I wouldn’t have ever thought of myself as capable of up-close-and-personal violence before.
Sure, I hurt and killed men before. But there was something very impersonal about poison to me. A little powder slipped, unseen, into a drink, and then I walk away and let nature take its course. I didn’t have to be there, watching someone choke and bleed and die.
I wouldn’t have thought I’d have the stomach for it.
As it turned out, though, I became a bloodthirsty beast when backed into a corner, when given no other choice. I wanted to paint the walls and floor of my previously impenetrable house with the blood of the man who thought he could come in and ruin my sanctuary.
I wanted to plunge a blade into his body over and over until my arms were too sore to lift anymore, until you couldn’t even recognize my attacker as human.
I understood Crow’s rage in that moment as the knife was slapped to the side before my attacker used his hand in my hair to slam me forward against the cupboard, making my vision dance around for a moment before it settled.
I couldn’t pass out.
That was all I could really think in that moment.
If I passed out, I could be moved without knowing where, without having any idea of my surroundings. Or, worse yet, things could be done to my body. I could wake up to those things being done to me.
No.
No.
Not again.
Never fucking again.
A sound rose up and burst from me, foreign, almost demonic. My own ears rang at the shrieking noise as I used everything in me to slam my head back into my attacker’s chin, catching him off-guard enough to get my hair free and start to run toward the back door.
“Get back here you fucking bitch,” a voice snarled, and a hand grabbed my wrist, yanking me back so hard that my shoulder screamed.
It was right then, at that very moment, that I understood where I fucked up.
Not in not telling Crow about the weirdness that had been going on. Not in not being more careful because of said weirdness. Not in not having my phone with me. Not even in living alone with no one around to help me in an emergency situation.
No.
My fuck up was not making sure motherfucking Kyle Carston was good and dead.
He’d been on my to-do list since, well, Crow accidentally saved the bastard’s life. Hell, I was pretty sure Kyle was on Crow’s to-do list as well.
The problem was, we were too busy doing each other to go back and finish that job.
I guess I’d been telling myself that I had time, that I needed to be smart because he was likely on edge about the whole being drugged thing, so I wasn’t going to be able to just sneak something into his drink so easily again.
I figured if I let just a little more time go by, he would get lazy and stupid, and then I would get a chance to take him out again without having to worry about being caught alone with him.
Stupid.
Stupid fucking mistake.
Because now, not only was I caught alone with him, but he had all the power.
I didn’t have my weapons or my drugs. I didn’t have any kind of training that would help me extract myself from this situation.
I did have one slight advantage, though.
That churning, burning rage that was moving through my system, turning my blood to magma, making every inch of me feel like it could burn to touch.
Still, he kept touching.
No, rage wasn’t my only asset.
I had the home field advantage too.
I had the home full of things that could easily maim or kill a man. I just needed to get to them.
There were tinctures and droppers and powders everywhere. Anything would work if I just had a slight opening. Even a fine poison powder blown in the eye could cause blindness, pain, and death.
I would not be taken without a fight.
Without using every tool at my disposal.
And if I could get my hands on something, but couldn’t get the poison in Kyle’s system, I at least had a choice for myself.
Did I want to die the often painful and horrific deaths that came with a lot of the potions I kept around my home?
No.
No, of course not.
But if the choice was to die at my own hand, or live at the mercy of a man who would do everything in his power to make me suffer, then, yeah, I would prefer to take myself out of the equation.
He would kill me anyway.
I had no doubts about that.
It was in the madness in his face.
Something had unhinged in Kyle. Maybe after learning he could just as easily become a victim as he could victimize innocent women.
That had to be a tough pill to swallow.
And I’d been the one to force it down his throat.