Dark Sexy Knight (A Modern Fairytale)(72)

Her eyes blazed with fury. “My brother’s getting help. I’ll have you arrested for harassment.”

“Your brother’s a retard, and it’ll be his word against mine, you dumb cunt.”

Seizing her by the hair, he pushed her up against a wall, his front to her back, leaning close to lick her ear. “You’re spreading it for Lane. Why not for me?”

Struggling against the wall, she reached back to hit or punch him, but he thrust forward, imprisoning her against the stable wall with his body.

“Joe’s coming,” she whimpered.

“It’ll take the retard a minute or two to find him. We’ve got time.”

Hot tears of fear and fury burned her eyes, and she tried to kick him, but he yanked her hair and bit her ear. Hard. “Stop!”

“I thought you’d like it rough,” he said in a dirty voice.

“Please,” she begged, hating the tears that were falling, hating her weak plea for mercy when he was an animal, a sadist, possibly a closet rapist. “Just let me go.”

His hand reached around for her breast, and he squeezed it roughly, painfully, through her costume. “Mmm. Nice. Now I know why Lane—Ahhhh!”

Suddenly, her hair was free, and the hand that was touching her breast was gone. She braced herself against the wall, managing to turn around in time to see Colton pick up Artie by the hair and slam his head against a stall door. Artie fell, limp, to the ground, blood spilling from a gash on his forehead, but Colton picked him up by the hair again and slammed his fist into Artie’s face—once, twice, three times—causing a sharp cracking sound and an explosion of blood from his nose. Artie didn’t make a sound. He was already unconscious from the first two blows.

“Colton!” she gasped. “Colton, stop!”

But Colton was like a demon, an avenging angel, reaching for Artie’s body again. She had to do something before Colton killed him.

“COLTON!” she screamed as loud as she could. “NO!”

He jolted suddenly, staggering backward and shifting his head to look at her. His eyes were dark and feral as they searched her person wildly. After a too-long moment, he took a sharp gasp of breath and dropped Artie’s body to the ground like a sack of feed just as Joe and Ryan came rushing into the barn.

Verity leaned back against the wall of the barn, slumping, sobbing, as Colton stepped over Artie’s body and reached for her with bloody hands. She fell into his arms, letting him hold her against his body as she wept. For Ryan. For herself. And, as she peeked at Artie’s lifeless body, for Colton.

***

When the police asked what had happened, Colt could barely answer them. He remembered Ryan running out to the practice ring, his face smeared with horse shit, yelling something about Verity and Artie and “big trouble.”

No, Colt didn’t remember leaping from Thor’s back. Yes, he remembered seeing Artie’s body pressed against the stable wall. He saw her dress sticking out and knew that Verity was trapped between Artie and the wall. And then? Nothing. He remembered nothing until Verity screamed his name, and suddenly he was holding her in his arms.

The police officers also talked to Ryan, whose face still had remnants of shit on it, and Verity, whose ear had a bite mark and whose right breast had bruising in the shape of fingers when she pulled the bodice of her costume to the side.

“Can’t totally figure out what happened here today,” said Officer Marks to Colton as he was leaving, “but you’d best not plan to go anywhere, son. Lucky for you that boy’s still breathing. You’re not looking at homicide here, but you’re likely looking at battery.”

Colt’s eyes widened in indignation. “Battery? He assaulted my girlfriend and her brother!”

“And they are welcome to file suit against.” He flipped through his notepad. “Arthur Kingston. But I suspect Arthur also has a pretty sturdy case against you. You broke his nose and his arm, his head’s bleeding, and I’m guessing he’s down a few ribs too.”

“His hands were on my—”

“Save it,” said the officer, taking a deep breath. “Listen, I get it, but, well, you don’t have a right to go around beating people up for looking funny at your girlfriend.”

“Looking funny? Come on! She has bruises!”

“Son,” said Officer Marks, putting his hand on his holster and taking a step in Colt’s direction, “if you can’t keep yourself together, I’ll have to cuff you and take you down to the station.”

Verity placed her hand on Colt’s arm and squeezed gently.

“No, sir,” he said, clenching his jaw as he took a step back. “I’ll, uh, I’ll cool down.”

Officer Marks nodded. “We’ll be in touch.”

Lynette looked on in disapproval as the officer trudged back through the practice ring and headed out through the employee hallway. Artie had already been taken to the hospital by ambulance.

“You’re fired, Colton,” she said calmly, then pursed her lips and turned to Verity. “Why don’t you and your brother take a week off? Let all this cool down.”

“But Ryan and I didn’t—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” said Lynette, her eyes narrowing. “You two had trouble written all over you from the very beginning. I should never have hired you. Don’t know what the hell I was thinking. Take a week at half pay. Best I can do.”