Free Dragon Storm (Dawn of the Dragon Queen Book 2) by Tara West Page A

press a woman against a wall. She flailed and gagged while he held the cane against her neck, cutting off her air.
    “Let her go!” Duncan bellowed.
    The woman crumpled to the ground as the man released her and spun around.
    “Leave us be.” He eyed Duncan with a sneer. “This isn’t your fight.”
    “A brute attacking a defenseless woman?” Duncan took a step forward, balling his hands. “I’d say it just became my fight.”
    “Defenseless woman?” He tossed back his head and laughed, heedless of the hat that slipped off his head. “You mean a two-penny, thieving whore?” He waved at the woman, whose chest heaved while she gasped for air. “She ransacked my apartment.”
    The woman’s brown hair was disheveled, and her dark, smeared face paint made her look part raccoon. Already, the welts across her neck were starting to darken. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, yet the lines around her mouth and eyes indicated a life of hardship. She kept a stony gaze focused on her assailant as she slowly rose to her feet. “You owed me money.”
    She stepped away from him, but he blocked her with the cane and jerked her to his side.
    He eyed her coolly. “You didn’t finish the job.”
    Duncan cautiously closed the distance between them. “Sir, unhand that woman, and we will get to the bottom of this misunderstanding as gentlemen.”
    The man looked at Duncan with a predatory gleam in his eyes. Duncan had lived long enough to recognize this man was calculating the risks of an attack.
    “Come now,” the man said as he dug into her arm, causing her to cry out. “You really don’t want to lose your life over a gutter slut.”
    Duncan slowly slipped a hand beneath his belt, fingering the hilt of his blade. Though he hadn’t needed its protection since the last gold rush, he was glad to have it now. “I’m not going to tell you again to let her go.”
    The woman turned up her chin, putting on a brave face, though her lower lip trembled. “You heard the man, Dr. Straw. Do as he says.”
    Dr. Straw? This brute was a healer? Most doctors Duncan had known were respectable and genuinely concerned over the welfare of others. Over the past five centuries, Duncan had gotten pretty good at discerning the measure of a man, but this man, despite his position, had no more scruples than a common crook.
    After he released his grip on the woman, she cursed him while rubbing her arm.
    “Very well.” The doctor flashed a wide grin, one that didn’t match the cold void in his emotionless eyes. “Perhaps we can discuss this as gentlemen.” He stepped forward, holding out a hand.
    Suspecting this was a ruse, Duncan warily eyed the doctor, keeping a grip on the blade.
    The doctor whipped his cane so fast, Duncan had no time to react. Duncan’s blade went flying across the alley, landing with a clank against the brick wall. He cursed as blood spewed from his wrist, then blocked the cane as the doctor tried to strike him a second time.
    He yanked the cane hard enough that Dr. Straw lost his grip, nearly falling on his face as he tried to retrieve it. The doctor swore when Duncan spun it around and whacked him across the nose. Dr. Straw held his bloody nose and backed up before taking off at a run in the other direction. Duncan thought about chasing him down, but a pain in his gut prevented him from moving. He looked down at the widening bulls-eye of crimson that seeped into his white shirt and then he looked at the cane in his grip. Why had he not noticed before that a blade protruded from one end?
    Duncan placed a hand on his gut and winced at the pain. More blood seeped between his fingers, and it felt as if the hole in his body was widening. His vision tunneled as he stared at his bloody hand. Somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard a woman screaming. He cursed himself for a fool. He’d come so close, and now he’d die before he was able to save Safina.
    His knees weakened, his vision blackened, and he