A Girl Named Calamity (Alyria 1)

“Yea, well, I don’t like to listen to psychotic assassins.”

He toed the man on the ground. “This could have been avoided if you would have listened to me.”

I grimaced. “Can you not kick a dead man? What’s wrong with you?”

My stomach turned. I should’ve never left my room. My guilt ate at me while another person lay dead at my feet. The man might have been molesting me, but whatever he did with my mind made me feel willing. Or, maybe I was willing on my own? It was hard to feel violated when the pleasure was that great.

Weston let out a frustrated breath before throwing his knife across the room. It lodged itself into the wall, before he ran his hands through his hair.

“Killing

is not the answer to everything, Weston.”

He pulled his angry gaze to me. “I should have just ignored it, huh? Just walked up to my room and pretended that I couldn’t hear your moans down the hall, couldn’t smell a man all over you,” he said with buckets of scorn.

I grimaced. “That’s just creepy that you can—”

“Shut up.” He was seething, his eyes a dark storm as he put his hands on the wall above me, boxing me in. He was breathing hard, and he was so close his chest almost brushed mine. I met his gaze, refusing to feel intimidated.

“We aren’t here for you to have dalliances. I see another man touch you, and I will kill him and ask questions later. Do you understand me?”

It felt as though the blood had hit my face again when I realized the seriousness of his words, but I wouldn’t let him push me around. I didn’t ask for what happened.

But that doesn’t mean I won’t go out and look for another man like him.

That evil thing called tenacity made me think it just to piss Weston off a little more.

“He’ll be dead before he’s any use to you,” he growled.

It made my blood boil that he had made this about him when it had nothing to do with him. “Next time, ignore whatever the hell your nose can smell and go to h—”

“Shut your fucking mouth before—”

“You shut—”

“Shut up.” The compulsion physically stopped my mouth from opening, and I couldn’t stand the feeling. It was suffocating, and the thought that I could never talk again had my stomach knotting. I tried to shove him away from me, but he didn’t budge.

“Do you understand me?” he asked, and my mind traveled back to him threatening to kill men if they touched me.

No, I didn’t understand, because that was insane. I shook my head in defiance.

“Tell me you understand.”

I hated him.

I tried to bite my tongue, but I couldn’t stop the words from flowing out of my mouth. “I understand,” I growled.

He stepped back. “You can go to your room now and thank me for saving you again.”

“You did nothing but ruin a good evening—”

“Say thank you.”

There went two more screws . . .

“Thank you,” I spit out menacingly.

“You can go now,” he said and then added, “to your room.”