Free Rumpel's Prize by Marie Hall Page B

eyes swam with tears because there was a large purple bruise on the side of the babe’s head and blood slid from its ears.
    “Oh, baby, no. No.” She moaned and feathered her fingers along its dented little skull. “Oh no, child, sweet child. Oh please, baby,” she choked out between tears because she knew there was nothing that could be done.
    A fall like that should not have killed the little one. It should not have. How had this happened?
    “Give me my baby!” The grandmother screamed, and blinking herself back to reality, Shayera handed the beautiful little girl to the sobbing woman, who crooned and cradled its head to her breast. She rocked back and forth, completely oblivious to the pain of her broken foot.
    Brenna’s laughter was growing louder; she was braying like an ass and hugging her arms to her chest. “Did you see that, Red? I only tripped them. Wow, what a freak show, yeah?”
    Fury filled Shayera so that she was washed in it, bathed in its deadly glow. “You killed that baby!” She pointed back at the huddled woman.
    “Oh c’mon, Red.” Brenna held up her hands. “It was a fluke, I just tripped her. You can’t be mad at me.”
    There was no thought or reasoning to what Shayera did. One second she was standing, shaking with the heat of her anger, and the next she was on top of the girl with her hands wrapped around Brenna’s neck.
    The girl’s eyes were bulging, but not with fear—no, with a horrible smugness like she knew, knew Shayera wouldn’t do it.
    “You’re not bitch enough to kill me,” Brenna gasped out as Shayera’s fingers squeezed just slightly tighter.
    Tears streamed down her eyes for the loss of the child, for the loss of that innocence to this horrible little monster underneath her. The cries and taunts of the boys of her village, the ugly faces of mother’s whose expressions said she was a whore no different than her dad had been, all that hate, hurt, it mingled with this moment and Shayera knew that she could kill Brenna.
    She could end her. Her own hate was passionate and strong and it would be nothing, to choke the life from the girl.
    “Do it,” Brenna snarled, trapping Shayera’s hands back against her throat despite their loosening. “I ain’t got nothing in this life! Nuthin’.” She spat, and when the wet slime landed on Shayera’s nose, the red of fury tried to come upon her once again.
    But in that moment she thought not of her mother or her father, but of Briley and how he’d feel if he ever discovered what his Shay Shay had done.
    Deserved or not, the dispensing of justice wasn’t something that Shayera could ever take upon herself. The girl would have to pay for her actions, but not because Shayera was her judge, jury, and executioner.
    “I hate you for what you’ve done,” she gritted out and her hands shook as finger by finger she released the girl’s slender throat. “But I won’t kill you either.”
    The second she released the girl, and just as she made to stand, Brenna’s hand reached out and smacked her so hard and fast across the face that she cried out in pain and humiliation, grabbing hold of her cheek.
    “You lose, bitch!”
    And then the scene disappeared and she was in back in the room of stone. Her cheek was on fire and the wetness of Brenna’s spit was still on her nose. Wiping her face with the back of her hand, she gasped, completely overwhelmed by the experience.
    And as the adrenaline pumped through her system, she covered her eyes and kneeled, and then, pressing her face to the cold stone, she wept.

Chapter Eight
    Later that night after Shayera had eaten a bowl of the most creamy and divine tomato soup she’d ever had and taken a long hot bath, Dalia brushed her hair out at the vanity.
    “I failed,” she said miserably, staring at her still red-rimmed eyes. She’d only just stopped crying an hour or so ago.
    “I heard, miss.” Dalia’s strokes were gentle and even, helping somewhat to soothe the still-frayed