Page 10 of The Forsaken

While she surveyed that page like she perused a formal dinner party menu, only considering which choice of harm she’d prefer to face, Kerr shoved his left elbow into another sot’s temple.

Wind blew through the streets; somewhere a stray released a single forlorn wail.

Culross’s sister-in-law finally snapped her head up.

The dog penetrated her obliviousness?

Before she turned to face him, Kerr had her in an alley, spun around, with her face just a fraction from a red brick wall.

She screamed.

No, not a scream. Bucking like a filly fighting being broken, she let fly a shriek that left his ears with the ringing that followed a cannonball’s blast.

Wincing, he gritted his teeth.

“Helllllllp!”

“Help?” he laughed coarsely. The innocent chit needed to learn there wasn’t any rescue coming in these parts. That when a person—man or woman—entered the Rookeries, they walked onto the Devil’s playground. Stations didn’t matter to the soulless. Anyone and everyone was fair game. He owed her no favors, but he’d do her this one, this night, for Culross and his loyalty to Culross alone.

Andromena jerked wildly against his hold. “You clunch cod’s head!”

With a gentle though firm grip on the feisty young chit, Kerr allowed her to shout as loudly as her lungs permitted. To his amusement, she delivered a stream of impeccably articulate curses.

His levity drove the shrew’s voice into a shrill crescendo.

She panted and gasped. Her shallow breaths puffed white clouds into the freezing air. “Bloody noddy, nocky b-boy.”

Kerr matched his tone to the low-borns. “Nocky boy, eh? That is a first.”

While he jeered her pathetic attempts at freedom, she squiggled and squirmed like a measuring worm for freedom. She accused him of being slow-witted, but there was only one fool in this alleyway, and it wasn’t Kerr.

Only when her body sagged, and she tired herself out, and she drooped in his arms did he let up.

Everyone faced with defeat always had one last fight within them.

Kerr caught the heel she attempted to slam between his legs. “You don’t truly think I’m that stupid.”

“L-Let me go, you dastard.”

“When I’m having so much fun?” Kerr slid his hand up her leg, his fingers exploring and testing the surprising muscle in her calves.

The sound of her swallow occupied the void where her screams had been.

“You will regret ever having touched m-me, fiend. I-I can promise you that.”

“I’m not sure I will,” he whispered lasciviously against her ear.

For good measure, he gave her soft thigh a gentle, lingering squeeze.

Andromena emitted a fresh cry, but after all her earlier caterwauling, it came out as nothing more than a ragged, wispy gasp.

Her fiery defiance ignited a begrudging respect within him. Kerr tightened his grip on her arm and crushed her fight for freedom. Had she been any other woman, he would have turned her lesson into a carnal one. He’d subdue her completely, until she was utterly undone, and they were both lost to pleasure.

“How will you make me regret it, wench?”

“I am powerfully connected. My brother-in-law is the Earl of Culross.”

Interesting. With all the names and titles, she could brandish: dukes, future dukes, her uncle, the Earl of Abington, rival shipping captains from the Tremaine and Ellis families, she chose Culross. That earned more of his reluctant admiration.