by Kim Knox
Was Reist trying to push her away by having sex when she was there to meet him? The coward’s way to say there could never be anything between them. Not now. No, she couldn’t believe that. Reist wasn’t a coward.
Worse, had she done this? She hadn’t tied an illusion of herself to Reist. Had Fallon, full with her need for the elemental and fearing his power over her, used Reist to scratch her itch? Fuck.
Ava had to run. Escape. She wanted to render Fallon into a pile of papery bones. It hadn’t worked. Not this time. The dream she’d fed into Fallon had simply increased her appetite for Reist, not pulled her back to Heyerdar. And Reist had agreed. Forgotten about her. Completely.
She blinked back tears, the tight pain in her chest making it hard to breathe. She staggered away. Let him wonder where she was. This was their time. Her work time. He paid her good imperial gold for her skills, and his chambers at dawn was where she took orders from him. If he thought fucking her was more important than ten years of tireless loyalty... She gritted her teeth. Bastard.
Ava wanted to go back, rap hard on the door and watch them scramble to dress, see their embarrassment...but she would only be hurting herself. No. She sank behind her own cold darkness and wrapped the clear, emotionless mask around herself. She ignored the need she had to gut Fallon and turn her empty soul on Reist and eat him alive.
Her stomach growled. Two days now she’d missed breakfast. She detoured on her way to Heyerdar’s office to grab what cold meats she could from the kitchen. Reist’s breakfasts were always fine quality—used to be—not the overcooked leftovers from the night before.
She chewed on the tough meat, her jaw muscles and gut objecting as she strode the corridors to the palace.
Reist had betrayed her. Fucked another woman—her hands fisted at her sides—fucked any woman other than her. It was hard to breathe again. Silently, she cursed him and pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth to deny the hot burn of tears. He would see. She would fucking make him see.
Ava covered her eyes and let out a slow breath. Her thief sank back and she fought the increased pressure of seeing Reist and Fallon...together. Her stomach turned over.
Reist would see her as a woman. Whatever it took.
She was already outside Heyerdar’s office, the corridor bright with morning sunshine. The corporal frowned at her, but his expression cleared. “The Left Hand is expecting you. He is at his morning ritual.” He pulled back the door, the heavy wood gliding over the worn marble. “He has ordered breakfast. You are allowed to start without him.”
Ava stopped a curse breaking free. The man she wanted was forgetting her, and the man she didn’t was all courtesy. “Thank you,” she muttered, stalking across the room to the little table set before the still-glowing hearth. Flopping into a small padded chair, she lifted the silver dome of the platter and breathed in the aroma of deliciously undercooked meats.
The corporal left with a quick nod and Ava settled back to eat. She frowned at the report that said they’d found one thing out of place in Searlaim’s house. A brothel token. Not unexpected, as Searlaim had been discovered frequenting a Madam Lunete’s establishment, but it was an old token. It came from the time before Lunete had taken command, a time before Searlaim was born, when the brothel had been under the license of a Madam Vina Ross. Heyerdar had the people who lived at the other end of his copper device cross-referencing known patrons and workers with anyone involved in the current investigation. As yet, he had found nothing.
So...another day and no further on. But work would help her mood, focus her, appease the thief in her, who still wanted to charge back to the Institute and gut herself some mages.
A wry smile pulled at her mouth and she stabbed her fork into a thinly sliced kidney. Reist would taste great with salty sweat on his hot, slicked skin.
“And I thought feeding you would drive down the hunger.” Heyerdar closed the door. He wore the plain leather tunic and long sword of an ordinary guard. In the sharp light, his blond hair gleamed and she could still taste the magic that had woven around him as he’d greeted the sun. “You’ve stopped watching me.”
Ava’s fork paused over the last slice of meat. She glanced at him. “You knew?”
“I knew.”
“Reist was too busy to see me this morning. Yesterday I slept late.” She didn’t want to admit to him that her plan had failed. She needed the last chance that Heyerdar could give her before she admitted defeat. “So today is the Vault and the Treasury?”
