Page 62 of Underground Prince

My knee hovered in the air, but Brodie gracefully stepped aside.

“And I do mean that in the literal sense,” Strausen said.

“I’m about to rip out Sax’s intestines and set them on fire,” I said to him over my shoulder. Themuscles between my shoulder blades ached with held-in tension.

“Then don’t be so afraid.”

His voice faded as we walked, but his words hovered close, nipping at my ears.

The breath of the city called to me, dirty and alive andreal,unlike this elite and terrible cleanliness which cloaked the most repugnant beneath its sparkling charm.

It wasn’t until we were in the elevator that Brodie said, with shocked surprise, “You hit him?”

“What the hell do you think?” I said.

Fury I hadn’t been allowed to feel in the drawing room surged forward, and I smacked Brodie in the chest.

Brodie was too shocked to be enraged. “Woman, does nothing scare you?”

“Weapons do!” The doors dinged open and I said over my shoulder, “But giants meant to come to my aid but who cower in a hallway instead do not.”

“But—”

I stormed out of the lobby, saw Theo through the rolled-down window of his car, and only barely prevented myself from chucking my laptop at him.

At my manic pose, Theo turned, finding me through the mill of pedestrians on the sidewalk.

“You bastard!” I was aware I was screaming, red-faced with cobweb hair, my jacket half off my shoulders and seeming to all the world that I’d gone bonkers.

I didn’t wait for his reply—if he had one. Maybe this was exactly what he planned, chasing me away, the stupid girl who thought she could face up to peril but instead crawled behind a couch.

“Scarlet.”

Theo’s voice cut through the city’s whitewashed noise. I walked faster.

“Scarlet,” he tried again.

He caught me by the shoulder, and instead of resisting the pull I spun toward it, throwing him off balance.

“I am not afraid of you,” I said. “Or Brodie, or poker rooms, or coke addicts or fistfights. I didn’t think I was afraid of anything anymore. Until a gun pointed at my forehead made me so petrified I wasn’t sure if I could escape alive. So I guess I should thank you.” My lips spasmed into a sneer. “For making me realize I’m still weak.”

Theo remained stoic, even though pedestrians passing us sent confused glances our way. It pissed me off to such an extent that I turned on my heel to leave him there.

“You asked for this, did you not?”

Damn him. I swung back around. “Does that make you feel better? Is it fulfilling to be the winner and show me how it really is in the sewers of your kingdom? Because I—I thought for some sick reason that you cared. That despite the risks, you wouldn’t make it so there was every chance I’d get killed just to teach me a lesson—”

“Stop. Right there.” His arm snaked out and found mine. His proximity was so fierce that I shut up. “You’re not a woman who requires or requests a knight in shining armor.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to—”

“Listen to what I’m saying.” He jostled me, but not unkindly. “You were never in danger.”

“He pulled a gun on me, Theo. He—”

“I know.”

“Then how can you…?”

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