Moonshadow (Moonshadow #1)(21)

And she was full up. Full up and overloaded until she shot into a completely different mind space.

Ah, well.

There really was no fixing stupid or healing crazy.

“You!” she spat. Rage blinded her. She hated things that scared her. They made her so angry. She strode toward the terrifying male and shoved him in the chest as hard as she could with her free hand. “You bastard! You attacked me for no reason! Are you nuts—what is wrong with you? Who does that?! Crazy people? Serial killers?”

He raised his hand, and the hilt appeared.

Oh dear, here comes the sword. Better get ready with that curse.

If she could put enough strength into it, they would all go down together. But it was going to take a hell of a lot of strength to bring down these two males. Chances were good she would just piss them off while she knocked herself out.

As Lightning finished drawing his sword, he grabbed her wrist. A liquid, foreign language spilled out of his cruelly beautiful mouth, and she tensed, but it didn’t seem to be a magic spell. He had turned those ferocious eyes onto the dog, and he was…

Telling it off?

The dog bared its teeth at him, and it had a surprising number of teeth. For such a small creature, those fangs looked surprisingly wicked, long and sharp.

Part of her sensed the moment Thunder stepped into the room. Even though her attention was on Lightning, she couldn’t help but know it. Between the two males, there was so much Power in the room, together they could blow out the walls of the building if they wanted to. Hell, they could probably blow out the town.

She tugged at her wrist and struggled to free herself from his hold, but Lightning’s long, bruising fingers were like a manacle.

His hard, deadly eyes lifted to hers. When their eyes met, the shock of connection almost sent her to her knees. In slightly accented English, he ordered, “Drop him.”

“Drop him?” she repeated blankly. “Drop who, the dog? While you’re standing there with your goddamn sword pulled out, so you can, what—chop him in half? Fuck you.”

Both men stared at her. She didn’t let any hint of her intention cross her face when she stepped into his body, quick and smooth, and hauled up her knee.

It was an awesome move. She had practiced it countless times and used it more than once. She was good at it, confident in using it, and she didn’t hesitate. And she was very motivated to land that blow. Maybe it would loosen his grip on her wrist.

But she had used her right knee, on her bad side, and she hadn’t started back to training and conditioning after her hospital stay. The move pulled weakened muscles in her abdomen, so that she groaned in pain as she tried to knee him.

With a swift move as balletic as a dancer’s, he shifted lean hips to avoid the hit, and her knee grazed along his lean, hard thigh. Then he leveraged her around, shoved her against the wall, and pinned her in place with his body.

“Nikolas,” Thunder said, frowning. He placed a big hand on the other man’s shoulder.

Lightning—apparently named Nikolas—shrugged angrily at Thunder’s hold. Another quick stream of the Gaelic-sounding language spilled out of his mouth.

He was breathing hard, still staring at her, and while his assault wasn’t sexual in any way, still there was something about the way he looked at her. A pivotal awareness of his maleness and her femininity. She recognized it because she carried the same awareness of him. She couldn’t stop watching his lips.

The dog snarled and snapped, biting at their attacker’s shirt. Thunder stood just at Lightning’s shoulder. Behind them, the customers in the pub had gathered, along with Arran and his white-faced wife.

All of them existed on the other side of an invisible wall, along with decency, right and wrong, social mores, and normal behavior. Inside the wall, she and Lightning stared at each other.

Male. Female.

A connection so sizzling it whited out every other consideration in her head. If she’d had a free hand, she would have reached up to trace the line of his cruel, beautiful mouth. She was dying to know what it felt like….

“Nikolas, hold.” The strength in Thunder’s voice finally broke through to both of them.

Almost imperceptibly, Nikolas eased his weight off her, although the bruising hold on her wrist never loosened.

Shaken at her own impulses, Sophie reached deep into her personal well of strength, stiffened her spine, and mentally readied herself to throw the curse. Man, this was going to suck if she had to use it.

She said between gritted teeth, “I don’t care who you are or what you are. This dog has suffered more abuse than most prisoners of war do. I’m not putting him down or giving him over to you. So if you want him, you’re going to have to come through me to get him. And for Christ’s sake, what’s the matter with you? Who wants a dog this badly anyway?”

It was sheer, stupid bravado. She was outclassed and outgunned, and the only thing she had going for her at the moment was a curse that was more likely to kill her than cause them anything more than a few moments’ discomfort. They were so much stronger. Damn it. She might be stupid and crazy, but she wasn’t suicidal.

A tiny silence fell as they stared at her again.

Then Thunder said, “Lady. That’s not a dog.”

“What?” she uttered. She glanced down at the ridiculous Ewok face tucked under her arm. Huge, walleyed, filmy eyes blinked up at her. Whatever it was, it looked aged and sad. Her voice hardened. “I don’t care what it is. It’s been hurt and used badly, and I won’t stand for any more of it.”