabric to tie her arm up in a makeshift sling, she cracked her neck and prepared to return to battle. At least it wasn’t her right hand out of action; she was trained to utilize either hand in a fight, but her right was naturally dominant. The loss of her left was an inconvenience, nothing more.

Darkness was settling now, the last hints of sunlight glowing warm on the horizon.

She loved working in the dark, at night, when she felt at home in the shadows.

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