SHAPE OF HER HEART_Friday's Romantic Challenge

She wears my ring.

That is Friday's Romantic challenge given us by Denise Covey:

http://romanticfridaywriters.blogspot.com/

This is an excerpt {444 words} from NEW ORLEANS ARABESQUE (from a chapter told through the eyes of Victor Standish):

The shouting was deafening. "Mei-lo-ri! Mei-lo-ri!"

Sam and I hurried out of my room to the balcony, overlooking the front of the jazz club. I swallowed hard. It was filled to overflowing with Ningyos brandishing swords in a frenzy of devotion to the regal wife of my father, Sam McCord.

Sam rasped, "She wears my ring."

I looked up. "That's a good thing, right?"

"It is the ring of King Solomon."

I went cold. "The one that controls demons?"

Meilori answered for me as she called out to her devoted followers. "Long have you questioned me marrying a barbarian. But see? Now, I possess his ring that will have an army of demons sweeping the world clean of the filth of humanity. Clean for us to rule!"

Sam's face looked like he'd been gut-shot. "No. No."

Meilori's face beamed as she spoke, "When first I met the barbarian, he was wearing this ring. And I knew to possess it, I first had to possess him!"

This was ancient Greek tragedy plotting worthy of Medea or Elektra. I looked to Sam. He weaved as if faint. I went a little crazy. No one hurt Captain Sam when I was around.

"Yo, she-bitch!" I yelled, walking across the balcony, right up to her.

"No,Victor" rasped Sam. "You don't know the shape of her heart."

I said, "What shape does a vacuum have?"

Meilori sneered at me. "Speaks the bastard son of my husband."

I laughed, "Better than your son, your Hind-Ass. There aren't enough scalding baths in the world to wash me clean if I were yours."

She reared back her ring hand, her fingers now straight to slap me. Sucker. I moved through the seconds, plucking Solomon's ring from her finger, tossing it back to Captain Sam.

Beside Meilori, dagger in hand, her Prime Minister gasped, "Impossible! No one can take Solomon's ring as long as the wearer lives!"

I snorted, "Sure they can, your pompousness. Anyone who doesn't want the ring for him or herself can do ...."

Sfumato.

I saw it hit the Prime Minister as fast as it did me. With him standing behind Meilori, his dagger took on a whole new meaning.

This whole scene had been a ruse, planned by Meilori and Sam. Meilori could take Solomon's ring from Sam because she hadn't meant to keep it in the first place. This had all been a set-up to draw out the real ....

"Traitor!" snapped Sam, and I heard his Colt bark once.

The Prime Minister reeled to the carpet dead, the dagger still in his hand. Meilori arched a cool eyebrow to me.

"Standish, despite what the arrogance of youth believes, we adults know what we are doing."

Her brows knitted together dangerously. "Now, about that 'she-bitch' remark ...."

I sighed. Ever have one of those lives?