Excerpt: The Boxer Rebellion

When Ezra’s mother had died, the inheritance had, naturally, fallen to him. The only living child. And seeing how he was ever-so-regrettably male, the authorities had decided that he could, naturally, keep his inheritance and, just as naturally, it would be put into the far-more-knowledgeable hands of whoever he married. Title, land, even the damned prize-winning horses would go to someone that wasn’t him. Of course, he’d appealed to the courts, and been laughed out of the room because every woman in the entirety of Olendi was a misandric bitch who thought he should be put in chains and leather and be dancing around on poles without even getting money stuck in his g-string.

Frinwyn was apparently done hitting him, thinking he’d learned his lesson for the day, and sat back down, the ancient chair creaking under her as she settled again and frowned at him some more, as if her displeasure would make him want to mend his errant ways and be a good little fiancé.

However, today was not a normal day. In fact, the day had been atrocious. Ezra had put up with Stupid Brunet jokes, a paycheck that was going on three days overdue, sexual harassment at work (his boss had a thing for slapping her employee’s asses and it wasn’t welcome at all), traffic jams that had no end, some idiot with a broken-down cart blocking the way home, and now he wasn’t getting an inch of sympathy from the stay-at-home woman who, for all Ezra could tell, had done nothing other than move from the second floor, to the first floor. Really, this was as far from sympathy as anyone could get. Domestic abuse wasn’t even remotely close to at least a put-upon sigh and a ‘it’ll be better in the morning, Ezra.’ Was that too much to ask? Just one sentence of her actually seeming to give a shit about what he’d put up with over the day?

Ezra cleared his throat, leaning against the wall as he looked at Frinwyn. “How was your day?”

Frinwyn looked at him like he’d just been bashed on the head with a pregnant cow. “What’s your angle?”

He shrugged. “I just want to know what you did all day in my house.”

“MY house,” Frinwyn corrected, sounding smug enough about it that he really wished there was a pregnant cow around to bash her head in with.

“We aren’t married, Frinwyn,” Ezra snapped. “Your last name isn’t Tell. You aren’t Lady Frinwyn Tell, you aren’t Mistress of Tell Manor, and you aren’t-”

This time, after she slapped him, Ezra hit back. He aimed a punch straight into her chins, and he could feel the bone breaking beneath flap after flap of flesh and fat, her body practically trying to absorb his fist while Frinwyn screamed bloody murder and bit her tongue hard enough to cut it in half, take in a deep breath of shock at the fact, and swallow the first quarter of her tongue, choke on it, and flail about for about two seconds before choking, falling down, and dying.

Ezra stared at her body.

And then he stared some more.

“…holy shit.”