No sooner had she landed on the far side of the table than she vaulted back, once again taking her larger, slower adversary by surprise when she used her hands to spring from the tabletop and slam her feet into his hard belly.

He gasped, stumbled backward, and she followed him, her saber ready as she landed on the ground, standing over him. Before he could blink, she had the blade settled at the side of his neck, and, firmly in her hand, the wooden stake she kept jammed into the knot of her hair.

“Yield,” she said, pressing the metal edge into the side of his neck.

If he did not, she had no compunction about using either the sword or the stake to send him to hell right then and there.

“I yield,” he growled, his eyes flashing with red fire.

Narcise kept the stake in her hand and the blade poised just-so. “Drop your weapon,” she ordered. She’d been caught unawares before by a challenger who’d yielded, only to attack her moments after she released him.

That had only happened once. And that was why she had yet another stake shoved in her tight sleeve.

With a furious grimace, he tossed the sword to the floor and, still with the blade in place, Narcise kicked the other one far away, under the table. She noted with grim satisfaction that the bulge of his cock had softened into nothing more than a little bag of flesh, hardly even filling out his breeches. She liked it when the bastards wet their trousers, but apparently this one hadn’t been sufficiently frightened for his life.

“Too easy!” shouted Cezar from the balcony, his lisping voice rising with mirth. “She bested you too easily, Godya! You lasted a mere fifteen minutes. What a sot!”

Narcise ignored her brother and, keeping the blade in place, stepped back and motioned for the man apparently named Godya to rise. “Slowly,” she warned, her eyes never wavering until he’d risen and she’d backed him out of the chamber, courtesy of the edge of her blade.