Thane tilts his head, raising his eyebrows. "What? No snide remarks, no clever comebacks? Questions about other bits of the male anatomy?" He slaps he again, harder across the face this time, and lets her drop. "There comes a point when pain overwhelms the conscious mind. You're not there yet, but you can feel it on the horizon."

He steps around her, watches her try to get her breathing back under control. Broken bones aren't his favorite method – too brute, too easy – but, hey, for a quick and dirty fix...

"It's a matter of getting you to that point. That's elementary. The secret is to keep them there, or bring them back again and again – it's like a bone," he says, leaning down to run a hand over the breaks. "Break it enough and it doesn't heal right. Break it more than once and a weakness develops. See, when I decide to go for Sato again..."