He dug the barrel of his gun into Rune’s temple.
She didn’t wince or look away. Just locked gazes with him. As if she’d been waiting for this moment. Waiting for him.
“Go ahead. Pull the trigger.”
“I intend to.”
“Yeah? Prove it.”
He’d forgotten the way her eyes raged when she was angry. Like a storm he wanted to walk straight into.
“We both know what you want to do to me, Gideon. Well, here’s your chance.”
His gaze slid to her mouth. “You have no idea, the things I want to do to you.”
From this close, he noticed everything: the puffy redness of her eyes, the pink splotches on her face, the tears drying on her cheeks.
The alcohol on her breath.
Gideon knew Rune occasionally indulged, but this was something else.
He frowned. “You reek like an alehouse.”
“Spoken like a true gentleman.” Her voice was a husky growl.
“I’ve never been a gentleman.” He leaned closer. “If you mistook me for one, that’s on you.”
It was impossible not to be aware of every inch of her. The heat of her thighs on either side of his knee. The fevered beat of her pulse beneath his palm. She was as small and soft as he remembered. Flawless. Lovely.
Gideon had a desperate urge to take her face in his hands and ask her what was wrong, to make her tell him why she was so upset.
He shook off the temptation.
This is what she did to him: made him completely irrational.
She’s a coldhearted seductress. Don’t let her deceive you.
Rune had opened her mouth—probably to insult him further—when the shouts of several guards made them both freeze. Boots thudded in the corridor. They must have heard the bottle shatter and were now in search of its source.
Gideon glanced around the powder room. The only exit was the door behind him, which opened into that same corridor. The moment the gun went off, he’d give his location away. And with no exit, the guards would corner him.
He’d be as good as dead. Worse than dead. If they arrested him, he’d be at Cressida’s mercy. He couldn’t fall prisoner to her again. Gideon would take his own life before it came to that.
The pulse in Rune’s wrist quickened beneath his thumb. If she called out, they would find him for sure.
“Scream for help,” he whispered as the guards drew closer, his gun still pressed to her temple, “and I’ll put a bullet in your brain.”
“If I stay silent, you’ll kill me anyway.”
True. But Rune seemed to want to live a little longer, because she didn’t scream.
He cursed himself for hesitating. He should have come in, shot her, and left. No thinking. Just doing.
But he’d always preferred the raw, wild Rune to the one hiding behind a mask of style and poise. If he’d found the latter in this room—a beautiful girl powdering her perfect nose, not a hair out of place nor a crease in her dress—they probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. She’d already be dead.
Instead, he’d found this Rune.
His Rune.
A total mess.
The basest part of him wanted to tilt her head back and kiss her until she told him why she was crying.
No. He gritted his teeth. That is the opposite of what I want.
But now that he’d thought it, Gideon couldn’t unthink it, and his mind pulled him down more dangerous paths. The last time he and Rune were pressed against each other, she’d been beneath him. In his bed. He’d been worshiping her with his mouth. Whispering delicious things into her skin. They’d given themselves to each other in an act that couldn’t be undone, and now he was suffering the consequences of that decision.
This girl.
He’d wanted so badly to be worthy of her. He’d dared to hope he could be, stupid fool that he was.
Never again will I fall for her tricks.
“Help me understand,” he whispered, listening to the receding footsteps, suddenly needing to know. “You’d put Cressida back in power despite knowing what she’s capable of? Do you long for terror and bloodshed?”
“For the people who want to hunt me down and slit my throat?” Rune furrowed her perfect brows. “What else should I want for them?”
He narrowed his eyes. “And when it’s all over, and your precious witches are safe, with your tyrant sitting once more on her dark throne, you’ll be married to a prince who treats you like a prize. Is that also what you want? To be put on display, like a trophy in a glass case?”
She seemed to hesitate, then tilted her chin in defiance.
“Soren will make me happier than some men ever could.”
To think he’d kissed the mouth those words came out of.
“You might fool the rest of them, but you don’t fool me. Look at you, Rune. You’re drinking yourself sick to get through an evening with him.” It made him think of himself, not so long
ago. And he didn’t like the reminder. “You’ll hate being Soren Nord’s wife.”
“You have no idea what I hate.”
“I have some idea.”
Her eyes crackled like lightning. “You don’t know me at all.”
“I may not know Rune Winters,” he whispered, his mouth an inch from hers. “But I know the Crimson Moth. And she is no caged thing.”
Rune flinched. “Stop it.”
“I pity the man who clips her wings.”
“Stop talking.”
“Say goodbye to your freedom, Rune.”
“Shut up!”
She bucked against him, and Gideon nearly lost his grip on her wrists. He’d forgotten how strong she was, despite being half his size. He withdrew his knee to regain control.
His second mistake.
Rune thrust her small knee straight into his groin.
Pain exploded like a bomb, lighting him up. The room went bright white. Gideon doubled over, collapsing to the floor as the unbearable pressure in his balls made the world fade away. He curled his knees to his chest to protect himself, in case she tried again.
Rune picked up his gun. “That’s for handing me over to be purged.”
Gideon groaned, lying in a puddle of whiskey and broken glass and pain.
The door flew open.
The smell of blood and roses filled the room as someone stepped inside.
“Why, Gideon Sharpe,” came a voice that still haunted his nightmares, “what a pleasant surprise.”
Her shadow slid over him, turning his blood to ice. Gideon didn’t look up. He knew who he’d find there: a witch with birch-white hair and eyes as cold as a frozen sea.
Cressida Roseblood.
Gideon shut his eyes.
Fuck.
He’d always told himself it was better to be dead than in Cressida’s clutches. That if he ever fell prisoner to her again, he’d find a way to end it all.
He glanced at his pistol, still in Rune’s hands.
Utterly out of reach. ...
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