Page 70 of My Dark Horse Prince

The look he turns on me is full of regret. “They’re terrible people,” he says. “Any man who will kill an innocent woman or who stands by while someone else does deserves to die.”

I try to yank my hand away, but he tightens his grip.

“Please don’t,” I beg, my heart racing, my pulse pounding so loudly in my ears that I can’t hear. The adrenaline, the panic, the misery—it’s just like the day Martinš was so angry. The day my life changed forever.

“I don’t care about carnival tricks,” Yevginiy says, gaining confidence now that I’ve distracted Grigoriy. “But they won’t be enough.”

“How about this one?” Grigoriy asks. “If you’ll agree to fight me yourself, after I kill you, they can all walk out of here.”

To fight him, Grigoriy would have to release me. He’d be without any magic at all. Then he’d be the one at risk. “No,” I say in Latvian. “Just make them leave. Blow them out the door or something.”

“What nonsense is she saying?” Yevginiy asks.

“I won’t offer again,” Grigoriy says. “Fight me, and your men will live. I’ll lay all the blame on you.”

“I’m not so stupid as to give up my advantage,” Yevginiy says. “You may be able to defeat me, but you can’t kill all of us.”

“Fine,” Grigoriy says. He shifts so that I can see his face. “I tried.” His free hand twists again, and the dagger with the crossed axes flies through the air.

Time slows down.

The men are confused when the dagger cuts a path through them. Blood blooms along the arc, springing up on a shoulder, a thigh, a cheek, and a hamstring. The men shout and swear and clench fists and collapse on the ground.

There’s blood spray on the wall. On the ceiling. On the other men.

“What are you doing?” Yevginiy asks. “How did you do that?”

But Grigoriy doesn’t stop.

The dagger keeps flying back and forth. Durak, the idiot with the arm in a sling, jumps in front of it, and it buries itself in his chest up to the hilt.

“Ah, see?” Grigoriy says. “It’s gone home. How nice.” Then he whips his hand backward and it flings back out, only to arc around again, painting more of the wall and floor bright red.

The men are panicking now, with several of them collapsed on the floor, unmoving, and one breaks for the back door.

“It won’t open,” Grigoriy says. “I warned all of you.” But the dagger is now focused on the one who ran away. “How does it feel to be a horrible person and also a coward?”

The dagger slices the backs of his legs, and he falls to his knees.

Grigoriy twists his wrist with two fingers and it slices his throat. He topples forward, a pool of red widening around him.

“You’re controlling it,” Yevginiy says. But then his eyes widen. “Why can’t I move?”

“A horrible person and also quite slow,” Grigoriy says. “It’s not quite the ending that you all deserve, but I’m having to work within my limitations, you see.” He squeezes my hand as if he’s making a hilarious joke.

I’m shaking, now.

As if he’s just noticing that, too distracted by massacring so many men as slowly as possible, Grigoriy glances at me. Then he turns and says, “Time to wrap this up.” The dagger slices through the last two men’s throats, blood spewing out all over the front of their bodies, and they collapse forward at almost the same time.

Barn cats can be quite feral. They play with the mice and rats they find, often ripping their extremities off one by one. Only once the poor things can no longer move do they wander off, happy to let them bleed out in any way they see fit.

Grigoriy looks just like that.

As if the murder of seven people while their boss watches is all in a good day’s fun.

“You’re disgusting,” I say. “A sociopath.”

This time, he doesn’t turn toward me. I only know he heard it because I see him flinch.

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