Page 49 of Remmen

Anne was already moving. She broke from the crowd and crossed the road at a dead run, filthy and bruised, and hit me so hard I caught my weight on the wrong leg and the wound in my side flared. I let her anyway. The blood didn’t stop her and the crowd didn’t stop her. Korfas reached us a step behind her and put his own knee in Mestyn’s back, and down the street his men let the Butchers up out of the mud now that there was nothing left to hold them for. I took my boot off Mestyn and got both arms around her. Her hands were going over me fast, my side and my chest and my jaw, finding the tear under my ribs and coming away red and not stopping for it. I caught her chin and tipped her face up, and her eyes went over me the same way, too fast, snagging on the blood.

Then she was kissing me, or I was kissing her, and there was no telling which came first. She fisted both hands in the front of my shirt and pulled, and I bent the rest of the way down to her. It wasn’t gentle. I needed to feel her breathe against my mouth to believe she was really there, and she met me with the same force, stretched up as far as she’d go, both of us shaking. The whole town was watching a minotaur and the human counselor wrapped around each other in the middle of the road, and neither of us stopped.

Let them look. I should have kissed her on that dock the day she came off the ship, in front of Nezara and the contract and every rule that forbade it, and I hadn’t been allowed. I was taking it now, in front of all of them, and I was glad. Whatever it came to cost me, there was not a male on this ground who was going to take her out of my arms.

CHAPTER 21

ANNE

Remmen held me so tight I could barely breathe, but I didn’t back up.

His mouth was still on mine, or mine was on his, copper and dust and the salt of his skin all mixed together. His hands covered half my back and every finger was pressing in hard. My own hands were fisted in his shirt and I wasn’t letting go either, not yet, not until I had enough of him in my lungs to believe this was over.

Then someone coughed. Not a polite cough. The kind of cough that said we can all see you.

I opened my eyes. We were standing in the middle of the main street with half of New Knossos watching. Brides in doorways, bulls on porches, Lorkin frozen mid-stride with a look on his face that would have been funny if I had any humor left in me. Every single one of them had just watched their mayor kiss the Agency counselor in broad daylight with blood still wet on his shirt.

“Let go,” I said, quietly at first and then more insistent when Remmen didn’t. I slid my hand around to his chest and pressed firmly. Not a shove, not exactly, but a punctuation mark on my statement.

He took another moment, but stepped back. His hands came off me slow. When I looked up, his face hadn’t come back yet. His eyes were flat and scanning the street, his jaw locked, and the set of his shoulders was all arena.

Screw all the people around us. I reached up and cupped Remmen’s cheek. “You did it,” I said. “We’re safe.”

Mestyn was a meaty heap on the dirt, Otho rushing up to tend to his wounds. A part of me wished Otho would let him rot. That asshole had kidnapped me off the street! But everyone, even the biggest asshole among us, deserved medical care.

The crowd parted at the edge and Nezara stepped through to the front. It took only seconds for her to take in what she saw.

Well, there went my job.

I’d feel some sort of way about that later, I was sure. But right then I was a mix of numbness and relief that I was alive and that Remmen was still on his feet.

Remmen didn’t notice her. His whole body stiffened as he looked over my shoulder and saw Rauf standing beside the other minotaurs from the Butchers’ ranch.

“You!” he sneered and pointed.

He was across the street before I could grab him. Remmen shoved Rauf square in the chest with both hands and Rauf stumbled back a step but didn’t raise his arms. He just took it, jaw tight, eyes down, and let Remmen shove him again.

“You dare lay a hand on my mate! You let that piece of filth anywhere near her?” His voice cracked on the last word. I’d heard Remmen angry before — cold angry, controlled angry. This was raw and shaking and loud, and it scared me.

Rauf opened his mouth, but shut it before any words could come out.

I surged forward, but Remmen put his arm out to keep me from passing him. I huffed in annoyance.

“Mestyn and Hesk are no longer welcome in this town,” Remmen declared. “As soon as their wounds are closed and Otho decides they won’t die, they’re on the next transport out. Is that understood?” He wasn’t talking to Rauf now.

I glanced around and saw nods from the crowd. Nezara had a calculating look on her face but I couldn’t quite interpret it.

None of the Butchers objected.

“And you all will be on that transport with them,” Remmen finally added.

I ducked under my mate’s arm and got between him and Rauf’s men. “What? No!” I put my hands out like that could stop him.

Remmen was in a cold, killing rage. And I had to stop this.

“Rauf untied me, Remmen. He had no idea what Mestyn was doing.” I kept my hands up between us and Remmen stopped moving forward.

My hands were shaking against his chest. He was hurt and running on whatever fuel was left after fighting two men in the street, and that fuel was burning mean. He knew better than this. He just couldn’t get there right now.