Page 111 of Ruthless Reign

He used my own momentum against him, his shoulder connecting with the hollow beneath my rib cage as he flipped me over him, somehow managing to toss me gently onto the carpet before he was on me, his body hovering inches over mine, that blade pressed lightly to my jugular.

I ground my teeth.

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

I batted his blade away and then his hand when he extended it to help me up.

We went on like that for another few rounds. Always winding up with that fucking blade pressed against some vital part of me.

We’d drawn a crowd now. Mitch was through with the magazines and the others had most things packed up. I knew it was almost time to head out, but I was fucking determined to get that blade from him or at least hit him.

“Get him, Hawk,” Hardin called, distracting me, and I faltered, slipping on the rug when I moved to try to get Aodhán’s legs out from under him.

“Fuck,” I cursed. “This is pointless.”

I rubbed the sore spot on my hip as I got back to my feet, trying to hide the dizziness trying to take me right back to the floor. I needed some more water. More coffee. Something.

My head throbbed when I finally got sturdy, and I shook it, breathing deep through my nose until the pulsing stopped.

When I opened my eyes again, Aodhán had the blade held out to me once more. “Let’s try the other way, then. You should at least know how to use one if you can’t avoid one.”

I wanted to argue. To tell him I was too tired. That we needed to get ready to go. But I did want to know how to use it. More than that, I felt like I needed to.

I took the blade, testing the weight of it in my palm.

Aodhán took it by the tip, guiding the sharp point to his throat.

“Here is very effective,” he told me, then lowered the blade to his heart. “This is the quickest, but harder to hit than you might think.”

Aodhán lowered his fingers from the blade’s tip, but I kept the point of it there, resting against his heart.

“You feel that?” he asked in such a hushed tone that I wasn’t sure I heard him at first. “The rush? If you wanted, you could just push straight in, mo mhuirnín, and I’d be nothing but a pile of bones and blood at your feet.”

My stomach fluttered, something aching and primal there twisting awake because I could do that. If I wanted to.

It wasn’t the same as holding a gun. Guns scared me. They always had. Even with the training I’d gotten from the guys and some of the other Saints, there was still this repulsion I had to them.

But this switchblade—it wasn’t going to go off by accident. A ricochet might not hit some unintended target. If I wanted to hurt Aodhán with this blade, I would need to do it with purpose. It would be my choice and would require force. Exertion. Effort.

I swallowed and lowered the blade, considering the feel of it again.

It felt wrong in my hand and yet so so right.

“Your turn,” Aodhán said, tossing his hair away from his face. “Try to stab me.”

“I’m not going to stab you.”

“I agree. You won’t even come close. But humor me all the same.”

Prick.

An idea took shape, and I clenched my teeth to keep from smiling. I went in for a sloppy strike, and Aodhán deftly dodged it with almost no effort at all. And just like I planned, my foot caught on the edge of the rug, and I started to topple forward, letting out a short, surprised gasp with the knife still in my hand.

Aodhán reached out for me, like I knew he would, and as his hands moved to stop my fall, I tossed the blade to my left hand and swung it upward.

The surprise in his eyes turned to pride as I pressed the blade to his throat at the exact moment he caught me in his arms.

“Oh shit,” I gasped, pulling the blade from his throat and stumbling back out of his embrace as a thin red line bloomed with a perfect crimson droplet of blood on the side of his throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean?—”

---