like it or not.” Win smashed against the door, putting his weight into it. Over and over, until the heavy wood creaked. This wasn’t the way to do it. Cursing, he stepped back and kicked the thing in.
The scent of Poppy filled the air, subtle, almost ineffable, and yet so familiar it hurt his heart. Something was off here. His heart kicked furiously in his chest. Glints of deep red against the white porcelain sink caught his eye. He was across the room in two strides.
“Jesus Christ!” Red was everywhere. Long, thick strands of red hair, scattered like discarded ribbons, filled the bowl of the sink. His shaking hands grasped at them as if he could turn back time, put them back where they belonged. The silken locks slipped through his fingers. “Jesus!”
“Come now, it isn’t that bad, surely.”
He spun at the sound of Poppy’s voice, and his blood rushed to his toes. The shout he wanted to utter stuck in his throat as he gaped at her. In return, she merely smiled, a small curl of her pink lips, as she leaned against the door frame in the perfect parody of a young man, one leg crossed over the other, her slim hands tucked in loose trouser pockets.
He wanted to smash something. Her hair—all her lovely, long hair—was gone, hacked off until it lay in a short, bright crown against her well-formed skull. Christ, it was shorter than his. “Why?”
She shrugged, her thin shoulders moving beneath the coat of a brown sack suit, an old one of his from when he’d joined the MP. “Last time I faced Isley, it got caught in his claws.” She lifted off from the doorjamb in a graceful move. “It was a liability. So I cut it off.”
He gnashed his teeth against the helpless tide of anger. He lifted a handful of hair in accusation.
“Have you gone completely mad? To maim yourself for…” He couldn’t speak. Her hair. Hours of burrowing his face into cool and fragrant tresses. Spreading the mass of carnelian, bronze, and copper over her pillow. He might have wept.
Poppy’s straight brows snapped together in annoyance. Her face, no longer framed by that mass of red, appeared stronger now, the clean lines of her jaw and nose highlighted, and yet she also looked strangely delicate and exposed.
“Maim myself?” she said. “It is only hair, Win. It will grow back.” Again she shrugged. “Though speaking practically, it feels rather nice to be free of it. Lighter.”
“Bollocks!” His fist, still clutching her shorn hair, slammed into the sink and a satisfying jolt of pain went up his arm. “Bollocks to this, Poppy!”
“Really, Win, there is no need to shout.”
He raked back his own hair for fear of hitting something. “Why the suit?” It was an inane question in the scheme of things but he could not move past the sight.
“I can move better in trousers. Besides,” her full lower lip thrust out, “I hate corsets. Especially now.”
Befuddled by the act of violence she’d committed to her hair, it took him a bit longer to catch up on her intent. It fully dawned on him then, what she was trying to say. “You think to fight Isley?” He blinked. “When you are with child.”
Poppy scowled. “Have you a better plan? For I am not giving him my child. Nor my brother, nor you.”
“Have you—” Blood rushed to his head, making his ears ring. “You’ve lost your bloody mind if you think I’m going along with this.”
Poppy crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. “You act as if I am offering a choice.”
“And you act as if I’m offering you one! You have a duty to protect our child.”
A blast of cold hit him so hard that the looking glass behind him shattered.
“My life is rot!” Poppy shouted. “Utter rot, because of duty.” Tears filled her eyes, and she dashed them away. “I almost lost my sisters, lost you, because of bloody, fucking duty.”
He tried to touch her, but she swatted at him. “I will not lose you, Win. I cannot see you dragged to hell when I can do something about it.”
“You can, sweet,” he said, softly now because her pain lanced him through the heart. “You can let me fight him.”
Through her tears, she laughed. “Win, you know it won’t matter if you destroy him. He will bring you to hell regardless.”
“And were you thinking clearly, you’d realize that he’ll do the same whether it is you who delivers the blow