Blood and Salvation by Bill Bridges

Author:Bill Bridges [Bridges, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Creative Man Press
Published: 2020-01-26T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

I awoke to a sharp kick in the ribs that expelled all my air in a pained whoosh. I rolled over and covered up instinctively because this was, sadly, not the first time someone awakened me with a swift kick. I saw a boot coming and moved my head so it hit my jaw and not my nose. Stars exploded inside my head.

“That was for knocking me out,” said a familiar male voice. Two men dragged me to my feet until I was face-to-face with the redheaded stranger from the monastery. He smiled evilly and punched me in the stomach, which dropped me to my hands and knees. Blows rained down on me from everywhere. I followed my male instinct and curled into a ball to protect my important parts.

“Leave him alone,” I heard Jezel yell from somewhere to my right. I glanced and saw a muscular, raven-haired man with one arm around her neck and the other pinning her arms behind her. She was clothed, but my mind flashed back to the tattoo before the redhead kicked me in the ribs again.

“That was for leaving me naked.” Another kick lifted me off the ground and I rolled onto my back, then onto all fours. “That was for leaving me with the goats. Monks had a big laugh about that.” He kicked me again, and I wondered if I might have gone too far with the goat thing. “But you ain't so smart now, are you?”

I processed what I knew. Redhead and friends were here, but although they could have killed me as I dozed after a nightmare, I was alive, which meant redhead wanted to punish me. I couldn’t be sure, but in the fleeting glimpse I saw of Jezel, she didn’t appear harmed, which meant they hadn’t raped her when she was vulnerable. Made sense. King would want her unharmed and had likely threatened to do bad things to them for damaging the goods prior to delivery. From the pieces came a plan.

“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, coughing. “We’re on the same side in this.” Blood drained from my mouth and pooled on the ground.

“Nice try,” said one of the other men, right before a punch to the back of my head made stars explode in front of me.

“Seriously,” I said. Or at least I tried to say it. Instead, it came out as “sherioushly” because the blows had caught up to me and my words came out slurred and almost incoherent. “Shent me, too.”

The punches stopped, which meant I'd thrown them off balance. I looked up at them. “I'm sorry, I didn’t know othersh—" I said, then shook my head to get rid of the cobwebs and the slurring, "—others were involved. All I had were orders to get to the monastery, grab the woman, and get paid once we got back to Tephalus."

“Yeah, right,” the redhead said. He punctuated “right” with a punch to my temple that produced a loud ringing in my ears.

I held up my hand again.

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