Unicorn Vengeance by Claire Delacroix

kissed me fit to curl my toes, just yesterday. Now he returns not only to deny me, but to steal away my very livelihood, as well!”
    Indeed, she could almost feel the stranger cringe, but still Genevieve pressed on relentlessly. He threatened her pride and her lute—no mercy would she show him. Genevieve turned to a woman who watched with particular attention and summoned her almost certainly sympathetic ear with a friendly wave.
    â€œMy kisses does he steal, and now he would deny not only me, but the very sweetness of our embrace!”
    â€œMen are all alike, love,” the woman counselled with a sad shake of her head. Another tut-tutted under her breath, and Genevieve appealed to her.
    â€œIs it not beyond cruel that he would take my lute? My lute alone ‘tis that lets me go on, my lute alone ‘tis that provides my keep. What kind of man would break my heart, then destroy the one thing that might give me the strength to go on?”
    Both women fired accusing glances at the pale-eyed stranger. Genevieve granted him an arch glance, only to find his color yet more unnaturally heightened. A set there was to his chin, though, and her resolve faltered slightly at the realization that she had gained herself naught with this display.
    She might well have succeeded only in so annoying him that he would not return at all. And such an audience she had attracted that there was no way she could dispatch him now without witness.
    Genevieve’s stomach twisted that yet again impulse had served her falsely. Never would she learn, and the certainty of that stole the last of her anger away, leaving her empty and silent in the square.
    Much to her surprise, the stranger stalked toward her, his gaze relentlessly locked upon hers, and shoved the lute toward her. Genevieve immediately clasped its neck in joyous relief, but he did not release it to her as yet. Genevieve tugged, but his grip was relentless. Reluctantly she met his eyes and found a heat simmering there that made her wonder what she had wrought.
    â€œDo not play here again,” he growled. “‘Tis clear you are a woman of precarious intellect and cannot be trusted with the most simple of matters.”
    She had her lute.
    Almost.
    The very feel of it within her hands restored a measure of Genevieve’s spirit. “I shall play wherever I desire,” she asserted, with a defiant tilt of her chin.
    â€œNay,” he threatened softly. The way one brow arched and his voice fell low told Genevieve that he meant what he said. “I shall see you arrested if you do.”
    Arrested? Surely not!
    But when Genevieve met the stranger’s gaze, she saw the answer there that she dreaded. Not a doubt remained in her mind once she saw his resolve that he would do precisely what he threatened.
    But why? She could not fathom a guess, but something had changed when she pressed him. Refusing to grant him that vow and making a spectacle of that refusal had changed his assessment of her in a markedly less positive way.
    Genevieve stared at him mutely as the realization of what she had done fell around her. Something she had changed that would not be readily repaired. All because of her own impetuous defiance.
    She felt remarkably bereft. Little sense did that make, for she could not even name what she had lost. Still, ‘twas impossible to dispel a feeling, near forgotten, of being caught as a child in the midst of some unforgivable transgression and knowing full well that she had erred.
    And done so for no good reason. Yet again, her impulsive nature had steered her wrong.
    The onlookers dispersed slowly, bored now that there was naught to watch, but Genevieve barely noted their departure. Fool! A chance had she had to fulfill her quest, but now ‘twas all gone awry!
    Tears blurred her vision at her own failure, and the pale-eyed stranger slipped out of focus. She felt the weight of his stare for a long moment, then he abruptly released the