Page 159 of The Moon's Fury
Her gaze darted to Zarian. She was out from Ruslayn’s grasp, and that was all he had needed. Two men already lay dead on the floor, daggers finding homes in throats and eye sockets. His sword pierced through the final man’s abdomen.
He turned and set his sights on Ruslayn.
Ruslayn, who had managed to remove her dagger from the soft hollow behind his chin.
Ruslayn, whose panicked gaze darted between Zarian and the door.
Ruslayn, who must have seen his death in Zarian’s eyes, because he turned and fled.
Zarian flung a thin dagger, and it sunk into the back of his leg.
He fell to the ground with a pained cry.
“Are you all right, love?” Zarian asked, but his cold eyes were fixed on Ruslayn’s crawling form.
She nodded, following his gaze. The Medjai had made it to his feet and was hobbling. A dagger to the other leg brought him back down with a resounding thud.
Hands intertwined, they followed the short trail of blood until they reached him. Zarian nudged him onto his back with his boot. He crouched and grabbed Ruslayn’s chin, tilting it up to inspect his gaping wound.
Hetsked. “My goddess did quite the number on you.”
Fear and hate and rage mingled in Ruslayn’s eyes, but along with it was resignation.
Zarian’s voice was soft, almost intimate, when he asked, “Do you want to kill him, love? Or should I?”
She regarded the bleeding man before her, clutching her injured wrist to her chest. “Together.”
Zarian’s sword gleamed as he placed it in her left hand and wrapped his fingers over hers. With his chest against her back, he guided the sword between Ruslayn’s legs.
“I promised impaling you in the most brutal of ways if you laid a hand on her.”
Slowly, together, they pushed the sword through his manhood. His cries rang out around them, piercing the silence with their intensity.
“And Ineverbreak my promises.”
His grip tightened around hers, poised to deliver promised death when—
Muffled footsteps echoed behind the wall, heavy thuds on stone stairs.
Fuck.
She turned to Zarian, panic flaring in her chest.
“Medjai?” she whispered, wrist throbbing, breath shallow.
“Let’s not wait to find out.”
His gaze flicked to Ruslayn, bleeding out in a dark pool on the floor.
The footsteps grew louder, closer.
Indecision flickered in his eyes, a storm of fury tempered by the instinct to protect—to survive.
Then—
A swift lunge, the sickening squelch of flesh, a waning grunt.
“Let’s go.”
