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beyond the wildest imaginings of the most creative novelist. Believe me, that ball-shriveling hatred from your eyes doesn’t faze me at all. There was a time when such condemnation from strangers and family seared me to the core of my pitiless soul and sent me sniveling into corners, but I’ve long grown past it.”
    She glared at him. “Do you know what your family did to mine?”
    â€œSlaughtered them.”
    His nonchalant, unrepentant tone infuriated her.
    Unperturbed by her anger, he returned her glower with a cold, blank stare. “You think they spared each other?” He pushed himself back and lifted his shirt to point to the scar by his heart that she’d touched earlier. “Present from my grandmother. She moves incredibly fast for an old bitch.” He dropped his hand to the horizontal scar bisecting his eight pack, next to his navel. “Age eleven. Cousin Chrisen tried to gut me. Said it was an accident, but I saw the look in his eyes when we went for it. Only accidental part about it was that he didn’t leave me sterile or dead.”
    Then he dropped the hem of his shirt, leaned his head to the side to indicate the scar along his collarbone. “Cousin Merrell did this one four years ago. He tried to cut my throat, but I cold cocked him and got away.” He lifted his hair to show another on his forehead. “My mother gave me this precious memento when I was six and made the mistake of trying to soothe her while she was crying. And I would show you the one Cousin Nyran left me with, but it’s in a place that you’d have me arrested for exposing. So given everything my family has done to each other for centuries, I can only imagine what they’ve done to those they’re not related to.”
    Ushara had no idea what to say to that. “Why would your mother scar you?”
    With a regal grace that was at odds with his shabby clothes, he pulled a pair of ragged fingerless gloves out of his pockets and put them on. “My grandmother had brutally murdered my twin brother. So on the day of his funeral when I went to comfort my mother and to seek some comfort myself that I wasn’t about to join him in that grave—that my mother might actually protect me , my mother decided it was somehow all my fault he was dead and threw a gift I’d made for her on her birthday earlier that year. Taught me to never make another gift out of pottery or baked clay. After that, I stuck to paper and lightweight jewelry.”
    Leaning back in the chair, he hitched his thumbs in his holster, crossed his ankles and gave her a tired, emotionless stare. “Look, mu tara , I don’t want your sympathy or pity, and I damn sure don’t want your anger and hatred. I’m not going to defend my family—they’ve never protected me, as that lovely death warrant clearly demonstrates. And I’m not into making excuses for the actions I was forced to take while trying to stay alive in an extremely hostile environment, where every breath I drew was likely to be my last, and everyone around me was plotting my death, dismemberment, and betrayal. If you want to kill me, do it. You’re in luck. I’m in too much pain today to fight for a life I never really wanted, anyway.”
    And with that, he folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.
    A part of her was extremely ticked at his curt, arrogant dismissal. So much so that she was tempted to kick him.
    But another part realized it for what it was. His own defense mechanism. If he was telling her the truth, his family hadn’t spared him their brutality.
    At all.
    And given what she’d seen on that warrant and what it detailed for how they wanted him killed, and the scars on his body, there was no need to doubt him.
    His own family had issued a brutal death warrant not just to kill him, but to have him brutalized, tortured, and dismembered.
    Thrill-Kill. It was the most horrific warrant