She makes sure I’m looking in her eyes as she says, “My first husband had a bigger cock.”
I’m so startled, I laugh. Actuallylaugh. “No, he didn’t.”
She tilts her head and gives me a patronizing look, pressing a finger to my lips. “Don’t worry. You’re still very respectable.”
“We’ll see how respectable it is when you’re gagging on it.” I nip at her finger, and she gasps.
There’s a flare of heat in her eyes. I wonder if she’s thinking about that night in the boarding house and how instinctual and magnetic it was between us—how it still is.
I kiss the finger I bit. “Tell me a real secret. Tell me why you do it.”
She closes her eyes for a long moment and sighs. I can tell she knows what I mean.
“They’re all abusers.”
I wait for her to say more.
She blinks her eyes open and runs her fingers through my hair. For someone who has had little practice with intimacy, she’s alarmingly good at pretending.
“Do I need more of a reason?” she asks. “No one else is protecting those women.”
“That’s not what I asked. I askedwhy. What drove you to start something so dangerous?”
She signs in annoyance. “Is this really necessary?”
I arch a brow and glance around the room. Most of the guests are busy enjoying the feast, but my parents, Gaven, and Stefan are all focused on us.
She follows my gaze and sighs. “Rafe Mattingly.”
I frown. “The mayor?”
She nods.
“Your sister’s husband.” The sister she’s fond of—Aidia.
“My sister’sabuser.”
I wanted this secret—now I wish I could give it back. I thought there was no good reason for a woman from the highest magical house in Lunameade to make a hobby of casual violence, but there’s nothing casual about her work.
If some man put his hands on Holly, I would do a lot worse than poison him. I would rip him limb from limb, and it would be too soon when he took his last gasping breath.
She looks me dead in the eyes. “No one calls it violent when a man lays hands on his wife. They call it none of their business. But the moment a woman fights back—that’s violence.” She shakes her head and smiles bitterly. “Rafe is too much of a public figure. I can’t killhim…yet. The only way for me to survive—to not rip him apart with my bare hands every time I see him—was to become the inevitability the men of Lunameade were afraid of. Our city has stayed so small because women are still bound to their husbands. I can’t help Aidia, but I can help someone else’s sisters, someone else’s friend, someone else’s mother.”
There’s a challenge in her eyes, like she’s daring me to flinch. I won’t. If this is a standoff to see who is more monstrous, she won’t win.
I’m about to fuck her and then use her affection for me to rip her family apart. Her violence is petty compared to the vengeance I’m going to spread.
“So you kill other abusive men in the city.”
She nods, her gaze darting around the room to make sure no one is close enough to hear. “I have a network and a process that I follow to ensure the validity of all claims. I don’t just choose at random.”
This is too convenient. Her family could have somehow fed her this sob story as a good way to endear her to me.
But there’s something about the intensity in her eyes. In the way she was so annoyed when I interrupted her “hunt” the night before we left the city. Then, I couldn’t understand her urgency. But if her story is true, then it would make sense that she sees that job as her last chance to help the women of Lunameade.
“The night we met, someone set me up.” She runs her fingers through the hair at the nape of my neck. “It was my fault. The betrothal was a surprise announced in front of all the major magical families in the city. I just wanted to do one last job before I got roped into another political marriage and I skipped part of my vetting process. I swear I didn’t know it was you.”
Her annoyance seems sincere.
