“Ah. I see I’m frightening you. I like that. But why are you so scared? Because you know I’ll find out what you’ve been doing?” For emphasis he slid his hand into her most private flesh, pressing painfully.
Amber fought desperately to hold herself together, knowing that she would have only one chance to save herself—and Max and Rafe.
Making her voice shaky, she begged. “Don’t hurt me.”
“You wish,” Tudor answered, pressing his swollen cock against her bottom, letting her know how much he was enjoying this. The knowledge made her sick, and at the same time gave her a jolt of hope. He thought he had this horror scene under his complete control.
Because the slave girl now cowering in fear was no threat to him, he stepped from behind her. Amber swayed when his body no longer held her upright and had to stiffen her legs to keep from falling over.
As Tudor saw her waver, he laughed.
She kept only one thought in her mind as she reached up to pull the blade of the hair ornament from its sheath. She was remembering seeing a butcher slaughter a swine, remembering how the man slashed the animal’s throat from one edge to the other and how the blood spurted from arteries on either side.
In one swift motion she reached out and brought the weapon down, aiming for Tudor’s neck and slicing the razor-sharp knife horizontally across his carotid arteries.
He gasped and grabbed at her wrist, his grip still strong as he yanked her hand back. But the damage was already done.
“You . . .” The word came out as a bubble of sound.
She stared at him, hardly able to believe what she’d just done. Blood spurted from his neck as she wrenched away from him. He scrabbled for the knife, grabbed her hand and pointed the weapon toward her chest. But she clenched her teeth and kept her muscles locked, maneuvering the weapon downward and stabbed him in the thigh. As he gurgled another sound of pain, she raised her foot and landed a solid kick in his stomach.
He fell back against the wall, clutching at the neck wound, trying to stop the spraying blood that gushed from between his fingers. His eyes bulged as his expression turned to disbelief, but his gaze was already going cloudy. He stayed on his feet for a few more seconds, then toppled to the floor. Blood spread in a crimson lake around his head, staining the beautiful tiles. As she watched, his lips moved, but no sound came out. Then she saw the life go out of him.
She dragged her gaze away from his bloody body, sucking air into her lungs and gasping it out again. Only seconds had passed, but everything had changed.
Too dizzy to stand on her own now, she leaned back against the wall, still hardly able to grasp what she had done. Perhaps it was Max’s voice that kept her from fainting.
From where he was chained to the wall, he was speaking to the remaining guards—some stirring on the floor and some still standing. “Your master is dead. You’d better unshackle us and get the hell away from this place before the swamp rats get here and slaughter you.”
“The swamp rats?” one of the blue uniforms answered, his angry gaze on Max as he raised his beamer. “They’re too scared of us to try anything stupid.”