Page 78 of Beneath the Cursed Veil

A bouncer grabbed Meera’s arm, jerking her toward him.She yelped, caught by surprise when her compulsion on him failed. It was the man who’d been sitting next to Irene. His grip caused her to whimper. With more fight in her than I expected, her hand curled into a fist and swung. The crack of it echoed through the brothel. Pride swelled in my chest, but was quickly squashed when the brute slowly turned his face back to her. His free hand wrapped around her neck.

“You’re going to regret that, girlie.”

“Not the face,” Irene commented. Meera reared back as much as she could to spit on him.

“Fuck you.”

“I plan to.”

Something inside me snapped.

“Aw, shit,” Corvo said.

I dropped the man I’d been choking, and he slumped to the floor with a thud. A low, guttural snarl ripped from my chest before I could stop it. The noise startled everyone in the room, but everything around me felt like a blur. Grabbing the man’s wrist, I twisted it sharply. His fingers opened as the bone fractured beneath my strength. Fae were strong. Dark fae even more so. But a fury? He never stood a chance.

I wrenched his hand away from Meera, slamming it down on the table near us. I stared into his eyes and growled, “Don’t. Fucking. Touch. Her.”

The bouncer’s shock wore off quickly, and he reached tohis side, going for his dagger, but I got to mine first. In a swift motion, I slammed the blade into his hand, effectively nailing him to the table where Meera had just been sitting. He shrieked as the metal sliced him open and burned the skin around the wound making whatever supernatural healing he possessed worse than a human’s. His body stiffened as the gravity of his mistake came crashing down. “No one touches my fucking woman, and make no mistake—she’smine.”

Several feminine screams echoed in the room. Meera’s hands clapped over her mouth. “Oh shit,” she gasped, the words coming out muffled.

The man I’d stabbed crouched over the table, trying to breathe through the pain and holding his arm steady with his good hand. Anytime he moved, the burn spread, and tendrils of smoke curled around the blade. Irene’s gaze fixed on the hilt of the dagger, holding her hand up in a motion to instruct the rest of her bouncers to halt in their oncoming advancement.

The royal seal was branded into the handle. I pulled a matching dagger from my side, twirling it in my hand.

“What did you say your name was again?”

“I didn’t.”

“That’s a fancy trick your blade is doing,” she commented, pointing at it as she spoke. “Burning his skin that way. Steal that off a royal guard, did you?”

“Does it matter? I’m either capable enough to defeat them, or I am one. Either way, I may not be able to kill all of your men, but I damn sure can make it across this table to slit your throat before they can save you.”

She pursed her lips and swallowed, seething at the threat. “And your girl here would die in the process too.”

Meera turned her head, touching my arm gently andmumbling through the side of her mouth. “I would like to not die.”

“I’m guessing all three of us would die,” I said, motioning my hand in a circle to Irene, Meera, and myself. Then I shrugged. “Can’t do much business around here as a dead woman, can you?”

She smirked, taking a deep drag of her cigarette, though I could tell I had her concerned. The way her gaze shifted ever so slightly. The twitch at the corner of her mouth. She was weighing the risk. Self-preservation ran deep in all of us, but a leprechaun would use anyone to shield them if it meant staying alive. They only looked out for number one, and I’d never known them to truly care for another person.

“You wanted payment, didn’t you?”

She nodded, watching the weapon very carefully as I expertly twirled it.

The entire room had gone silent. You could hear a pin drop, but all I focused on was the sound of Meera’s ragged breathing as the silver pixie dust settled into her pores. The feel of her palms holding onto my arm encouraged my mind to wander, to think of how she would taste, yet I remained in control. We were both on borrowed time with the drug working its way into our systems, but she was more so than me.

“Then let’s negotiate,” I said calmly, swallowing through the discomfort. “Meera, how long did Irene want you to work here?”

“Um, a week, she said. . . before she, uh . . . said it would be longer.” Meera swayed, holding my bicep for stability. She rubbed her nose, muttering about being allergic to the silver shit.

“A week,” I repeated,keeping my eyes firmly on the leprechaun. “How much would she have made you in a week?”

“Two hundred golds, easy,” she answered, keeping her tone even and waiting for me to respond. Did she think I would be surprised? Insulted by the cost? Meera was priceless, and Irene was a fool.

I reached beneath my cloak, pulling a pouch and tossing it onto the table. It landed with a thud, the coins inside clanking. The sound of money made her eyes shift, her pupils dilating in excitement as she quickly glanced at it and then back at me. “There. That’s five hundred. You’ve been paid more than double what you would have made. If you accept the payment, you agree to call this off. No one dies. I let you live. Meera and I leave this place alive, and none of your associates can follow us. The debt is settled. Forever.”

She reached for it, pulling out a gold and biting it. A smile curled up her lips. When it came to a leprechaun, money would always win. She nodded, and a contract formed between us, magic sealing us to the terms with a small pop.

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