Page 6

But Étienne was already lunging at Réjean, my brother’s jaw moving under his ginger beard.

They met with a crash, Mano and the other Bastides shifting back and forth, watching the Pinoteaux.

Was this going to turn into open warfare?

Réjean might outweigh Étienne by forty pounds, but I had never seen my husband defeated in a fight. Ever. He did not fight for fun. Even at the fair. He fought for status, for his name, for honor.

Réjean took a swing, aiming for my husband’s jaw, but the blow only glanced off as Étienne barreled into him.

Réjean’s arms windmilled, attempting to dislodge Étienne, but my husband brought his knee up and drove Réjean’s face into it.

My brother staggered and, despite his much greater size, Étienne was able to knock him off his feet and send Réjean crashing to the ground.

God’s blood, my heart was pounding as my husband stood victorious over my fallen brother.

Étienne spat in Réjean’s face, and put a big boot on his throat, just for a moment, but long enough for everyone to see. Then he wrote it with the tip of his boot.

Léger

Weak, loser

He prowled toward my other family like a powerful panther as Réjean rolled away.

“I didn’t make an agreement over a slut. What will you give me now?”

He spread his arms wide, his shirt slick with sweat, the long lean lines of his arms deadly, powerful.

Margot’s eyes were wide and shocked as she stared at me.

“We can’t do anything without my father here,” Réjean said, shooting me a look of cold loathing as he got heavily to his feet.

Étienne made a noise of disgust.

“That is not necessary.”

“Nevertheless, the arrangement was between our fathers. It will wait until then. But you would certainly be within your rights to turn her out of the house if she is a whore. Simply turn her out of your home and let the mountain take care of the rest.”

Prickly panicky heat broke out on my skin.

I opened my mouth to speak.

My own brother. Proposing that Étienne leave me in the worst part of the mountains, out exposed to the elements and wild animals.

"You think I should leave your sister to die?”

Réjean shrugged. “Or leave her here and I will turn her out the other side of the mountain.”

He made a move like he was going to grab me, and I instantly shrank back.

How had things spiraled out of control like this?

Étienne scoffed, and wrapped his own hand around my arm, pulling me back from my brother, but there was no kindness in it, or in him.

He turned my face toward him, then grabbed a pen from a cup on my side table.

“No,” I protested. “Please don’t do this. I’m innocent, I swear⁠—”

But with my face trapped under his hard fingers I could feel what he wrote on my forehead.