DEX
DEX HAD FORGOTTEN how fast Andi’s reflexes could be when she was mad.
Furious, actually, he thought, as he watched the shock on her face melt into a mask of pure, boiling rage.
He had only the briefest of seconds to ponder his possible mistake as Andi pushed some sorry fool out of her way. Then Dex’s chair was in Andi’s hands as she lifted it high over her head.
“Dex!” she screamed. And was that a growl he heard coming from her lips?
He barely had time to lift his arms over his head before she slammed the chair down on top of him. Dex crashed against the table, toppling over three glass mugs that shattered against the metal floor.
“What the hell?” Andi yelled.
Dex groaned as he stood, swiping glass from his shirt. Without a doubt, that was going to leave a bruise or two. But at least his plan, painful as it may be, was working.
He turned back to smile at Andi. “That’s all you’ve got, Captain?”
He just needed her to play along, make a big enough show to draw in the Lunamere warden. That would be their ticket inside.
Andi spat on the ground, then rubbed her lips with the back of her sleeve. For one moment, she looked purely Andi, angry as a wet feline and terrifyingly beautiful. Dex felt smug, like he could strut for hours with his head held high.
Then he saw the moment when Andi’s face changed. She transformed into someone else entirely; an actress playing the perfect part.
“How dare you cheat on me!” she snarled.
Dex’s hands fell to his sides. “Wait...what?”
Lira appeared, hands on her hips as she leveled a death glare on him. “So this is the other girl, Dextro?” She looked Andi up and down, then back to Dex. “I’m not very impressed.”
What in the hell were they doing? This was not part of his plan.
All around them, people stopped talking. The music faded as yet another voice joined the mix, and Dex heard heavy footsteps approaching.
“You honestly thought you could screw around with two other girls,” Breck said, stepping up between Lira and Andi, “and not get caught by us?”
Dex lowered his voice. “Ladies...”
“Girls talk, Dextro,” Andi said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. She looked to Lira, then to Breck. “He deserves to be taught a lesson about relationships.”
Her voice grew louder with every word, more bar patrons craning their necks to see what the ruckus was all about.
Rubbing his still-stinging forearms, Dex quickly whispered, “What exactly are you three doing?”
Andi ignored him. “Who wants the first shot?”
Breck cracked her knuckles, and people began to rise from their chairs, slowly surrounding them in a circle, ready for what looked to be a promising fight.
“You can have him,” Lira said. “He’s a waste of my time.”
“Mine, as well,” Breck agreed as men hooted and hollered, laughing at the cheater caught in a bind.
“Come on, ladies,” Dex drawled, catching on to their plan. If they had to give the onlookers a show, well...they’d get one. “It was just one little kiss.”
“Like hell it was!” Breck howled.
Before he could prepare himself, her foot slammed into his gut.
Dex went flying.
He landed with a sickening crash against a table, all air gone from his lungs. The table tipped, and more glass mugs shattered as cards and Krevs spiraled into the air, a flurry of black and red and gold.
Dex slid to a stop, his head slamming against the back wall.
That was going to leave a mark, too.
Silence swept through Dark Matter, and as Dex’s vision began to clear, the only sounds were the crunch of boots on shattered glass and the constant dripping of wasted alcohol pooling over the table’s edges as its previous occupants stood, surrounding Dex in a half circle.
The giantess had catapulted him right into the middle of a table full of Lunamere guards, every single one of them looking as furious as the last.
“Pardon me, boys,” Dex said. “I seem to have fallen right into the middle of your little card game.”
The guard closest to him, a brute as tall as Breck, curled his upper lip and actually growled like a feral dog.
“You disrespected those ladies,” the giant man said. “And you messed up my game. I had a winning hand.”
“Easy, big guy.” Dex held up his arms in surrender. “We can talk about this.”
The guard reached out with a meaty hand and grabbed Dex by the collar, twisting his fingers into the fabric. Then he hoisted him up until their noses were nearly touching, Dex’s legs dangling below him.
