Page 38 of Tempest

“No, sir.”

“You won’t get away with it!” Desmond screeches. “This day and age, there is forensics! Testing! You’ll be caught and sent to the chair!”

Now it’s my turn to laugh. “You assume there will be enough of you left to study.”

Desmond’s jaw drops. He tries to spin to face me, but I’ve moved behind him.

I smile. “‘Bye, Dezzie.”

Desmond doesn’t say anything else. He can’t because the garrote fits so perfectly around his neck, the wire digging into his skin until it pops, warm rivulets of his blood decorating my hands.

He struggles, obviously, but with his hands bound behind the chairback, all he can do is wriggle and kick at the air, his face turning puce and his eyes bulging.

Tipping my head forward while his is dragged back, we meet in a sort of mismatched gaze, one on the upside, the other going down to Hell. As for which one is which, I’ll let you decide.

Miguel approaches Desmond’s front, flicking open a knife.

“Finishing him off before I can have my fun, are you?”

The voice comes from the stairwell, followed by unhurried steps. In the dim light of the unpolished basement sconces, it’s hard to make out the person they belong to, save for that trademark drawl that makes undergrads drool and the male-inclined faculty to stutter whenever he enters their offices.

I let out a peevish grunt while the top of Desmond’s head digs into my belly.

Miguel pockets his switchblade and steps back from Desmond. “Where’ve you been, Hunter?”

Professor Hunter Morgan comes into the dirty light filled with kicked-up dust and debris. “I was held up by a rather pretty new edition to my classroom.”

My blood turns cold. I can’t be sure who he means, yet my instincts are never wrong, and they’re whispering that he refers to one of two women. I release the garrote before Miguel even utters the words, “Release him for the moment, Tempest.”

“Sadly, I had to let her go due to this outstanding appointment.” Morgan finally looks to Desmond, gasping and pleading with sweat streaming down from his balding head.

“Who is she?” I ask.

Hunter peels his eyes away from Desmond and to me. “Hmm?”

“The pretty edition.” I don’t care that Hunter’s a higher-up, and my tone comes out demanding. “Who is she?”

“I believe her name is Ardyn Kaine.” Hunter’s brown eyes spark with delight. He folds his arms with an expression that says he knows perfectly well what her fucking name is. And he’s imagining her naked.

I ball my fists until they shake, the wire cutting into my palm. Mixing my blood with Desmond’s should disgust me, except I’m too busy thinking how best to get Ardyn out of this prick’s head without decapitating him.

“You call dibs on her, Storm Cloud?” Morgan’s question drips with amusement. He’s truly delighted over the nickname he’s given me and uses it every chance he gets, considering I can’t do anything about it.

Yet.

“No,” I grit out, “but if anyone else touches her I’ll use my admirable skill set on their face before moving to their quail-sized balls.”

Hunter responds to my quip with a lopsided grin. “You’ve met her, too, under similar circumstances, haven’t you?”

I’m prowling toward him before I even realize I’ve tightened the garrote in my hands again. Miguel stops me by throwing a firm hand against my chest. “Easy, Tempest.” He adds under his breath, “he’s the boss’s son. I’m not saying he gets a free pass, but mutilation over a woman is a no-go.”

“Fine,” I hiss. If I can’t initiate a dire situation with our internal affairs, I’ll settle for a warning. Just one. “You don’t touch her.”

“And why not?”

I’m aiming for calm. I truly am, regardless of the coppery tang to the atmosphere, driving my cravings for a lesson in blood forward. “Were you the one who got to look down on her, her life in your hands as you decided whether she lived or died?” The image of Ardyn unconscious and dangling, her hair cascading onto the car’s ceiling, and her palms laying flat in benediction as I weighed the option of whether to kill her or Mila is easy to call forward because I haven’t forgotten about it since. With a tenth of a second’s calculation, I noted Mila wearing Ardyn’s jacket, Mila crawling out of the tipped-over car, Mila’s glazed-over eyes catching me standing over her … that part wasn’t hard to put onto a scale. She had to die. But when I was finished with Mila, there was Ardyn to contend with, so innocent, at the wrong place at the wrong time her dark lashes fluttering as she was about to come to. Would she be wise enough to stay quiet? Were the drugs in the flask I’d paid an usher to give to Mila, known to pressure her friends, enough to make Ardyn’s memories hazy and unreliable?

I’d decided to roll the dice. I wasn’t ready for the reclusive, mysterious princess to be removed from this world.

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