“Later. We’re headed out to one of the brothels by the South Gate. A girl remembered seeing Searlaim.”
“His smell?”
Heyerdar frowned. “No, his skin didn’t quite fit.”
“One of the thieves in Searlaim’s skin?” She blinked. “They’re so comfortable with their plan and disguises that one of them decides to go off for a quick fuck?” She ran her fingers though her loose hair, her fingers fisting at the nape of her neck. “Is this how thieves are meant to behave?”
“No.” He watched her eat. His gaze narrowed. “Fallon was fucking Reist, wasn’t she?”
Ava stared at the remains of her platter, her full belly suddenly soured. She gulped back a good mouthful of watered wine. She didn’t need a reminder. “Yes.” She wiped her mouth on a napkin. “Seems you’re feeding her needs, but not in the proper way.”
The dark smile that twisted his lips made her forget all about the heavy meat in her stomach, the wine, Fallon and Reist, everything. She could only breathe and feel the shocking desire in her flesh. She had to look away. Heyerdar was just a tool, the source to get to Reist. She didn’t want him.
“Then I’ll have to fuck you.”
Her breath caught. His bald statement, the undercurrent of hot promise in his words, held her before she struggled to deny him. Not yet. She wasn’t ready. Not really. “No. What we did last night is enough. I just have to refocus.”
“So you want me to eat you?”
Ava closed her eyes. Fuck. Why had she set herself on this insane path? “The brothel, Captain?”
His laughter jerked her eyes open. He pushed himself away from the mantel. “A place of sex and debauchery. Not really a change of subject, little thief.”
“I have a name.” The irritation and disappointment from the night before hit her again. He never used her name. And she wanted it. To hear his smooth, rich voice curl around the word Ava... She stabbed at the slice of meat and shoved it into her mouth. Her belly protested. Still, she swallowed. “We should go.”
“Will you last the day?”
“With food or sex?”
His grin was sharp as he waved her towards the door. “Both.”
“I can get those in the city.”
Heyerdar laughed. “Reist has done a deal for you with stalls. Sex? Until two days ago, you were untouched.”
“Choice,” she muttered. She hated the bright light that bathed the pale stone and ripped away any obscuring shadows. It made her feel even more exposed. “Nothing more.”
“A skin-taker, a soul-stealer, a thief. I’m certain you’re still a virgin out of choice.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yes. You will.”
Ava wrapped her hand around the pommel of her short sword, letting the metal bite into her palm. She wanted to sink her teeth into him. Follow her dream and devour him, taking every scrap of his magic into herself. She’d eaten the dead. She would enjoy feasting on him, tasting his blood, tearing bone from his living flesh. Her heart thudded and her cold center flared, filling her veins. The thief in her rose fast. Her mouth watered.
Heyerdar stroked a finger over her cheek. Taunting her. “You won’t be taking a bite out of me.”
“We have an agreement, Captain.” She kept her voice calm, the only thread she had to cling to as she stopped herself from turning on
him. She was a thief. But she—unlike the men who’d killed so many in the city, who’d carved up a baby for sport—had control. “I will let you fuck me. For a reason. That reason is Reist.”
“The brothel.” His finger drew a line across her lip, the taste of him so close her blood pounded. “Sex magic, little thief.” He laughed at her. “Try not to eat the patrons.”
* * *
Ava avoided brothels. For the exact reason that had so amused Heyerdar. Sex burned, filling the air as it did in the apprentice lower halls, but it had a sharper taste. A brothel was only about sex. And it sharpened her need to devour and render. Would anyone be safe as she could now simply breathe in its raw power? With her empty soul, her barely contained thief and the anger and frustration twisting through her, a den of debauchery was the last thing she wanted.
She stared up at the wooden building, whitewashed to stand out in the heavy shadow of the south wall. High, open windows, their shutters pushed back against the walls, gave a darkened glimpse to the main hall of the brothel. Shadows moved and the rip of raucous laughter pushed out to the street.
A hulking man dressed in patched leather stood underneath the open archway in the center of the building. He folded his meaty arms, and the odor of stale beer and fat wafted through the street-stink of piss and dung.