“No talking, then?” Dex asked.
Andi’s chuckle from behind him was the only sound in the room.
Then the guard swung, and all hell broke loose.
* * *
Dex wasn’t the tallest man by Mirabel standards, but what he lacked in height, he made up in speed and agility—and above all, the desire to win.
Besides, he’d never live it down if he couldn’t take out a few dozen drunkards in a bar fight.
He was all grace and glory as he spun and whirled, taking out Lunamere guards as they rushed forward in hopes of sinking their knives into his gut. Two men lunged at him, and Dex swiped out with a knife from a nearby table, a snick sounding as he caught one of them in the cheek.
Blood splattered a one-eyed woman at a nearby table, who promptly howled about her ruined meal before rushing into the fight. Her companion dove in after her with a black club he’d pulled out from under the table. Dex leaped, narrowly avoiding a hit.
One step, two steps, leap.
Dex landed on the bar top, his boots skidding as glasses fell over and spilled the contents on their owners.
An entirely new group of pissed-off patrons screamed and rose to join the fight.
Ten men from the left.
Six from the right, all hefting weapons.
And Andi, sprinting from the back with...
Dex’s eyes widened as he dodged a chair sailing past his head. Were those meat cleavers clutched in her fists?
* * *
Angry shouts filled the pub, music to Andi’s ears as she joined the fight.
The world melted away, every patron turning into a single muddled shade, until all she could see was the swinging of too-slow fists, the swish of a dulled blade cartwheeling through the air to stick itself in another man’s back.
Andi sprinted forward, plucked the blade from the man, then whirled around and drove it down into a Lunamere guard’s thigh right as he rushed past her in pursuit of Dex.
He howled and dropped, and then she was off again, leaping over his fallen form, her hands itching to raise hell, draw blood and spread the glory of her name.
The Bloody Baroness was here.
She’d make sure every single one of them knew it.
* * *
Dex laughed as he swung a bottle at a guard’s head. It shattered as he grabbed another and another, sending them both sailing across the pub to explode against the metal walls.
Everywhere was a symphony of sound, bats swinging against metal, men and women shouting at the top of their lungs as people too far under the influence swung at everything and nothing at once.
Chaos circled throughout the room, building like a wildfire.
Speaking of fire... Dex thought as he took on two men at once. Andi was by the bar, but where were Breck and Gilly and Lira with their Sparks? He ducked down just as the man in front of him swung. The man’s fist connected with the person behind Dex instead. There was a crack and a shout, and the two sorry bastards went down fighting, hissing and spitting like cats thrown in water.
The plan was in place. Everything was glorious, beautiful, blessed disarray.
They just had to keep it going until the warden of Lunamere arrived.
* * *
Andi searched the bar for a clock, her eyes scanning past the swinging fists and people standing on tabletops to get a better view of the brawl. The holo on the wall above the bar said 13:23.
Plenty of time to raise a little more hell.
Dex was cornered with his back against the bar, fresh green blood oozing from a cut on his brow. Three men had closed in on him, one hoisting a broken chair leg as a weapon, another snarling with thick red canines bared. The little table-waiting droid spun in circles nearby, one of its squeaky wheels missing. Beside it, the six-armed bartender was using the missing wheel to bludgeon another man’s head.
Every part of Andi’s soul told her to get the hell out of there before the Sparks went off. She could abandon the mission. Leave Valen Cortas in prison, with Dex beside him once the warden of Lunamere caught wind of this.
But as she stood back and watched the clock tick down, some tiny part of herself, some animal thing deep down, began to claw its way back up and out into the smoky pub light.
The Bloody Baroness never turned away from a fight.
With a sigh, she pushed herself forward, swinging her borrowed knives as if they were extensions of her body. Little pieces of heaven clutched in her hell-raising fists.
She hacked through the crowd and cleared the area in front of Dex just in time to pull him down behind the bar.
“Time already?” he asked.
She didn’t even have a chance to nod before the Sparks went off.
Then the whole world exploded around them.