Strike at Midnight(61)
“If you think for one moment that I would let your dirt-infested hands come anywhere near me, you will be unpleasantly surprised.” She looked at Sir Raymond. “Get them to open the cell, please.”
He nodded and called the guard over, who didn’t hesitate in doing the knight’s bidding.
The cell door was opened and the imposter duke’s eyes flickered to his potential escape route. How he thought he could get past us and the guards showed me exactly how big the guy’s ego actually was.
Mia walked into the cell and crouched next to the imposter duke. She didn’t look afraid that the bastard might attack, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
Ignoring the concerned look on the prince’s face, I moved into the cell as Mia put her hands up in the imposter duke’s direction. An array of rhyming words came out of her mouth, and I had to move fast when the imposter duke decided to pounce on her.
He yelped when I kicked him backward, then I moved behind him and took hold of his hair to yank his head back. It made me feel foolish with the prince watching, but this was the real me, and maybe it would rid him of any foolish notions that I was a lady. I refused to feel bad for who I was, no matter what he thought of me.
“The spell that binds,” Mia said with her eyes closed, “that we must find. To take the spell and force rewind. Remove the magic from this creature, remove the spell, return their true features.” She clapped her hands together, and I put pressure on the front of the imposter duke’s neck with my other hand as he started to fight against my hold.
“Stop,” the imposter duke choked out against the pressure I was now applying on his throat. “Stop it!”
Mia didn’t stop, instead she chanted on, “Reveal their true nature, remove the spell, put things right, reveal what is well.”
The clothes the imposter duke was wearing started to fade away and even my jaw dropped open when I saw an expensive gown take their place. The urge to yell “what the fuck” almost overpowered me, but I think the shock of what I was seeing stopped it. About two minutes later I found my hand holding auburn tresses that belonged to a female.
Well, I certainly hadn’t seen that coming.
“You bitch!” the woman said, writhing beneath my hands. She was proving to be a feisty little ass, as she wouldn’t keep still.
“Sit still, or I will punch you down,” I said, and my words had some effect, as she stopped trying to fight me. She leaned against me, breathless from the exertion and her own anger.
“There,” Mia said as she looked at the woman. “Isn’t that better?”
“Fuck you,” the woman said, and I waited for Mia to leave the cell before throwing the woman away from me. She put her hands out to stop herself from falling flat onto the floor, and I stood up to exit the cell and join the others. The faces of the prince and Sir Raymond were a picture as they both stared at the woman looking at us from beneath hair that had fallen onto her face.
“So who the hell are you?” I asked from the door, and she just spat in my direction. She missed, but that just pissed her off all the more.
She got up and raced towards the opening of the cell, but I stepped in her path and pushed her back for her trouble. It wasn’t hard—I wasn’t that mean—but it was enough for her to stagger back into the cell and remind her who was the boss.
“We can do this all day, sweetheart,” I said, “but if you don’t start talking, you’re going to find yourself sentenced to death for the murder of the duke.”
“What?” she asked, and she moved back to lean against the wall of the dank cell. That got her attention.
“You think you’re going to get out of this?” I asked. “After what you’ve done?”
“I didn’t kill him if that’s what you mean,” she screeched, and I went to walk in the cell to give her another slap. Just to calm her down, of course.
The prince stopped me and gave me a pleading look before saying, “May I?”
If he wanted to try and interrogate her with rainbows and candy, then who was I to judge? It annoyed me that he thought that would actually work in this case, but maybe he also needed a taste of this world. Maybe he needed to see that life wasn’t only about pretty castles and ballrooms.
“My name is Prince Andrew of Carena,” he said as he walked into the cell and closer to her. “And we have reason to believe that the duke is in grave danger if he isn’t already dead. Maybe you can help us to try and find him?”
“Fuck you, Your Highness,” she sneered, and it didn’t look quite right on her face. She appeared to be in her late twenties, and she would have been quite pretty if it weren’t for the psychotic look she was wearing. My fists clenched by my sides as she looked at the prince with lust-tinted venom, and I silently wished for him to get on with it already.
“If you help us,” he said, “then we will be more lenient with the charges. This doesn’t look good for you right now.”
He walked closer to her and leaned down so he could be at her level. “Let me help you,” he said with a kindness I wouldn’t have dared offered, but then she spat again. This time, it hit her target and it landed on his face.
Oh, that is it.
The red haze that came over my eyes was so fast that I didn’t even have time to reason with it. There was a blur, then a choking sound when I realized that I was back in the cell with my hands around her throat. She was trying to grab at my arms to pull them free, but I just squeezed harder, not quite registering the fact that Prince Andrew was talking to me. Or trying to reason with me. I was beyond that.