Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Gideon never saw it coming. One minute he was standing before Meredith, all but calling her a whore, and the next moment, Rhys had him smashed against the wall. And because it evidently wasn’t enough to do it once, Rhys grabbed him by fistfuls of shirt, pulled him off the wall, and smashed him against it again.
All around the tavern, bodies launched from chairs and pasted themselves to the edges of the room.
Holding Gideon pinned to the wall with one arm, Rhys hauled back with the other and swung. At the last second, Gideon managed to twist in his grip, so that the punch glanced off his shoulder and hit the wall—rather than snapping his neck instantaneously. He put a forearm to Rhys’s throat and wedged a boot in the larger man’s gut, levering him away. With his other arm, he reached for the pistol at his side.
Rhys beat him to it. “No guns,” he said, whipping the pistol from Gideon’s waistband and flinging it aside. “Just fists.”
The pistol skittered across the flagstones, coming to rest at Cora’s feet.
Gideon gave Rhys a swift kick to the knee—the wounded left knee he always favored. The kick sent Rhys reeling back a pace, giving Gideon an instant to breathe, react.
Attack.
Lunging to the side, he grabbed a candlestick from the mantel.
“No!” Meredith cried.
Gideon’s fingers closed around the heavy pipe of brass just as Rhys pulled back for another punch. They both swung at the same time. Rhys’s fist connected with Gideon’s jaw first, altering the angle of the candlestick’s descent, but not its velocity. The club came down on Rhys’s back with a dull thud. Both men roared with pain, separating for a moment.
But not for long.
With an inarticulate battle cry, Gideon swung again.
Rhys dodged, and the candlestick hit a table instead, crunching straight through the tabletop. As Gideon struggled to withdraw the weapon from a bird’s nest of splinters, Rhys picked up a stool and swung it hard. The stool smashed to kindling over Gideon’s head.
“You bastard!” Relinquishing his grip on the candlestick, Gideon lowered his shoulder and charged Rhys with full force.
Though Rhys was the larger man, he was caught off-balance. He reeled backward when Gideon struck, and together they plowed the distance of the room, landing against the bar with a crash of glass and splintering wood.
Meredith’s hands flew to her mouth. Good Lord. They would destroy the whole tavern.
If Rhys felt a single one of Gideon’s punches to his chest and gut, he didn’t show it. Instead he fisted his hands in Gideon’s shirt and hauled him up and left, swinging him bodily onto the counter and dropping him flat on his back. Within seconds, Rhys had scrambled atop him, straddling Gideon’s thighs to hold him down as he dealt blow after punishing blow.
“Stop this!” Meredith cried. “Rhys, Gideon. For the love of God, stop!”
Neither one of them heeded her pleas.
Gideon’s hands shot up to grasp Rhys’s throat. He locked his elbows, pushing up until Rhys’s head smashed into the rows of hanging glassware. As they struggled, little bits of glass rained down on them both, followed by red trickles of blood. Whose blood, Meredith couldn’t be sure.
Once the shower of glass cleared, the picture looked much the same. Gideon flat on his back on the bar; Rhys looming over him. Gideon’s fingers cinched tight around Rhys’s throat, cutting off his air. Meanwhile, Rhys took jab after powerful jab at Gideon’s ribs. Meredith heard a sick crack.
Oh, God. This wouldn’t stop until one of them was unconscious. Or dead.
Cora leapt toward the men, but Meredith grabbed the girl by the arm and held her back. There was no stopping these two. Anyone who tried to intervene would most certainly be injured, if not killed.
“Die,” Gideon growled, tightening his fingers about Rhys’s throat.
In response, Rhys grated out two words. “Make. Me.”
Rhys’s face had turned a frightening shade of red, but Meredith could tell Gideon’s strength was waning. With an almost regretful expression, Rhys raised his fist and took one last swing at Gideon’s jaw. Blood sprayed from the younger man’s mouth, spattering Meredith and Cora both. Cora shrieked. Gideon’s body went limp, his hands slumping back to the bar.
A tooth rolled to the floor and bounced off the flagstones.
And Rhys just kept dealing blows.
“Get up.” Thwack. “Is that the best you can do?” Thwack. “Stand, you miserable piece of filth.” He grabbed the senseless Gideon by the collar and shook him, slamming his head against the bar. “Wake up, you bastard, and try to kill me again.”
He released Gideon’s shirt, and the younger man’s head rolled back to the bar. Rhys sat hulking over him, bleeding and panting and sweating. And maybe—Meredith couldn’t quite tell—weeping a little bit, too.
Just when she’d gathered the composure to go to him, Rhys firmed his jaw and raised his heavy fist again, as if to deal Gideon a death blow. The room sucked in its breath.