Reaper's Justice Read Free

approached, the cruel-looking spurs on his boots clinking with every step.
    “You are a proud woman,” he said as he drew even, reaching out.
    She jerked her head out of reach. He studied her defiance for an instant, his hand open, level with her cheek, the fingers drawn back in a threat. The split in her lip burned from where he’d struck her before. Fear rose, but she wouldn’t cower. She didn’t blink or look away, just stared at him as impassively as she could manage, giving herself a focus for calm through memorizing the details of his face. Her cousins would want to know what he looked like so they could hunt him down and kill him. When they asked for a description, she would like to have something to give them beyond “filthy and stank of horse and old sweat.”
    “I was raised to be a lady, no matter what the provocation.”
    The man looked to be in his thirties, with lank black hair and swarthy skin. From the dirt that was ground into his pores, he obviously did not believe in the saying “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” He was missing his right eyetooth and one of his lower front teeth. His face was broad, so much so that his eyes looked too small above his flattened nose. He had a thick, droopy mustache, which hid his lips but showcased the remains of whatever he’d eaten the last few days. She shuddered as everything else faded to unimportance. “Disgusting” was the description she came up with. Her cousins would not be happy with her.
    “You’re damn uppity for a prisoner,” the man informed her, his rolling accent mellowing the threat inherent in the observation.
    She waited one breath before answering. One breath in which she recovered from the shock of his stench. “I prefer to think of myself as composed.”
    His eyebrows went up into the shaggy line of his uncombed hair. “Composed?”
    “Yes. Composed. As in not carrying on and giving into hysterics at the least little thing.”
    Like being kidnapped by the king of filth and his entourage of dirty minions.
    The leader cupped her chin in his hand. She couldn’t suppress her shudder. He didn’t bother to hide his amusement. “I think you will find we’re not such a ‘little thing.’”
    She refused to think of him as big. If she did, she’d lose all hope. His filthy thumb touched her cheek. “I’m sure.”
    His head canted to the side. “But you still intend to keep yourself composed?”
    One of the new men, dressed in black from his hat to his boots, taller, leaner, cleaner than the others, looked up from where he hunkered down, rummaging through a saddlebag. His expression was blocked by the brim of his hat, but she knew he was listening. And he didn’t approve. Whether of her or the situation, she wasn’t sure. “Absolutely.”
    “Why?”
    The leader’s accent turned the question into two syllables. She motioned to the double row of ammo draped over his shoulders. “Why are you a bandit?”
    His mustache twitched, either with a smile or a grimace. She couldn’t tell beneath the overgrowth of hair. “It is what I do.”
    She shivered and hunched lower into the horse blanket they’d thrown around her shoulders. It stank but it was infinitely preferable to freezing. “Well, being composed is what I do.”
    His fingers slid down her jaw, toward her mouth. “One wonders if you would be so composed were I to kiss you.” His thumb crept toward her mouth. “I think you would scream.”
    She shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t.”
    Again, that twitch of the mustache. His head tilted back as he looked down his nose at her. Who knew bandits could be so arrogant? “You are so sure?”
    “Yes.”
    He took a step nearer. She looked him straight in the eye, stopping him with two words that were the absolute truth. “I’d vomit.”
    She was about to vomit from his filthy hand being so close to her mouth.
    “Then I would kill you.”
    She wanted to roll her eyes. He was probably going to do that anyway. Instead, she