Page 47 of Born for Lace

Calm. I stay very still. “Almost.” I don’t have an honourable reputation when it comes to women, and one like her… I’d never tarnish with my murderous hands. He must know that about me. After everything we have been through, he knows the pleasure I allow myself—women—is a basic necessity. Not romantic or intimate. An animal instinct that brings me to pain without it.

She’s too human for me.

“Any injuries to her body?” he asks, and I hear him shuffle.

Is he reluctant to look?

“One rib is broken,” I answer, because I don’t want him to look. “Others fractured, perhaps.” I direct my attention back to the wall and stare at it, hiding my thoughts. “Swelling around her abdomen. No skin tears. No stitches are needed. He wasn’t trying to kill her or do too much damage. Or she’d be dead.”

“He was going to take her back to The Trade.” Tomar closes his eyes, shaking his head, before opening them again. “Poor little thing. A broken rib will make travel painful.” He strides toward the door, saying, “She needs to be cleaned, and cool compressed, and?—”

“I did it.”

He stops. Looking back at me on the floor by her bed—my bed,myfucking bed—and then to her unconscious, he tries to read the situation. “You’re happy to give up your bed for the girl tonight? When she wakes, I’ll move her into mine with Spero if she wishes. Let her decide where she is most comfortable.”

“Fine.”

Fuck, that was hard to say.

He exhales with satisfaction, the single word that struggled along my tongue filling him with relief. Makes more sense for her to be in his room. Fucking Lace Girl Dahlia, with her pretty eyes and perfect skin, needs to stay the hell away from me.

“We have to leave with them tomorrow. We can dock for a few days by the fall, but then we have to get away from The Bite. If they send more Shadows, they’ll find us. They will sense us.”

I grunt. I know.

“You’ll get the cat ready? We need to give Sweets, the other girls, and the townies all the supplies we have for the month. We won’t be back again for a few weeks.”

I nod. “I’ll do it at first-light.”

He stops and the weight of unspoken words thicken the air between us. An inevitable message twitches in my veins. It is a constant reminder.

He finally says, “We can’t risk me being out of action for a day. Not with Dahlia and Spero. Tomorrow, while we are at the fall, we need to drain you. You need to be in control, in top condition while we drive across The Cradle.”

My eyes cut to the little flower, wary of our privacy. “I know.”

“While I’m out, you’ll need to listen out for Spero. I’ll feed and change him and put him to sleep. Just listen. I might not wake up straight away, and she needs to rest and recover.” I stiffen, so he adds, “It is only for a day, Lagos. He’s incredibly sweet and easy.”

Turning to leave, he pauses at the threshold of my door with his back to me. “You won’t hurt him, brother. Not everything you touch breaks.”

A cruel smile slides into place.

That’s where he’s wrong.

ChapterFourteen

Dahlia

Water lapping, a motor humming, the scent of oil and liquor and blood all seep into my senses in slow waves of consciousness that pull me from the dark, peaceful space I’m in.

Then pain.

Along my abdomen, sharp agony throws a cry up my throat. I try to sit but scream and fall backward, hoping the flare of pain will stop if I lie still, but it doesn’t.

It continues now that I’m awake.

I squeeze my eyes shut and block out reality as it tumbles back. The image of the drifter beating me and the helplessness I felt.

“Don’t move, little flower.”

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