Her eyes vibrant, despite the light, a fire burning in them that couldn’t be extinguished, that made her dangerous. Her fingers rested on my shoulders, her chin resting against the side of my ear as she looked at the man.
“You’ve underestimated the wrong women,” she purred. “And today you will pay for that misstep.”
He lunged, the shackles holding him down jerked him back with a pained sound. Valentina tsk’d in his direction, shaking her head.
“Go for the gut,” she whispered, “More than once if you can manage it, but be quick. You are a woman, and he is a man, he has strength you do not, but women are quick. In and out.”
With that she pushed me to him. I stumbled forward, eyes on him, hoping that any God or goddess that could hear me wouldn’t laugh in the face of my mortality in this moment. I stepped carefully, following the invisible line in the sand where his arms couldn’t reach out and grab me, trying to build the courage up.
I had already killed a man. Two, in fact, but my heart still hammered in my chest. I could taste it on my tongue, small, cowering Alex waiting for him to haul me up to him. But he didn’t, because he couldn't. I knew that somewhere deep down, but it didn’t help the thundering in my veins.
When I lunged forward, I didn’t expect his leg to shoot out and clip me or for my head to crash into the wall the way it did. The man’s arms crushed mine to him. I didn’t fight it, just let myself hang, slipping between his arms before he adjusted himself to my dead weight, but I had fallen enough to elbow him in the groin.
He wasn’t down for long though, he ripped my head back, pulling me by my curls to throw me into the wall where I landed in a heap. My temple throbbed, my side was on fire, but I scrambled to the side hoping to retreat where he couldn’t get me. I wasn’t fast enough.
He gripped my hips, dragging me under him, an arm wrapping around my throat. My dagger lay on the ground just far enough away that neither of us could reach it, not when I was being dragged into the corner of the room. My head pounded, blood and air cutting off.
I thought I heard Valentina, but my tunnel vision only gave me enough brain power to focus on the dagger. My fingers graced it’s edge so fucking close I could feel the cold silver. I clutched at it, ignoring the sharp stinging pain against my fingertips as I was pulled beneath his body.
He flipped me on my back, baring teeth and blood. He looked like a rabid animal, all teeth and claws but one hand found his shoulder. I braced my knee against his chest to keep his snapping mouth away from my face and with my burning, throbbing hand plunged the weapon into his gut.
In and out, in and out, I stabbed him until all I could feel against my tummy was a thick, viscous substance mingling with his lifeforce. His body gave way to my blade like a hot knife to butter.
His weight forced it deeper and deeper each time he gave me more and more of his mass. I scrambled back, ignoring the rough stone across my bare ass and the stinging pain in my hand. I almost didn’t recognize Valentina’s hands on me. I lifted the blade, ready to strike again, but she caught my arm, plucking the instrument from me.
There’s something different about killing a man when you’re not under duress. I know what I had said after dinner earlier, that I had wanted this, but my body rebelled against the notion of the blood on my hands, hot and sticky, from a man who had been chained to the wall.
He would have killed me. I knew that, and there was a part of me that wanted to lick the blood from my fingertips. It railed against my hesitation, disgusted at the waste of something so beautifully tempting, but my eyes were too cloudy to see them anymore.
“No tears for us creatures of the night, amore mio,” Valentina wiped the tears from my cheeks, “You’re a weapon, and weapons do not weep.”
But she held me while I cried, too exhausted to move or do much else but let the tears fall where they wanted.