Page 57 of These Immortal Truths
“That so?” His eyes drag across the room. “You know, there’s rumors going around.”
“Rumors,” she echoes. “Of what sort?”
“People are saying you’ve been buying an awful lot of food. A whole lot more than what one little lady needs.”
Anna arranges her face into her most disarming smile. “Yes, I try to do my part by sending food to the orphanage.”
A partial truth. Shedoesdonate to the orphanage, but not all of it—just enough to act as a cover for this very moment.
On the table, his knuckles go white. “Do you think I’m stupid?”The words are low, a growl in his throat, and Anna realizes her situation is worse than she believed.
“No! Of cour—”
His voice rises over hers. “I am a generous man, as is Mr. Hastings. We can forgive a lady her sentimental weaknesses, but only if you come clean and tell me where you’re hiding them.”
She holds her ground—holds her head high instead of cowering. “There’s no one else here.” With an agitated flick of her hand, she gestures to the back of her cabin where the only two rooms—a washroom and a bedroom—hide behind doors. “You’re welcome to check, indecent as it is for a gentleman to go searching about a woman’s private quarters.”
His jaw works, a blue vein in his neck throbbing under his stiff collar. “Fine,” he spits. “Lead the way.”
Lips thinning, she doesn’t try to hide her irritation, but she turns towards the hall. The faster he finds it empty, the faster he’ll leave.
Except she doesn’t make it two steps before his hands are at her back, pushing her face first against the wall with bruising force, his large body pinning her in place.
“Get off me!” she screams. She tries to kick him, tries to catch his ribs with her elbows, but he’s too close and all she manages is grazing blows. His hand is fisted in her hair, meaty fingers curling like hooks and pulling at her scalp. She could call for help. Silas is under the floorboards. Her firearm is in the same closet as the trap door. He’d come to her rescue if she called out for help.
But she can’t.
Because even if Silas were to shoot him dead, the result would be the same as if he walked away. The authorities would come. The safe house would be compromised.
She’s on her own. She has to be.
Her heel slams down on his foot and he curses. Anna doesn’t care, she keeps thrashing. Keeps fighting. “Get off me or I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” he hisses, breath hot and panting in her ear. “Tell the town? Who will believe you didn’t deserve it?”
She feels his hands rake up her skirts and her efforts double. Suddenly, the weight pinning her to the wall is gone. She turns intime to see him stumble back into her table, knocking the bowl of peaches to the floor. The china shatters, little pieces of blue and white scattering across the floor like sharp-edged confetti. In all the chaos, Khiran stands between them.
Mr. Abel stares, a mixture of rage and shock. “Who—who the hell are you?!”
Khiran’s hands are at her face, inspecting the damage with a diligence that scares her. His eyes find hers, his fury electric—the hum of static before a lightning strike. “Her husband,” he says, with all the confidence that comes with the truth, despite it being a lie. He pins Mr. Abel with a glare. “I trust you understand that means I would be within my every right to end you.”
A moment of silence, of doubt, before Abel’s stricken expression twists. “You lie,” he spits, face flushed red and the veins in his neck throbbing. “She’s nothing but a—”
Khiran’s hand finds Abel’s throat, knuckles white as he shoves him against the wall. His face leans close, unmoved by the grubby fingers clawing for life at his hand. Red welts are welling up where Abel’s nails bite into skin, blood fighting to break the surface, but Khiran doesn’t even flinch.
“Let me be perfectly clear,” he growls, ice dripping from each syllable. The calm control that promises murder. “If I find you, or anyone else, within a mile of this house, you will find yourself with stumps for legs. If I find out you so much as speak to her, I will cut out your tongue. And if youdaretry to touch her again, I willgutyou like the miserable beast you are and leave you for the gators. Do we have an understanding?”
Gerald’s eyes are wide, whites showing and rimmed with fear. Sweat beads on his brow, running down his face. “Yes,” he wheezes. “Yes, yes. I understand.”
Khiran’s lip curls, but the hand gripping the southern man’s neck slowly loosens and falls away. “Leave.Now.”
Abel doesn’t test his words. He turns and flees, flinging her door open so violently the knob hits the wall, leaving a sizable dent in the logged surface. It swings on creaking hinges, as if bidding himgoodbye and good riddance, as he mounts his horse and disappears into the night.
Anna wonders if it will occur to him later that there was no horse hitched beside his—no way for her so-called husband to have appeared the way he did. She suspects he’s probably too frightened for it to matter.
Anna swallows, leaning heavily against the wall. Her hand is still clasped over her chest, her heart slowly returning to its normal rhythm. There are a hundred things she should ask him, but her eyes are glued to the welts tracking down his hand and wrist. An illusion, she thinks. It must be. She has never seen him bleed.
Her heart whispers back,you have never seen him injured.
