Page 23 of The Sinner's Bargain

Oddly warm fingers captured my chin. My face was forcibly tilted up and I found myself falling endlessly in a set of polished ambers lit bright and hot from some inner light. Or maybe it was the light from over my shoulders, but they glowed with an almost supernatural quality that had my breath catching and every other thought in my head vanishing.

Full, perfect lips opened and words that were very much English slipped off his tongue into the wet space between us, but I couldn’t get past the hypnotic flex of colors...

“I’m sorry?” I rasped when it became evident he was waiting for my response.

The corner of his mouth may have twitched. It could have been a trick of the shadows.

“Did he do this?” he said again.

It took me a minute to grasp he meant the cut on my lip. I touched it carefully with the tip of a cold finger. Winced at the sting and nodded once. That was all he seemed to need.

He stepped away. Taking his heat as he moved to stand over the kneeling man.

Taylen tried to scuttle back, but the men had formed a tight circle around him. Even as he raised both hands and pleaded with the man standing over him like an avenging angel.

“Seriously, man, I never touched the bitch. I swear she’s lying.”

“Have you ever seen what happens to a man’s wrist when it’s shot up close?” the stranger asked instead.

That seemed to be all the warning he was going to give when a deafening bang splintered time and space. My scream was swallowed by Taylen’s howl of agony as he snatched the shattered and gory stump of his right arm where his hand used to be. The appendages hung from a thin, torn rope of flesh, a dangling weight spurting up blood in a small fountain down a bony wrist. The bone shattered.

I staggered back. Hands over my mouth as I fought the hot rise of my stomach. The air stung hot and gritty with the stench of gunpowder and copper. It stung my nose, a reminding force that I wasn’t dreaming.

Taylen wailed, torn limb clutched at his chest. The crimson stain spread down the front of his white hoodie and soaked into the earth between his knees. Even the rain couldn’t mask the sharp plume of urine.

The man with the gun seemed unfazed by the brutal display. He stayed, perfectly content to watch the horror and agony. The gun was still smoking in his hand.

Then, just when I began to think Taylen’s suffering would never end, that I would have to endure that sound in my head for the rest of my life when a twin bang erupted, and Taylen’s screams stopped.

The night plummeted too suddenly into silence.

It was so quick.

So final.

Taylen was doubled over, sobbing into the ground. Then he was facedown in a puddle of mud, blood, and urine. Body motionless.

The heat in my chest blazed beneath the skin of my face. Air thickened until there was none to pull in and my lungs screamed. I staggered or the ground moved, but I felt it tipping. Tilting. I was falling into darkness before I could fathom I was fainting.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THORAN

The girl hit the grass with a sickening crack of her skull hitting dirt. Her white coat spilled open like the wings of a dove around her making her appear almost angelic in the dusk. An angel that most definitely wouldn’t have made it into heaven in that dress.

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