LITMIR.BIZ

4

      “Only one thing should be infectious. Your smile.”

      —Torin, keeper of Disease

      “YOU CAN’T JUST...take me,” the bride said, obviously alarmed.

      What was her name?

      “I can, and I will. Don’t fight me.” The blood in Baden’s veins sang, Destruction purring in harmony. Tides of pleasure rolled through him. Hate the beast, but love this. Nothing in his life—this one or the one before—had ever compared. And all it had taken? The total annihilation of another man’s army.

      So sure the annihilation is the cause? What about the girl?

      One look at her and he’d been overcome with the urge to rut, long and hard and often—and oddly enough, to protect.

      It was insanity. She meant nothing to him.

      William and Torin were busy searching the slain for the coin. Just in case. Baden watched them, and the bride watched Baden, the heat of her gaze scalding him.

      She cursed at him. “You’re smiling right now.”

      Was he?

      “Violence delights you? That’s sick. Sick!” She unleashed a stream of Slovakian profanity, calling him terrible names and accusing him of sleeping with everything from a rat to a goat. Her anger clearly freed her of all fear.

      Destruction paid her no heed. She was puny, harmless.

      She actually amused Baden. So much rage in such a tiny body.

      If ever her passion was redirected...

      He swallowed a rumble of need—to hurt, only to hurt, surely—no longer amused.

      Her brother reached out to slap a hand over her mouth, but she batted him away and continued shouting, saving the male from a blade through the heart. Baden had claimed the girl as a war prize. For one night, she would belong to him. He would safeguard what was his.

      “Do not touch her again,” he said with undeniable hostility.

      The color drained from the brother’s cheeks.

      The bride moved in front of Baden, demanding his attention. A clear attempt to shelter the male who should have done everything in his power to shelter her.

      Her concern for the men in her life—the scum—irritated him. Delighting in violence was sick, she’d said, and yet she had bound herself to a human who’d left the bodies of both the guilty and the innocent in his wake.

      “There’s a better way,” she announced. “Killing a defenseless man is unnecessary and cowardly.”

      “No man is defenseless. Not while he has his wits.”

      “If wits are a weapon, some men are better armed than others. Some, like yourself, are actually unarm—”

      “Katarina,” the brother snapped. “Enough.”

      Katarina. A delicate name for a delicate (looking) woman.

      She pressed her lips into a thin line.

      She was far, faaar from Baden’s type. He preferred strong warrior-women. Someone able to back up her boasts with her body. Like Pandora. Once or twice he’d even considered pausing their war. In the end, the desire to defeat her had always proved stronger than the desire to pleasure her.

      He studied Katarina more intently. Her dark brown hair was wound in an intricate knot at the crown of her head, not a single tendril free to frame her arresting face. Arresting, even despite its delicacy. Big gray-green eyes possessed a catlike slant, sensually complemented by thick, straight brows and a fan of black lashes. A light smattering of freckles dotted an elegant nose and blade-sharp cheekbones. Plump lips dared a man to taste...

      Resist.

      Her jaw was her boldest feature, the one he wanted to trace with his fingertips; it was almost triangular, coming to a blunt point at her chin.

      Her skin was as smooth and flawless as a freshly polished onyx stone—except for her arms. Multiple scars stretched from the inside of her elbows all the way to her wrists, each in the shape of teeth. She’d been bitten. But by what?

      On her right arm, she had a tattoo. Once upon a time...

      It was the beginning of more than one fairy tale, and an interesting choice for a gold digger. And she was a gold digger. He could think of no other reason a woman with such an indomitable spirit would pledge to love, honor and obey a man like Aleksander.

      “Please,” she said, switching tactics. “Give me a chance to find your coin. Alek has other homes. He has businesses. As his wife, I’ll have full access. I will gladly search them all.”

      “How quick you are to betray your new husband.” It irritated him as much as her concern. “Though I doubt he wanted you for your loyalty.”

      Done with the conversation, Baden grabbed her by the waist and hung her upside down, tucking her against his side, effectively avoiding skin-to-skin contact.

      She kicked and flailed to no avail. He was simply too strong and her dress was too big, creating the perfect cage.

      The brother reached for her. A mistake. Baden kicked his feet out from under him, sending him crashing to his ass.

      “Stay,” he commanded. “Or end up like the others.”

      The brother stayed down but spit on Baden’s boots. “You won’t kill me. You need me to deliver a message for you.”

      “Do I? A note would work just as well.”

      Eyes the same gray-green as Katarina’s blazed with fury. “Take the girl, and Alek will kill you.”

      Baden grinned—so did Destruction. “You can’t kill someone who’s already dead.”

      Confusion shadowed the male’s features, followed quickly by fear as screams tapered to moans throughout the sanctuary. Did he finally grasp the full scope of Baden’s ruthlessness?

      “A note won’t convey proper emotion,” the boy said.

      He disagreed but said, “When Aleksander wakes, tell him I’ll find him in the morning. Hiding from me will do no good. If he fails to give me the coin, I’ll keep my promise and take something else he values. Something that will make him bleed.”

      As the bride continued to struggle, Baden strode down the center aisle. “Let’s go,” he called.

      William and Torin finished their search and raced over to flank his sides. They were spattered with crimson, but unlike him, they were free of injury. Good, that was good. Seeing them hurt might have propelled him into an unstoppable rampage. Against them!

      Destruction liked to kick a man while he was down.

      Should have ditched the pair and come alone.

      When he’d told his friends about the life-and-death competition hosted by Hades, the entire group had insisted on accompanying him. Baden had protested. The warriors had families now. Wives and children, as William had reminded him. There was no reason to endanger any of them. And they had life-and-death things to do, like finding the box and the Morning Star before Lucifer. Even finding Pandora, who’d gone off the grid. What if she turned her rage to the Lords, now that she was forbidden from striking at Baden? Also, Sabin and Strider were exploring ways to free Baden from his bands, and therefore Hades’s control, while allowing Baden to retain his tangibility.

      In the end, the warriors had overruled him, drawing straws to decide who would have the honor of aiding him. The

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