King's Warrior (Renegade Lords)

“How?” she retorted curtly. She’d learned how to deal with oppressive, imposing men, and it was not by cowering. “I was preparing to close.”

“We’re looking for something.”

“How unilluminating.”

Their leader, the burliest one, took a step more into the shop. “We want a blade.”

She frowned. “Ironmonger’s Row will serve you better.”

“They haven’t got the one we’re looking for.” The burliest soldier cupped his hands as if he was holding a ball. “This one’s a dagger, and it’s got a big, fat gem in its hilt.”

She regarded them levelly. “A big, fat gem?”

He nodded.

“Do I look as if I have big fat gems lying about?” She waved her hand at her humble shop, with its needles and thread and bolts of fabric. “Try Jewelers Lane, or up on the High, where the rich folk live.”

“No. You’re the one we want.” It was a simple and chilling statement.

She clapped her account book shut. “I am entirely bereft of bejeweled daggers at the moment, sirs. Should you wish for ribbons or needles, I am happy to serve, but….”

They moved into her shop fully and began touching things.

“I must protest,” she exclaimed, coming forward. “You must leave now. I am closing soon—”

“Are you?” The largest man turned and kicked the door shut. “Consider yourself shut now, Dame Thread.”

Her jaw fell, but everything else was paralyzed with fear as she watched them move in like an army and begin to destroy her shop.

They upended carefully-packed crates and dumped out precious inventory across the floor. They hauled things off shelves and threw them to the ground, then pawed through the piles. Bolts of fabric and spools of thread, carefully arranged by color and quality, were flung to the ground, then trod on by their big, dirty boots as they moved on to the next item of desecration.

They flung open chests that weren’t locked and hacked open the locked ones. They flung her wardrobe to the ground for the sheer joy of hearing the pottery within smash and break. Boughs and berries she’d had decorating the shelves went flying, flinging bright bits of green and red across the shop.

She stared in stupefied horror.

One of the men lifted his head and glared at her. “Where is it?” he snarled.

“Where is what?” she cried, confused and terrified.

One of them started up the rickety stairwells to her tiny bedchamber, while a second rooted through the shelves in her kitchen, and the third, burliest one, snatched up the few, precious cushions she owned and slashed them open with his blade. Then he stuck his filthy hands inside and felt around.

Something lit inside her, a low flame in her gut.

With a curse, he flung the pillows aside, their bellies ripped open. Soft white down, collected for over a year, drifted through the air like snow. He turned to the debris from the overturned wardrobe next. He picked up, then tossed aside, a tall, fluted vase. It smashed as it hit the ground.

He reached next for a long, low wooden box that sat amid the wreckage. Made of deeply polished walnut, its simplicity was deceiving; it was hand-turned, a magnificent piece of work, the only remaining relic Maggie had from her ridiculously hopeful, long-dead mother.

He reached for it.

Think small. Do something, anything, however small.

Blindly, she bent and snatched it out from under his grasping hand.

He stared at her in silent amazement. He looked at the box. Then he lunged for it.

His hand closed around it, but she held on tight. Snarling, he shoved his hand down further and yanked her forward, certain now that this box held whatever he was seeking.

She turned her back to him and curled herself around it, hugging it tight to her chest, as if it were a baby.