Blade Song by J.C. Daniels Read Free Book Online Page B

out. I definitely didn’t want it to happen if I could avoid it, but damn it, what was the problem with me carrying my sword?
    “If you go in there stinking of fear, you’re going to set them off,” Damon muttered.
    “Well, if you didn’t want me afraid, you shouldn’t have set me off,” I pointed out, then I scowled at the sound of my voice. Fuck . I sounded like I’d swallowed a bunch of broken gravel and rusty nails and my throat hurt. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t dealt with before, but it still pissed me off.
    He frowned and looked over at me.
    Then he stopped and went to catch my arm.
    I backed away. Fast. Part of me wanted to cringe. The body remembers abuse. For a long, long time.
    “Don’t touch me,” I warned him. I wouldn’t cower. Not in front of him. I could practically feel the fear bleeding out of me, replaced by anger. I am aneira—my heart is strong . And I sure as hell wouldn’t cower in front of this bastard.
    Something flickered in his eyes, that frown still tightening his face. But he nodded. “Try to keep the fear under wraps, kitten. You don’t want to go breathing fear over a bunch of adolescent shapeshifters. They’ll think you’re hard up for a date,” he said, starting back up the path. “If you are that desperate for some rough fun, I can give it to you.”
    His meaning hit me about five heartbeats later.
    I would have laughed if it wouldn’t have hurt so much.
    At the doorway, I was subjected to yet another pat-down.
    This one wasn’t quite so impersonal, though. As the man’s hands lingered over my breasts, I hissed and drove my head back into his face. Pain bloomed through the back of my skull, but I heard the satisfying sound of his nasal bone crunching. I’d regret it in a second. My head was already pounding and once the adrenaline faded, it would be worse, I knew.
    Well, maybe not—I might be dead before the pain caught up with the adrenaline. Either way, I didn’t care.
    His hand fisted into my hair as I fought to twist away.
    “You little—”
    Then I was free and Damon was there. “Please tell me you didn’t just insult the Lady by taking the liberty I thought I saw,” he growled. “That woman is working for the Alpha. An insult to her is an insult to the Lady. Did I just see what I thought I saw?”
    Even I could smell the stink of fear crowding the air now.
    This time, it wasn’t mine. I cocked my wrist, tried to ignore the heat flaring there. Tried to ignore the sword’s whisper in the back of my mind.
    The bastard who’d groped my tits went to the ground on one knee, blood dripping from a nose that had already healed. “Sir, I…I meant no disrespect.”
    I stared at him. “You grab my tits and you mean no disrespect.”
    Damon shot me a dark look. I glared at him and turned away. “Fuck, I never should have talked to you,” I muttered. I went to turn away, rubbing the back of my aching head, tacky now with the bastard’s blood.
    “Get up,” Damon growled.
    “Sir, I—”
    I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Damon hammer a massive fist into the man’s face. He went flying into the wall about ten feet away. The concrete block cracked a little. The entire place was made of concrete block. If this was a regular occurrence around her, the décor made sense.
    As Damon turned around to face me, I looked away.
    So far on this job, I’d had the Bitch Queen tell me I was as good as dead if I failed the job. She’d stuck a crazy bastard on my ass to keep me safe and just a few minutes ago, he’d almost killed me. Thirty seconds ago, somebody had groped my tits.
    Fifty thousand dollars wasn’t worth it.
    “Ma’am?”
    It was a quiet, polite voice and I turned, found myself staring into a handsome, lean face. Asian, with liquid black eyes and a courteous smile on his lips.
    “If you’d allow me…?”
    He gestured.
    Oh, yes. They weren’t done patting me down.
    “Allow me to apologize for Robert,” he said as he finished with the