Page 116 of The Sinner's Bargain

Ivelle rolled her eyes. “Oh, they’re worse than that. I’d like nothing more than to offer them a Spit of the Sanderson sisters with extra spit, but I wouldn’t. I love my job too much and they’re not worth it. Besides, I actually feel a little bad for them. Like how sad is your life that you have to be that miserable, you know?” She gave me a grin. “Just ignore them.” She nodded to the book. “Do you like it?”

“I do. Thank you.”

She slapped the counter with her fingertips with glee. “Excellent. Want a refill?”

I assured her I didn’t just as the trio started talking again.

“Do you guys think we should warn her just in case she doesn’t know?” cat glasses asked. “Like a public service announcement.”

“I’m telling you she knows. Everyone knows. The man is a monster who lures women into that monstrosity with the promise of marriage and kills them. It’s been all over the news. You’d have to be living under a rock to miss that kind of thing.”

Or living with an overbearing Mother who wanted nothing of the outside world tainting you for a man who wanted you pure and naive. I knew nothing of Thoran’s past, except what he’d told me. His corridor of dead family members with their horrific deaths. He hadn’t once brought up any wives. Dead or alive. There weren’t even photos of them.

“Someone should do something,” carpet bag murmured. “He can’t go on hurting these women.”

“And someone will,” redhead muttered, picking up her teacup and taking a dainty sip. “I know for a fact that men like that will never live long. That’s why he needs a woman to have his child who will one day take over and continue the cycle. Thoran Lacroix will meet his gruesome end. It will be bloody and violent just like he deserves, and we will hopefully get the privilege of reading all about it in the paper.”

The candid way she laid out Thoran’s death, with such disgusting delight had the hot thing in my belly spike. It coursed through my veins to fill the space between my ears with a buzzing that muffled all else.

Except their laughter.

Their sickening, riotous laughter as if Thoran’s brutal end was the very joy that gave them life. The heinous sounds reverberated with the bells already clanging against my system. My fingers twisted on either side of my forgotten book as I willed the feverish heat to subside, but it only exploded when the redhead, the vile creature with her high, nasally cackle calmed enough to add fuel to my fire.

“Once that hideous beast is dead, we’ll throw a party in that grotesque manor of his before we set it ablaze.”

I was out of my chair before even my brain could register my actions. My stool slammed into the hardwood with a resounding clang that shattered the silence.

The women.

Their attention was on me now. Eyes round against their monstrous faces, but I only saw the redhead with her dissolving smile as I descended on her with the vengeance of a demon.

A jagged shard of glass I had no memory of grabbing cut into my hand. It pressed into the soft tissue of her jugular. Forcing her head back against the sofa.

Her terror fed me.

It soothed something deep inside me.

I would have smirked if I could without baring my teeth.

“Laugh,” I hissed, the snarling voice foreign even to my own ears. “Go ahead. Tell me just how funny you think Thoran’s death is. How happy you would be.” I pressed harder, my hand oddly steady even as the sharp edge drew a droplet of blood. It trickled, a harsh contrast to the pallor of her ashen flesh. “Like I would ever let you or anyone else near him.” Wild brown eyes swung from side to side, silently begging someone to help, but no one did. “If you ever mention his name again, even when you think you’re alone, I will find you and make you watch as I gut every person you love in front of you before hanging you by your intestines. Do you understand?”

“Blue!”

The familiar bark had me jerking back and whipping around. The shattered piece of my ruined teacup slipped from my fingers and hit the ground at my feet as I stood facing Thoran’s frame silhouetted by the soft glow of light from the door behind him.

All that fire pulsing in my head vanished at the sight of him. The heat went from my limbs, leaving me cold and numb. I twisted my slick fingers together to keep them from shaking as he advanced. His strides were wide, closing the ten feet between us in three.

“What happened?” he took my face between his warm palms. “Are you hurt?”

I started to shake my head when we both glanced down at the blood smeared across my palms, staining my coat cuffs, and running down my fingers.

“Jesus Christ!” Thoran hissed, dropping his hands to cradle both of mine. “Your hands. Get me a kit,” he shouted to a stunned Ivelle.

The girl blinked out of her shock. She spun and bolted past a horrified Macy into the back.

There was a lot.

I must have shattered my cup without realizing. The liquid was running across the counter and over the edge to pool next to my upended chair. The rest of the ceramic lay in jagged shards in the puddle ... with the ruined book.

---