Women Scorned by Angela Alsaleem Read Free Book Online Page A

flat sound like a heavy stone when she tapped it with her foot. The long flat rock glittered like diamonds in the moonlight, a black river of stars. With her breath held, she stepped onto it.
    Nothing happened.
    “Hah!” She jumped up and down on the rock and giggled, the loud clopping echoing in the distance.
    Something large rustled the bushes across from her, interrupting her glee. She stopped jumping. Her stomach clenched and she held her breath as she pierced the shaking plant with her gaze. Conflicting emotions battled for dominance in her mind. In one moment, the need to flee gripped her, insisting she didn’t want to know what hid there, that it would harm her in some way. The next moment, she wanted to stomp over to the shrub and break its branches for making her feel things she hadn’t since childhood, when she would disobey and need to be punished. Before punishment became sweet release. She would destroy the thing, she decided, because, as the chosen one, it was her obligation to do so.
    Before she could act, however, a scraggly man who looked more like a disheveled beast, lumbered through the greenery, hollering in a high pitched voice. She didn’t step back, but watched him with mixed amusement and repulsion.
    “Get off m’road!” he bellowed.
    “What?” She spat the word, glaring at the man. “How dare you…”
    He clenched his fists and growled. Then he looked her in the eye and said, “You’re on m’fuckin’ road, bitch!”
    “You insignificant little…”
    “You gots ta pay to be on me road.” He jabbed himself in the chest with his thumb when he said “me” hard enough to make a sound. He jingled when he moved. He was now close enough for Aludra to smell him. She crinkled her nose at the pungent, sour-sweat odor oozing from his clothes, accosting her senses, but she held her ground. She knew a threat when she heard one, had punished many Order members for their insolence.  The wind picked up, wafting his stench toward her.
    “What do you mean pay, you filthy slime?”
    “I owns this ‘ere road. You wanna walk it, you pay me.” When he slapped his open palm against his chest to emphasize the point, dust and odor puffed out. He swayed on the spot. “It’s mine. You gots ta pay. Pay me now!”
    “Get out of my way, you filthy, overgrown…”
    He let loose something close to a howl and lunged at her. His looping gait provided more than enough time to react; she had quick reflexes. In one motion, she pulled her silver dagger from its sheath and plunged it into his gut, forcing the blade upward. Warm blood gushed through his thick clothes, spreading black in the moonlight. His shocked eyes stared into hers as he gulped his last breaths. She went with him as he slumped to “his” road, first to his knees, then to his side. Aludra watched him with cold, glaring eyes as she cleaned and sheathed her blade.
    Kneeling down, she leaned into his face, his acrid breath burning her nose, and whispered, “You didn’t see that one coming, did you, old man?” She petted his forehead. “No, you sure didn’t.” Blood trickled from his mouth.
    “Bitch,” he managed through gasps. Red saliva sprayed from his lips, a shower of rubies when he spat his last word, and spattered on her face and hair. She wrapped her fingers around his throat and squeezed, feeling her hands slick over his blood, sweat, and grime. His Adam’s apple moved up and down, berating her palm as she applied more pressure. Not having much life left in him, the old man could only manage one feeble attempt to push her away before his eyes rolled back in his sockets, reflecting the moon in his pupils as he stared into nothing.
    Aludra had remained calm as she throttled him, her sleek muscles working, contracting, bringing the force of her grip around his windpipe. “Sleep now,” she said when he died.
    The moment his life departed a bright light stabbed through the dark, illuminating the old man, but nothing else. Long,