The Other Brother (Snow and Ash Book 3) by Heather Knight

my air.
    “You must be the wife,” he says as I struggle to free myself. Abruptly he shoves my head into the wall, and I see Cheerios. Little white circle-o’s against black. He grabs my hands and holds them up over my head and uses his body to pin me against the wall. Something cold and sharp connects with my neck.
    “Why are you doing this?” My body is trembling, and the fact that my towel dropped to the floor and I’m completely naked against this man puts my brain in near shutdown mode.
    “You people killed my family.” His fetid breath nearly makes me gag. Shaggy dark hair and several days’ stubble hide much of his features, but his eyes are the deepest chocolate brown. They blaze with hatred.
    “I don’t know your family,” I tell him, hoping to stall for time.
    “I don’t give a shit who you know!” The blade presses more firmly against my throat. “You people wiped out an entire village. Defenseless starving people. Everyone, down to the smallest child. My son!”
    I suck in a breath as horror spiders through my veins. “The cannibals!”
    “We do what we gotta do to survive. We don’t kill for meat. We eat what’s already dead. You are the murderers.”
    My gaze darts toward the bedroom, and I will someone to come through the door, to rescue me from this madman.
    “What…” My voice fails as terror threatens to erase my mind. “What are you going to do with me?”
    “I meant to kill that husband of yours. Carve him up into little pieces and take him away for meat. It’s what he deserves for what he’s done.” He leans in and inhales my scent. “But I have another idea now.”
    “Don’t,” I choke. I feel his erection rise against my belly, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Rivulets of tears escape out each corner. “I can’t! I just can’t.”
    Hands holding me down while a man in a gray hoodie spreads my legs and shoves at me hard. The agonizing split as he pushes through my virginity.
    “You won’t make a sound,” he says. “You make so much as a squeak and I’ll cut your throat. I’ll leave you here for your husband to find, minus a steak or two. You keep quiet, you cooperate, and all I’ll do is take a leg. I’ll even tie a tourniquet for you so you don’t bleed out. Who knows? You might even make it.”
    Oh God! Oh— “Kent!”
    It’s a primal cry, and it scrapes my throat raw. It’s all I have time for before my attacker releases my hands, seizes me by the neck, and slams me against the wall again.
    “Big mistake. Those guards of yours are dead. I shoved their bodies in the other closet—yours, I’m guessing. No one is coming for you.”
    His hand tightens around my neck. He squeezes off my air and bares his teeth as he holds the weapon in front of my eyes. The first side of his knife looks the way I expect it to—a long, crisp-looking blade. The other side is set up in two sections, one with a serrated edge like you’d see on a bread knife and the lower with a row of hooks that could easily saw me in half. I let loose a muffled babble of pleas. Using his grip on my neck, he throws me to the floor, and just at that moment I hear the sound of splintering wood. I try to scream, but all that comes out are choked inarticulate cries as I try to crawl away from my attacker. He seizes me by the hair and drags me to my knees, but before he has time to do anything, Kent flies at him in a full tackle.
    I shake, and I can’t see. All I can hear are my own desperate sobs. The Cheerios have taken over my vision, and all I know is I need to get away. Away. Away.
    Someone throws a blanket over me. The unknown person wraps it around my nakedness before pulling me to my feet.
    I struggle against whoever it is, certain that at any minute those hooks will dig into my flesh.
    All I’ll do is take a leg.
    “Ma’am. Ma’am? It’s all right. You’re okay now.”
    Part of me registers that I am no longer under attack, but the Bianca inside me, the animal part, doesn’t believe