Page 55

“Your luck has run out, Pinoteaux princess.”

At 18, our paths had diverged. My father ran the Pinoteaux, so I was raised to be soft, innocent, and ignorant. Margot’s da had been caught skimming money off the top of the family profits, so she had to work as a guard or in transport. As much as I’d wanted to stay friends, it hadn’t been allowed.

“Look at me! I’m no threat to you!” I protested, one hand gripping the tire iron, the other on the door.

And for a moment, I was a fool, such a fool, to think she wouldn’t kill me without blinking an eye.

It wasn’t until she lunged that cold panic filled my veins.

Unless I could be stronger and cleverer than I ever had been in my life, my cousin was going to kill me.

Wake up, Léonie!

“Did Réjean tell you that you could be a house girl if you killed me?” I said, grabbing the door and shoving it toward her. “He lied.”

She dodged the door easily. “No, he’ll have to pick up his end of the bargain,” she said, her eyes gleaming.

I was already backing away, around the SUV and heading for the forest.

But Margot had that knife pointed right at me, and I couldn’t move fast enough.

“Otherwise Étienne has him over a barrel. And Réjean hates that. . .”

Twisting sideways so my belly could fit, I backed up so I could squeeze in between two big trees. Maybe I could lose her in the woods somehow. . .

But Margot was faster, stronger, and she wasn’t nine-months-pregnant.

Her knife hit the tree bark a millisecond after I moved my hand.

And the thing was that I couldn’t call on any of my fight training.

I had none.

I’d been trained to be a docile wife and nothing more.

Margot kicked me in the back of the thighs and I stumbled forward, my belly making me ungainly and awkward, my cheeks and hands scraped up by a sharp, jagged rock face as I desperately tried to keep myself upright.

Ciel kicked my ribs, his little fists pummeling my organs. Making me breathless.

He would love the mountains so much, love the feeling of summer showers on his skin, love how much his Uncle Hugo was looking forward to holding him.

No! I wasn’t dying here.

A piece of rock broke off in my hand and I tightened my fingers around it.

“Everyone thought you were such a clever girl getting a man like Étienne Bastide interested in you,” Margot said, advancing forward as I desperately scraped my way down the rock face. “But I saw through you. You’re nothing more than a little greedy slut.”

I stumbled forward, barely out of her reach.

Grandmother, please help.

Margot had her knife out, the sharp point gleaming at me, and there were only a few seconds left—between her life and mine.

Pushing off the granite, I flung the rock as hard as I could at her head and miraculously, like the ancestors themselves were guiding my aim, or maybe it was all my rage and a burst of crazy pregnancy strength, it hit her right on the temple.

My cousin staggered.

Desperately, I sprang forward and hit her with my tire iron, my stomach churning at the savage violence in my own fingers.