Gabriel knew he was losing the council. Their faces were worried again and not one person was looking at him with the kind of grateful concern that he’d been expecting. Maybe it had been a mistake to let Valentino choose the dueling time. He should have scheduled it for dawn so that they could have had a little time to let the magnitude of his sacrifice weigh on their consciences. But the bandit had just walked out and was obviously ready for a fight, and the council members were following him, brushing past Gabriel with mistrustful glances or averted eyes. What had he done wrong? He hated not knowing how to make people happy. The mayor was still seated at his table, somberly staring at Gabriel as if the younger man had just evicted him from his home. But he hadn’t . . . yet.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, Gabriel.” Elise’s voice was like a beam of angry sunlight splitting the clouds of doubt that nagged at his mind. She had been standing at her father’s shoulder, but now she moved towards him, her arms crossed over her chest, and the beauty of her face helped him ignore the fact that she was glaring at him as she drew near.

He forced an unaffected smile onto his face as he took off his coat. “I promised, Elise, remember?”

He had to pretend not to see her answering grimace, but the slight cut him to the core. He set his coat over the back of a chair and moved closer to her, his expression somber. “I’m just trying to help.”

“You’re hinging everything on your own skill! Not only is that incredibly vain, but it’s also incredibly foolish,” she exploded. “What if you lose?”

“They were going to burn the town anyway, Elise! At least this way there’s a chance of getting them to leave without hurting anything.” He didn't like having to lie, but it wouldn't hurt his case if he kept her in suspense.

“We don’t need you to die for us,” she said hotly.

“Well that’s good,” Gabriel replied with a smile, “because I don’t plan to.”

Elise shook her head, her golden hair spilling across her face. “This is stupid. We should have just fought them! We have weapons and men and . . .”

Gabriel stood in front of her and took hold of her shoulders, bending slightly to look her seriously in the eye. “Fighting isn’t always the answer,” he murmured sagely.

Elise frowned and shrugged off his gloved hands. “That’s especially meaningless coming from you.”

Gabriel chuckled and loosened the daggers on his belt. Valentino was outside, and it probably wasn’t wise to make the bandit wait. But he still had time for one last move. He walked with heavy steps to the door, his head bowed as if he were struggling under the pressure of his task. When he reached the doorway, he turned to look at the green-eyed beauty again.

“If I win, Elise,” he said, his voice tinged with a hint of solemnity, “It’ll be for you.”

Then he turned and walked out of the inn without waiting for a response. Elise seemed the kind of woman who liked to react in private. He stepped into the street and took his time walking towards the small crowd of observers and the bandit that waited at the center of their circle. The inn’s door opened and shut behind him, but he kept his eyes on Valentino, who already had his weapon out and ready. He was in a showy but unhelpful position, and when Gabriel was about five feet away from he stopped, pulled out one of the knives on his belt, and assumed an equally flashy but ineffectual pose, standing sideways with his weight on his back leg and his unsheathed dagger in his left hand, extended towards his opponent while the other hand hovered in front of his face in defense. The sky was growing dark, but adrenaline was already moving through Gabriel’s veins, and he couldn’t hold back the vicious grin that spread across his face at Valentino's invitation.

“Love to,” he murmured in reply. A second later he propelled himself off his back leg, hurtling forward and twisting the knife in his outstretched hand so that it sped in a curved arc towards Valentino’s head. It was a fast attack, but his movements were subtly exaggerated so that anyone with any training in knives could tell exactly what he was aiming to do. It was the kind of swing that would've cost him the fight against a seasoned knivesman, but he didn't want to make any mistakes with this one. The bandit had said that he was good, but before Gabriel worked too hard to make the fight look realistic, he needed to know exactly how good his opponent was.