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“Give me a blade,” I said to Enosh, and his brow arched. “What your wife wants, your wife shall get, remember? Your wife wants a bone knife.”
Once again, that hungry glint flickered in his eyes as he opened his palm where the blade shaped, the handle carved with the same vines on my belly, offering a solid grip for my fingers.
“No! I… I… It wasn’t me who—” A gag hiccupped from Henry’s throat, eyes frantically darting between Enosh and the door. “Arne did it! My cousin drove the knife into you; I swear on my mother’s grave. It was him! He’s the one you want. He’s up there!”
My heart gave a jolt in my chest. Head tipping back, I stepped away from him for a better angle, stomach going queasy.
Then I saw it.
Nothing but the red glint of embers reflecting from the edge of a rust-speckled knife. Its pointy end rested on a wooden slat, and a finger tapped the handle while the rest of Arne remained hidden in shadows.
Devil be damned, there was no way I couldn’t kill that one. “That’s the man who drove the knife in.”
One quick step forward, and Enosh gripped Henry’s face. He slammed the man’s spine against the beam until the mow shook, letting threads of skin bind Henry to the wood as Arne scooted back into the shadows.
“Where is my father?” I walked up to Henry, pointing the blade at him. “What happened to him?”
“I swear, I did him no harm! Oh god. Oh, Helfa, help me!” Henry pleaded. “Rose! She brought the priests to him for coin, then up and left.”
So that bitch wasn’t even in Elderfalls anymore. “Where to?”
“Hogsbottom. Three day’s walk, upstream.”
“And the priests did what with my father?”
“Rose might know, but I swear, I know no more!”
Of no use to me anymore, then.
A thick swallow went down my throat. Heavens, I should have paid more attention to my husband’s killing. Just how did one kill another? I brought the pointy end of the blade right beneath his navel.
Like this?
“Very painful, as you might remember.” Enosh stepped up behind me, placing his arm around my belly and his whisper against my ear. “Death might not come for a day or two as he bleeds out, depending on the organs injured, poisoning himself from the inside with his own excrements.”
“Painful sounds good.” Yet, when the blade turned u
“Shh… Say no more.” He stepped closer to steady me while his fingers reached for my hand that held the blade. “Like this, my love.”
With his fingers closed around my wrist, he brought my hand to Henry’s throat, pointy end aimed straight at the bobbing lump there. My focus scrambled, however, when Enosh lapped at my earlobe and pressed himself against me.
He was hard.
His cock rested against my lower back as he kissed the sensitive skin behind my ear. Quickening breaths tugged on the fine baby hairs at the nape of my neck, sending a wonderful shudder over my pebbled skin.
An indecent moan escaped me as though I wasn’t about to stab someone. “You are depraved.”
“Says the woman who raped me on my throne.”
Now I had to grin a little. “I was cold…”
“Place your other hand on the butt of the handle, right here.” He released his arm from my waist, took my other hand, and placed my palm onto the wide, smooth end of the handle. “One hand holds it steady; the other hits the handle, driving it through his throat. Fast. Simple.”
“I don’t want fast.”
Wanted him to suffer.
“So impatient, so deliciously stubborn.” Enosh gave a teasing thrust against me, letting me feel the hardness and size of his hunger. “Fast leaves little room for doubt.”
He had a point there. “Well, I guess one has to start somewhere.”
I pulled back my hand.
My fingers stiffened.
“Don’t help me,” I blurted. “I have to do this on my own, so don’t be the one making me hit it.”
“I have not moved an inch.”
A deep breath.
I am the Queen of Rot and Pain.
Beautiful and gentle.
Terrifying and cold.
My palm hit the handle.
The blade drove into Henry’s throat.
Blood, deep crimson and warm, shot from the wound in quick intervals, some speckling my face. More of it bubbled from his mouth, only to drown his groan and drip down his chin while he slowly bled to death.
There. I was a killer.
I braced for shame, guilt.
None came.
Instead, my next breath expanded my lungs wider than ever before, sending a strange thrill through my body. Who would have thought killing was so easy? Making me feel so… alive?
Enosh clasped my chin, turning my lips to meet his in a fiery kiss as a sudden breeze came in through the door. “Look at you, good girl, punishing the wicked for their crimes.”
I groaned into his mouth, mind spi
“Ah, but my brother is rather troubled at the sight, nonetheless. Not bothering yet to come into his form, but too furious to contain how he moves the air.” His hips rolled against my backside, and not even the mink could hide how much harder he had gotten. “He is the mortal’s last expel of breath, the chill coming upon the room, and the gust shifting the atmosphere. Do you feel him?”
“I take your word for it.” I reached behind me, letting my gloved fingers follow the curved outline of Enosh’s length against all sense of decency. “What should we do?”
Enosh lapped at my ear. “Give death something to watch.”