eyes which told me whether or not I needed to watch out for them. And this guy looked like his soul was painted in blood and he enjoyed feasting on the hearts of virgins.
“Quentin,” he said simply, his eyes narrowing like it pissed him off that I didn’t know that already.
But I didn’t make a habit out of learning the names of irrelevant pawns. Duke was the undisputed leader of his people so no one beneath him had ever drawn my attention. Until now.
I knew that name. My girl had written it down for me upon request. He was one of the ones who’d abused her. One of the ones whose death I’d already marked. I fought the urge to go for his throat as my heart began to pump with the desperate need for his demise.
“Where are you off to so early in the morning, mountain man?” Quentin asked, his gaze slipping around the trees like he was looking for something.
“Just going to get some more supplies in town while I can take advantage of the break in the weather,” I replied, indicating the empty rucksack on my back. I slid it from my shoulders and dropped it to the ground casually, wanting to be able to move fast when I needed to.
“Is that so?” Quentin asked curiously, kicking his leg over the snowmobile and getting off of it as he stalked towards me.
“Yeah,” I replied, offering him a scowl which promised him that I wasn’t intimidated.
He was a big guy, built with broad shoulders and the kind of height which probably topped most men. But not me. I was six foot four. There weren’t many fuckers who could meet my eye on a level, I generally ended up looking down on everyone. Quentin included.
“So then, why were there two sets of tracks leading into this clearing?” He smiled like he had me, his gaze sliding away from me and across the trees which surrounded us.
Something dark and hungry writhed beneath my skin as his grey eyes found the tree where I’d hidden my savage girl, a cruel smile twisting his lips as he spotted her hiding amongst the branches.
“Hello, poppet,” he murmured, eyes ravenous as his tongue darted out to wet his lips.
My blood pounded and rage tore through me at that casual greeting as the thirst for vengeance in me grew to a roaring demand. I didn’t care that I was outnumbered or that I was about to start a war of real proportions, his death called to me like the sweetest song and I wasn’t going to leave here without giving in to that desire.
Before another word could escape him, I lunged forward, throwing a punch into his face that made my knuckles ring and a scream of agony tear from his lips. My other hand closed around the hilt of his knife before he could even stagger away from me. I ripped it from the sheath before swinging it across his gut as hard as I could, tearing through the thick material of his coat and driving it deep into his flesh as he howled with pain.
He dropped before me, screaming in agony, blood staining the snow a vivid crimson as he scrambled to place his hands on the wound and hold back the death he could feel coming for him.
The other men were shouting, leaping from their snowmobiles and scrambling to get their guns free of their bindings, but I doubted any of them would be fast enough to manage that.
These assholes had dismissed me as some lost soul living in a cabin in the woods and ignored me as much as possible. Maybe they should have looked a little closer and they might have realised they had a monster in their midst. But they’d let their arrogance and superiority complexes lull them into a sense of security which they really had no right to feel.
I may have been a sleeping beast for the time they’d known me up until now. But they’d woken me up with what they’d done to Winter. And I was starving for the taste of their blood.
So with Quentin’s screams of agony colouring the world around us, I charged towards my next target with the knife in my fist and his death already written. I just hoped that at least one of them might put up more of a challenge before I was done.
The snow was coloured red. As red as poppies and cherries and the darkest of sunsets