“We’ve no need of the Guard this morning. Your commander hounded Madam Lunete before dawn.”
A cart rumbled past, forcing Ava to step forward. The man’s hand dropped to the dagger at his hip, and his thick fingers flexed around the hilt. Her skin itched. Too quick, the cold darkness of her empty soul and its thief companion pushed over her body, wrapping around her anger. She wet her lips. She’d eaten worse.
Heyerdar placed a hand on her arm. His sudden touch forced her to yank back her ache to feed. He focused on the man. “Nuno, isn’t it? New here. One of your girls reported she fucked a Regan Searlaim last night.”
Nuno frowned. He shifted his weight and his boots scuffed the flagstones. “So? No laws against that. Madam Lunete pays her taxes. The girls are clean. We have no trouble here.”
“I need to speak with Mairin.”
His eyes narrowed and the solid muscle of his jaw tensed. “It’s early. Madam Lunete can’t be seen before the fourth hour.”
“I’m on business from Captain Heyerdar.”
The man blinked and stepped back into the thicker shadow of the archway. “Servants of the Left Hand are always welcome.” He waved his arm to the open door. “Behind the bar—”
“I know the way.”
Ava trailed after him into the brothel. Already the familiar scent of sex broke across her senses, trapped and thickened by the shadows. She had to stay calm, stay in control without its cold mask. Feeding on the sexual energy—or, worse, her restless thief taking a bite out of one of the prostitutes—would be wrong.
Heyerdar strode ahead of her. Sinking her teeth into him? Something altogether different.
“We have an agreement.” His low voice echoed in the corridor. “You don’t bite if I can’t bite you.”
Ava wanted to growl at him. She’d never had anyone so aware of her magical self. Not even Reist. But then Heyerdar was old magic. Even she didn’t know what he could know. She had the mages to thank for that ignorance.
The corridor opened out into a long taproom, the wreath of hearth smoke bitter in the air. The hint of sex thinned with the open windows. Ava was grateful. The narrowed, suspicious glances from the women and the way the slumming rich men ducked their heads, hid behind raised beer pots or slunk back into the shadows already pushed at her raw nerves. No one saw her. She was a thief. Everyone being so aware of her was...wrong.
Heyerdar strode through the mess of tables and past the wooden length of the bar. Ava hurried after him. Fuck. He couldn’t leave her alone in this room.
She caught up with him as he rapped on a black door. “Mairin?” He rapped again.
The door swung open and a tall blonde woman leaned against the jamb. She frowned. “Nahum?” Her head tilted and a dark smile touched her mouth. “Not a social call?”
The scent of sex clung to the woman, the golden lines of it still tracing over her skin and the thin silk of her robe. It didn’t fit and revealed too much skin untouched by the sun. Her folded arms pushed her deep cleavage up in an obvious way. Ava’s fingers itched. She missed her blades.
Heyerdar met Mairin’s smile before his dropped away. He straightened. “Regan Searlaim.”
“Ziskia’s strange little man? Arrived with the late evening crowd. We get a lot of flushers.” She winced. “Keep a tub out in the yard so they wash first.”
“Have Wulgar Yule, Ulmar Treowe, Alder Tayt or Oswel Reve passed through here?”
Mairin pushed back her loose hair. Behind her, shadows moved and the pulse of sexual energy increased. “You want me to break my pledge, Nahum? I already stretched it by confirming Searlaim was a patron.”
“It would be helpful to our inquiries.” Heyerdar’s voice was smooth, easing. Ava gritted her teeth. How he approached this woman had nothing to do with her.
Mairin briefly tapped her finger to lips. “They don’t stand out. We get a lot of the low trades. They put money with us, their savings, and they are...rewarded.” Her smile was wide, sensuous and directed wholly at Heyerdar. “We make every effort to keep their custom.”
Ava stopped herself from sneering. The woman couldn’t make herself more obvious if she hung a Fuck Me sign around her neck.
“Searlaim was also leaving his money with you?”
