He growls. “Stupid bitch!”
I step back and glower at him. “Leave.”
Instead of heeding me, he stumbles around until he reclaims his pitiful weapon. Sunlight glints off the steel as he waves it around like a lunatic.
“The only way I’m leaving this barn is if you come with me. You can either go quietly, or I can slit your throat and drag you out of here by your hair.”
“Tough choices,” I say, my tone even. “But I’m afraid I must decline both.”
Red blazes across his cheeks as he attacks with all his fury, his frustration, his skill. I avoid him over and over again. Still, he keeps coming, his anger fueling him.
Olah is my witness, I try to just stay alive. But the man is relentless and surprisingly fast, given his intoxicated state. One wrong move, and I’ll end up dead. So, I do the unthinkable, the one thing I promised I wouldn’t do here.
I strike back.
I pick up a pitchfork, duck one of his many attempts to murder me, and ram the weapon deep into the man’s chest. His eyes bulge, and his mouth gapes open. I yank the weapon free, and blood pours from his wound as he crumbles to the dirt floor.
Revulsion swims in my stomach as I drop the makeshift weapon and jerk my gaze around. Nobody stirs, yet my heart races, as if a crowd watched me murder the man.
I drop my focus to him as he twitches and stills. He wears a cracked leather belt. Battle marks mar the fabric of his surcoat. Scars blot his hands and face.
Surely, he’s one of their warriors. Today, he was sloshed, and I bested him, but he may be a hero to them.
Frustration thrums inside me as I kneel and grab his feet. After a firm tug, I drag him only a few inches. I let out a quick breath.
Gabriel is probably home by now. He’ll catch me with the body. He’ll condemn me before all Astarobane. The Bloodstone people will execute me like they killed all the people before me.
I stumble to a nearby haystack and plop to my bottom. This isn’t the way I planned to spend my evening.
I peer across the barn, taking in the body again and frown. Even if I managed to drag him, I don’t know where to hide someone, and I couldn’t bury him without someone walking past.
No. There’s only one thing I can do.
The fireplace draws me into the main room and to the chair Gabriel prefers. I swallow and step closer to my husband.
“Gabriel.”
He doesn’t stir.
I take two more steps into the room and exhale. “Gabriel, I require your aid.”
At those words, he finally turns enough to observe me standing there with my dirty, bloody surcoat. His stare moves over me before he rises to his feet.
“What did you do?”
“What did I do?” I brush at the loose strands against my cheeks. “Heattacked me.”
A fierce scowl prods at Gabriel’s mouth and flashes in his silver-blue eyes. “Someone attacked you?”
“Yes, in the barn.” I clear my throat and continue. “I killed him.”
I blink against that reality.Ikilled a man today. For the first time in my twenty summers, I killed a man. Not in war, not in saving my village, but because he refused to leave my barn.
Gabriel glances between me and the front door like he didn’t quite comprehend what I said to him.
“I tried to drag the body, but he’s too heavy,” I admit.
Olah, help me.
