"Besides," Grimes said, "it's not my fault that our guest was left waiting. It's hers ."
He pointed an accusing finger in my direction. All eyes turned to me, and I gave them all a cocky smile.
"Why, if I'd known that y'all had company, I wouldn't have bothered killing your men up on the ridge," I said.
"I would have come straight on over here and shown your guests exactly how hospitable I could be - along with the rest of you."
Hazel stepped forward and backhanded me.
Pain exploded in my jaw, making every nerve ending in my face pulse with agony once more. White stars exploded in my vision again, and I rocked back on my feet, but I didn't give her the satisfaction of stumbling. Instead, I blinked away the spots, stared back at her, and slowly swiveled my head from side to side.
"Thanks," I drawled. "My neck's been killing me all day, but that cracked it just right for me."
Hazel started forward to backhand me again, but Grimes cut in.
"Not now," he said. "You'll get your chance soon enough. I need some information from her first."
"Fine," Hazel muttered in a sullen tone. "We'll do it like usual."
I wondered what like usual was, but since it probably involved my screaming, bloody, torture-filled death, I didn't dwell on it too much. I'd find out soon enough.
Grimes moved over and sat down behind his desk, leaning back in his cherry-red leather chair. Hazel went over and perched on the corner of the wood. She'd also changed her clothes sometime while I'd been unconscious and was now wearing another wrap dress in the same baby blue as Grimes's suit and hat. She'd also stuck some different diamond pins, these shaped like small hearts, into her wavy black hair, although her lips were still the same bloody crimson as before.
In a bizarre way, the two of them seemed like two halves of a whole, yin and yang, with Grimes so strong and stocky and Hazel so tall and slender.
Hazel arranged the long skirt of her dress around her, as though she were some sweet Southern belle getting ready to host a genteel social, instead of the cruel, murderous psychopath that she was. She gave me a mocking smile. I ignored her and focused on Grimes. Despite how vicious Hazel was, he was the one in charge - even of her.
Grimes tipped his hat back from his forehead, leaned his elbows on his desk, and steepled his hands together, giving me a thoughtful look over the tops of his interlaced fingers. "Here's how this is going to work," he said. "You are going to answer my questions quickly and truthfully as soon as I ask them. Or there will be consequences."
"What sort of consequences?"
He gave me a thin smile. "I'll let Hazel use her Fire magic on you again."
"Oh, yes," Hazel purred in delight. "And Harley won't make me hold back this time like he did up on the ridge."
I threw back my head and laughed at her threat.
Smoke wisped out from between Hazel's clenched fists, and her brown eyes darkened with the fury of her Fire magic. She didn't like me mocking her. Too damn bad.
A minute passed, then another, and I kept right on laughing. Finally, when my ribs started to ache even more than they already had been, I let the last cold, mirthless chuckle die on my lips.
"Oh, sugar," I drawled. "I've been roasted, toasted, and tortured by some of the strongest, most vicious elementals this little corner of the world has ever seen. Not to mention all of the vampires, giants, dwarves, and regular folks who've gotten their hands on me over the years. Hell, I faced down Mab f**king Monroe herself and lived to tell the tale. Yeah, you're strong in your Fire magic, and so is your brother there, but you're nothing compared with Mab, nothing . So I'd stop bragging and patting yourself on the back. You haven't earned it. You haven't earned a damn thing, especially not my fear."
Red splotches of anger bloomed like roses on Hazel's cheeks, and more smoke boiled up from her fists, even blacker than before. If she'd been a cartoon character, matching clouds of steam would have been screeching out of her ears by this point.
"careful, careful," I mocked. "You wouldn't want to singe that pretty dress of yours. Oh, wait. That's right.
You only like doing that to other women. Or do you boil the clothes off all of the young men you kidnap before you kill them too?"
Fury flashed in her eyes again, but she slowly unclenched her hands, scooted off the corner of the desk, and stood up.
"Make her start talking, Harley," Hazel snarled. "Right now. Or I will."
I airily waved my burned, bruised, bloody hand at her.
"Oh, there's no need to fret, now, sugar. I don't have any problem telling you why I'm here."
"And why are you here, exactly?" Grimes asked.
I stared at him. "I'm here because Fletcher Lane sent me."
Apparently, that wasn't the answer he'd been expecting, because Grimes's hands slid off his desk and into his lap.
His eyes narrowed but not before I saw a flicker of emotion in the cold brown depths: fear.
"You do remember Mr. Lane, don't you?" I continued, mocking him with his own fondness for formal addresses.
"He's the man who saved Sophia from you before."
"He's the man who took Sophia from me before,"
Grimes growled back. "One of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn't kill him years ago."
"Funny, because Fletcher felt the exact same way about you," I drawled. "He didn't kill you way back then, but believe me when I tell you that I plan to rectify that now."
Grimes gave me an amused look. "Do you know how many people have tried - and failed - to kill me over the years? You're not the first person to come up to my mountain with a couple of guns and knives and try to take me out. I assume you saw the pit. That's not the first one that's ever been dug around my family's cemetery, and it won't be the last."
"Perhaps your other attackers weren't motivated enough," I quipped. "Believe me when I tell you that won't be a problem for me. I'm in it to win it, and all that."
Behind me, the three men with the guns shifted on their feet, making the floorboards creak and groan under their weight. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the two men on my right exchange a nervous glance. They seemed much more concerned by my threat than Grimes did.
Then again, I'd already killed a passel of their buddies, and the day was still young.
But Grimes had a different reaction from his flunkies.
He ignored me completely. Instead, he swiveled around in his chair and reached for a decanter of clear liquid on a table behind his desk. Grimes unstoppered the bottle, and caustic fumes from whatever was inside assaulted my nose. Some of his mountain moonshine, I guessed, gussied up in fancy crystal. Mountain strychnine, from the harsh scent of it. That wouldn't just put hair on your chest; it would burn it clean off. And probably take a good portion of your esophagus along with it.