At least I had him for this long.

At least we’d had tonight together. At least I’d finally gotten to scrape the surface of the formidable, multi-layered, nearly impenetrable being that was my husband. But even with that grief-stricken gratitude, there was so much regret. Regret I hadn’t tried to get close to him sooner. Regret we’d only had this one, single chance to –

“Take your filthy hands off of my wife.”

No!

“Jesus fuck!” The man whirled me around, the gun digging into my skull. “Drop the weapon!”

There Silar stood. As if carved from metal, turned silver by the night. Every muscle was taut with tension though his stance looked cool, relaxed, his face an unreadable mask.

His eyes were so bright white they put the fucking stars to shame. A long-bladed knife glinted in his right hand.

“Hands up. Drop the weapon,” the man holding me repeated, “or I will blow her fucking brains out right here and now.”

All things considered, a quick death wasn’t sounding all that bad compared to the other fate of torture and drowning that had just been laid out for me. And the last thing I wanted was Silar defenceless without his weapon now.

“Silar,” I croaked, tears coursing down my cheeks. “Don’t!”

Silar raised his hands into the air, a smooth, symmetrical motion.

“Silar, no!”

He dropped the knife.

My breath punched out of me in a gutted, guttural rush. It was over. Now, Silar didn’t even have a knife to defend himself.

Now, we would both die.

The man behind me let out a harsh sigh, his body relaxing when Silar released his blade. The blaster weapon eased ever so slightly from my temple.

But the knife…

The knife never hit the ground.

My heart stuttered to a stop when I realized that, even though Silar’s hand had dropped the knife…

His tail had caught it.

Blink-quick, that powerful whip of an appendage curled and snapped, sending the knife whistling through the air like a dart.

A thwunk of impact vibrated through my head. I’d been hit. A crushing, death-like weight surged down on me, driving me to the frost-tipped grass on the ground. Dazedly, I thought I heard a weapon blast off a round, but I barely heard it, because I was dying. Even now, it was almost impossible to breathe.

But then the weight lifted, warningless and sudden, cold air rushing in to fill the empty air around me. Stunned, I rolled onto my back, gasping and coughing, focusing my eyes as Silar dragged the other man’s huge, now-limp body off of me. I sat up, my head swimming and my stomach heaving when I saw the man’s face.

Silar’s knife was buried hilt-deep in his left eye.

He wasn’t dead, though. He seemed to be unconscious, but his breath was still gargling out of him. Once the man was clear of falling on me again, Silar shoved him down to the ground.

Then, he knelt down, yanked out his knife with a fury that should have terrified me…

And then he slit the man’s throat.

My hands shot to my mouth to contain a scream or a gasp or maybe a surge of bitter bile. The man’s blood coursed freely from his wound, soaking the grass. Silar breathed heavily, his knife in the air, his hands looking near-black in the light, his face shaped by strained shadow. He looked like he was going to stab the guy again, but then he rose, swift and silent.

“Are there others?” he uttered, clenching his knife hard in his hand while his wild, white gaze scraped over the scene.

“I don’t know.” My voice shook out of me. It sounded so much smaller than it usually did. “I don’t think so. He said his ship is near the trees.”

Instantly, Silar was on the move.

“Get inside the house,” he growled. “Lock the doors.”

“Silar!”

“Now, Cherry!”

“I… I don’t want to leave you!”

He flinched at my words, then, fangs bared and covered in blood, he stormed up to me.

“I cannot think while you are out here! I can barely breathe! I cannot…” He bit off his words with a growl, taking several grating breaths before, more quietly this time, he added, “I cannot live if you are not alright. I have to secure the property. Cherry. Please.” His white gaze searched mine. “I need you in that house.”

A sob shuddered out of me. I hesitated, and my husband saw it.

“If you do not go willingly,” he hissed, fury returning, “then I will toss you over my shoulder and bring you there myself. I will find a way to lock you in from the outside if I have to.”

He would do it, too. I was wasting time like this. Draining his focus.

It fucking gutted me to do it, but I stumbled backwards towards the house.

“I’ll go,” I told him.

He watched me with piercing eyes until I’d closed the door.

Then, he whistled for Tarion.

28SILAR

It did not take long to secure the property and close the gate that had been left open. I found the dead man’s ship with ease, and there was only one set of tracks from the vessel. The only places with two fresh sets of tracks came from where he’d held my Cherry.

Killing rage uncoiled inside me. Murdering that man was not enough to quench it. Even now the hatred built and built. Every time I thought I had it conquered, I remembered his hand on Cherry’s arm, his weapon aimed at her head. I remembered the fear in her eyes.

But there were no other men to destroy to soothe that rage. Doing everything I could to quell the writhing, murderous need inside me, I brought Tarion back to the shuldu stalls and stalked back to the house.

The door was locked and I had not brought the key. A mirthless ghost of a smile tugged at my lips. My stubborn little wife had actually listened to me.

“Cherry,” I called through the door, speaking loudly, being mindful of her bad hearing. “It’s me.”

A small cry, rapid footsteps, and then the door was yanked open. Cherry stared at me, one hand on the doorknob, the other wrapped around the handle of her heavy dark pan. When she saw my eye snag on the pan, she lifted a shoulder and simply said, “Well, it worked once before.”

“Worked once before?” I asked as I stepped inside the kitchen.

“Yes. On him, in fact.” She brought it up high, like a shield over her chest. “Is there anyone else?”

“No. He came alone.”

She visibly sagged. I would have caught her up in my arms to support her, but when I raised my hands I saw just how filthy with blood they were. This was the first time I’d ever seen human blood, I realized. It reminded me of the colour of my wife’s scarf. Cherry red.

I could not touch her now.

Even once I washed my hands, they would never be clean.

So I said, “You should sit,” instead of reaching for her. But Cherry’s compliance seemed to have begun and ended with my command to go inside the house. Because she didn’t sit. She started pacing the room, clutching the pan so hard that if her hands had been any larger or stronger the thing might have been in danger of cracking.

“I’m so sorry, Silar. I should have told you before. I wasn’t… I wasn’t honest about what drove me here. I was in debt and I was on the run and… Let’s just say that wasn’t my first encounter with that asshole.”

She stopped her pacing, looking stricken.

“But I never thought he’d have the resources to follow me all the way out here. To Elora Station, sure. But not here. He must have had some seriously high-up contacts on the stations. Maybe he got access to the shipping logs if it was recorded that I left on that shuttle.”

She shivered, then put her pan down on the table.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I can’t believe I’ve dragged you into this mess. And now you’ve had to kill someone because of me and I-”

“He is not the first man I’ve killed.”