And Ava was certain Searlaim’s wife didn’t appreciate how her husband had used their family savings. A question burned on her tongue, but she was simply a messenger. She had to stay silent to maintain her cover. Heyerdar asked the question she wanted to know.
“And the others? I need you to go through your books, find them.”
“Going to make it worth my while, Nahum?”
He stroked her cheek, and the spike of energy almost caught Ava’s breath. The flow between them tasted sweet, familiar, mirroring the touch of sex she’d felt in the lower halls with Eleta. They’d fucked and fucked often. Did Fallon know about his time in Madam Lunete’s brothel? Was that why she’d left him?
“Business today,” he murmured, and his fingers curled back into his palm. “Go through your ledgers. See if all or any of these men bank with you.”
Mairin’s smile deepened. “I so love it when you’re forceful, Nahum.”
Ava would eat her plain, no fuss. Slit her throat, watch her bleed out, let her cool and then devour her. She had to bite the inside of her cheek, feel the pain and the coppery taste of her own blood to stop the thief rising.
Heyerdar shifted beside her. “I need to speak to Ziskia.”
“She’ll have just finished the night shift.” Mairin pointed across the taproom, her robe falling open to reveal heavy breasts and a smooth, rounded belly. “Up the backstairs. Room number twelve.”
Heyerdar’s heavy hand closed around Ava’s arm. His heat bled through the sleeve and she had to breathe and will back the fierce pounding of her heart. She wanted to yank his power from him. Consume him.
“Thank you, Mairin.” His voice dropped low, his lips almost brushing her temple. “This way, little thief.”
“Did Fallon know about her?”
“Mairin is business.”
He pushed her through the narrow arch and she half stumbled up the first stair. The shadows wrapped around her and for a moment she closed her eyes, letting the darkness take her. Everything about her agreement with Heyerdar was throwing her off balance. “I’m business.”
He climbed the stairs. “Yes, you are. So move. I want you to touch Ziskia, take some of her memories. I need to know this thief.”
“Touch her?”
“You can feel the thief on her.”
“You want me to consume her?”
Heyerdar stopped on the stair above her. The strength of his essence painted him against the shadows. He was...delectable. “Anger is opening your hunger. Forget about yourself. About Reist. The more we know who these thieves are, the greater the chance I have of ending this. Of putting the bastards in the ground. I will not allow what happened to Kaia happen to another baby. And if you get the information from Ziskia, then we can let her mother rest.”
Heyerdar turned and Ava had to follow him. A cut of guilt sharpened in her belly. Fucking elemental. But touching Ziskia would be easier. The corridor beyond the stairs was narrow and lit by a single sconce, amber light flickering over the rough-plastered wall. Heyerdar knocked on the dark door with a large white Twelve painted on it. Muttering leaked out into the shadowed corridor.
“Ziskia?”
“My shift is over...” She’d yanked back the door, her face set. Her dark hair had come loose from a pile on her head and her robe was fastened too tight at her waist. “Captain Heyerdar.” She tilted her head and her mouth slipped into an easy smile. He was far too well-known at the brothel. “How can I be of service?”
“A patron, Regan Searlaim?”
Ziskia gave a delicate little shudder. “Him.” She stood back from her door and waved Heyerdar inside. Her pale gaze darted over Ava and looked away. Ava’s gut tightened. She was obviously of no interest, or threat. “He didn’t smell right.”
She arranged herself on the wide bed tucked into the corner of the square room. The sheets were still rumpled. A chink of morning light pierced the heavy shutters, and a small lamp was the only other light. The room stank of sex.
“He’s a flusherman...” Heyerdar’s mouth ticked upwards and Ziskia recrossed her legs. The movement of her silk robe exposed a smooth thigh.
“They wash in the yard. I get him scrubbed and fresh smelling.” Ziskia wrinkled her nose. “This time...he smelled...too much like skin. Like an animal. A pig, maybe. Like uncooked meat.” She tucked a long length of her dark hair behind her ear, her attention fixed on Heyerdar, who stood before the shuttered window. She worked her shoulders to show her ample cleavage.
