These were men who had ridden with Juan Cortina, the ginger-haired Mexican who had been the scourge of the Rio Grande and Texas until recently, the bandit who had killed white settlers and collected hefty ransoms until the Texas Rangers pursued him across the border. To be at the mercy of these men—! Pressing her fist against her mouth, she fought back a scream, teeth digging into her knuckles until she tasted blood.

The two men moved in the glow of lamplight and shadow. The sound of pants for air, feet scraping across the rough floor and her own strangled breathing were so loud, everything such a blur of images imposed one atop another, that it took her a moment to comprehend what she was seeing. Steve suddenly lunged, his blade catching Rafael’s saber just beneath the hilt and flipping it from his hand in a smooth, almost indolent sweep to send it flying through the air. It clattered against the wall, then to the floor. Before Luna could move, the point of Steve’s saber was at his throat, a deadly pressure.

“Call off your hired thugs, Luna.”

Blanching, Rafael Luna’s lips were drawn back from his teeth in a grimace. He swallowed, and the saber tip cut a small gash into the skin of his throat.

“Sergeant Rameriz…” he sucked in a breath between his teeth as the blade shifted slightly, and got out in a choked gasp, “you are dismissed!”

There was a heavy silence before the sergeant said, “I do not think so, General Luna. It is unfortunate that you have lost your battle and your honor, but we were made certain promises. We do not like being disappointed.” He levered the rifle up slightly, the barrel pointing at Steve as Ginny watched with glazed comprehension. “We will take our money and the woman, and leave you alive if you allow it, but if not…”

The unfinished sentence was eloquent in intention.

Crouched by the bed, Ginny slowly slid upward, her spine pressed against the wall. The loose mass of her hair tumbled over her shoulders and back, then caught on an object stuck into the wall. Terrified, with a madly beating heart and fear coursing through her in a flood, she did not comprehend what had snagged her hair. Then she realized—it was her own little dagger, the one Rafael had taken from her in Mexico City.

The Rurales attention was focused on Steve and Rafael; no one noticed as she pulled the dagger from the wall. It was a comforting weight in her hand, a promise that she would not have to endure what the Rurales had in mind for her. There were things worse than death. Didn’t she know that well enough?