Tarnished Knight - By Bec McMaster Page 0,20
in her collarbone. Higgins licked it. “You ever drained a lass? They fight it at first. Kickin’ and screamin’… Then you see ‘em startin’ to get sleepy as the blood drips.” Looking up, he smiled. “You cravers think you own the world, but you’re afraid o it, afraid o’ the power. You could drain the world dry and they’d not be able to say nay, but you don’t. Keepin’ your thralls alive. Takin’ sips when you ought to tear a lass’s god-damned throat open.” A mad light came into his eyes. “I’d make a better blue blood than all o’ you.”
“You want to be a blue blood?” Rip snarled. “Then come and get me blood.”
“Nah. Want you to put your weapons on the ground and kick ‘em over. Slow like. Then I’ll take what I want.”
Rip didn’t even look to see what his master was doing. He held up the two hunting knives strapped to his thighs and dropped them, listening to the metallic ping. A pair of brass knuckles followed, then the longer knife he wore sheathed down his spine.
Kicking them over, he waited as Blade did the same.
All they needed to do was wait for the moment Higgins let Annie go. She was all that stayed his hand.
His gaze slid to her throat and the slow drip of blood there. Rip fought the urge to swallow. Whispers of darkness blurred his vision for a moment. Hunger.
Think of Meggie. Think of bringing her mother home to her.
“That’s the way.” Higgins smiled and gestured to his men.
They crawled forward and snatched the assortment of weapons. Blade was still stripping knives out of his boots and leather waistcoat. Near on a half dozen of them.
Fools. Neither he nor Blade needed a knife to be dangerous.
“Turn around,” Higgins said.
“Let ‘er go,” Rip replied.
“Let ‘er go?” the bastard laughed. “Aye, I’ll let her go…”
He jerked the knife hard, slashing across the inner skin of her wrist. Annie screamed as blood splashed over her gray skirts. Tumbling away, she cupped a hand over the wound, blood dripping between her fingers.
Rip took a step forward then stiffened as six Slashers stepped in front of Higgins.
“Take ‘em down,” Blade said softly. “I’ll ‘elp the girl.”
This. This he could do. Rip stepped forward, letting the red haze, the anger, the fury wash over him. For a second Annie’s frightened scream sounded like his mother’s, that last time.
“I’m goin’ to kill you,” he whispered, fists clenching.
One of the Slashers darted forward, swinging a chain with lethal dexterity. It whipped toward him and Rip dodged, his hand lashing out and catching the end of it. Chain links wrapped around his fist and he yanked hard, bringing his other fist through as the Slasher stumbled off-balance toward him.
The heavy crunch of his fist in the man’s throat was distinctly satisfying. The Slasher went down with a gurgle and Rip stepped over him, swinging the other end of the chain up into his mech hand and tugging the links taut. Three of them leapt for him, knives flashing in the dim light. Rip didn’t think. Leaping forward, he wrapped the chain around one of their throats and yanked the ends over each other hard enough to break the neck.
A hook slashed toward his face, breaking his hold. The body he held went down, still twitching and Rip swung, blocking another blow. Grabbing the Slasher’s forearm he snapped his open hand down into the man’s elbow so it bent and shoved the hook back toward the man.
Screaming, the Slasher went down with his own hook stuck in his eye. Rip bent low as the next man leapt for him and threw him over his shoulder.
Each move was like a dance, the men coming at him as if they moved through a waltz. That was one of the benefits of the craving; increased speed. The demon within howled for release but he held it, forcing it to glut its hunger on pain and not blood.
Within seconds the six Slashers were down. Only the one with the hook was still alive.
Higgins’s nostrils flared and he gestured the other four in front of him. “Kill ‘im,” he snarled, stepping back into the beckoning shadows of the train tunnel. A hunchback lingered there, holding a small shuttered lantern.
This time Rip smiled. His vision was nothing but a shadowscape, in tones of blacks and grays. Men came at him and he cut them down with little more than his bare hands.
His reputation might keep most in the