Page 174 of The Mercy of Dawn

One of her other uncles swore, and the plates and cutlery rattled as Cyril stood, the wood of the table groaning under the pressure of her palms.

“Fuck you, Dion,” she snarled.

Mikael was all too aware of how her voice cracked at the end. How the shine in her eyes was far more than just the firelight and liquor’s doing.

And Dion? He laughed.

The monster-given-flesh laughed at Cyril and grinned like an animal as he said, “You’re going to do better than that to hurt my feelings, dove. I’m not fragile like you.”

For a woman who was already at least a couple of bottles into the night, Cyril moved with alarming speed. Her glass sailed across the table before Mikael realized it was in her hand, the wine just a swath of burgundy in the air. It missed Dion entirely.

Fucking hells.

Mikael wanted to be proud of her, but the entire room erupted into chaos. Chairs scraped across the floor, bodies were a blur of motion, and profanities flew from every direction.

Cyril was halfway across the fucking dinner table when Mikael grabbed hold of her and hauled her back. The woman was nothing but swinging limbs, but Mikael lifted her clean off the ground and walked straight out of the dining room with her restrained in his arms. When he thought she hit hard back in basic training, he was woefully mistaken. He’d have a few bruises to show for it tomorrow.

Out in the stark silence of the hall, Mikael let her go, caging her back against the wall with a hand planted on either side of her head.

“Cool off for a second,” Mikael said as gently as he could.

There was a sort of wildness in her face he did not want to be on the receiving end of.

“If that fucker thinks he— Ugh.” Cyril tried to duck under Mikael’s arm, but he grabbed hold of her shoulders and pinned her against the wall. Her chest heaved shaky, ragged breaths and a flush started to saturate her skin.

“I know, Cyr, I know. But it’s not worth it.” Mikael notched his fingers under her chin and tipped her face up to his. Her eyes were all molten, liquid gold. Beautiful and fucking dangerous. “He is not worth your energy.”

She huffed a resoundingly bitter laugh and looked away from him. Trying to look back into the quieting dining room, he realized, as she raised on her toes.

“It should have been him,” Cyril muttered, an unmistakable crack in her voice.

Mikael cocked his head down at her, blinking. “What?”

“Bron never deserved that. He…” A sharp breath left her, and she clenched her teeth. “It should have been Dion. He’s the one who deserves to die like that.”

Well, that was a fucking sentiment to hold.

Mikael had nothing to say to that.

Truthfully, it wasn’t a sentiment he exactly disagreed with, but it was one he knew came entirely from the anger she’d let consume her.

A flicker of tension set into her jaw, and Mikael swore quietly as Dion’s voice flowed out of the dining room.

Mikael was an idiot for not taking Cyril straight upstairs.

Her lip curled back into a snarl and a spark of fire lit back in her eyes.

Ready for round two.

Mikael crowded her a bit more closely against the wall, trying to stem the tide of whatever poorly thought-out thing he knew was going through her head.

He winced when she started yelling.

“It should have been your body dumped at the fucking gates, not Bron’s! He didn’t deserve any of this!” Cyril’s voice hung somewhere between a shout and a sob as she clutched at Mikael’s arm, using it as leverage to look past him. “It should have been you.”

Flanked by a grim-looking Rendal and Tyriel, Dion wore some filthy, self-satisfied smirk as he walked by, shaking his head.

“Real fucking classy, Cyril.” He waved his hand towards them in what had to be the most insulting dismissal Mikael had ever seen. “Go back to keeping the prince’s bed warm.”