Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
I crept across the terracotta roof tiles, half holding my breath as my feet threatened to slip on the shiny surface beneath the weight of my powerful body. It was hot. Too fucking hot for this kind of work, but then it always was this close to the edge of the Lyrian Desert.
The full moon hung low and fat in the sky above me, some still called it Sirella, using the name of the goddess who had once owned it, guiding the tide, and taking ownership over the distant oceans.
It shone as bright as always, a pink haze glimmering all around it, almost seeming to glitter with the rays of heat which rose up to caress it.
Sirella gave me plenty of light to see by, but also outlined my silhouette in silver, highlighting me as a target for every guard in the kingdom if they should just look up.
Not that they did so often, but I didn’t want to be up here any longer than necessary all the same.
The rooftops may have been the thieves’ pathway around Osaria, but they were by no means safe.
One wrong move and I’d be facing a death sentence at the pleasure of the emperor.
Nope, that wasn’t gonna be my fate. I didn’t have the reputation for being the best for no reason.
There might have been more than a few ransoms on my head, but there was no way anyone would ever be collecting on that payday.
Besides, a head as attractive as mine could never be destined for a future on a pike. That would be a fucking travesty.
The countess moaned loudly in pleasure, her voice carrying to me from the window beneath me where I crouched on top of her manor.
“Oh yes, you monstrous man! Ruin me! Take my flower and demolish the petals. Make me sin like a wanton lady of the night! Run me through with your broadsword and raise your flag over my majestic kingdom!”
I snorted a laugh as she continued to praise her lover’s performance.
Balthazar had drawn the short straw there.
I was all for seducing the mark to distract her and had happily fucked more than a few countesses or their daughters in my career, but not when she was forty years older than me and had a moustache to rival Eristan’s.
And that bastard had a thick, grey face-wig which had more bristles than a toilet brush.
I carved my tattooed fingers through my inky black hair as I looked out across the city for a moment, enjoying the view from up here where the moonlight made the white walls of all the buildings shine, and it was near impossible to spot the pain and misery which lurked in all the dark corners between the houses.
Of course, there was less of that here in the first ring where the wealthiest of Fae lived, rubbing shoulders with one another and congratulating each other on their privilege while happily ignoring the squalor and suffering which took place in the slums beyond the outer rings of this most celebrated city.
There were twelve rings in total, representing the number of kingdoms our emperor ruled over, with the palace taking up residence in the very centre where the Lunarelle royals resided.
The closer a Fae lived to the palace, the wealthier they tended to be, and the more entitled too.
First ring dwellers practically shat diamonds and slum-dwellers like me who couldn’t even afford a place in the twelfth ring would have happily scraped those diamonds out of the sewers.
As I turned my head south, the slums were easy enough to spot in the distance.
White walls shifting to brown where paint had flaked off or had never even gone up in the first place despite the city laws, streets narrowing as the need for housing crammed buildings and shacks closer and closer together until there was nothing but a maze network left to traverse outside of the official roads which were kept clear by the royal guard for access in and out of the city.
I fought to keep the sneer from my face as I looked towards the place where I laid my head at night, both hating it and needing it in equal measures. But it had never been what I would call a home. Then again, I’d never known one of those.
The warm wind tousled my black hair, bringing a few stray grains of sand with it and I looked towards the desert again, wondering if we were going to be having a storm any time soon.
The sweeping golden dunes seemed innocent enough from my position, but of course I knew better than to believe that lie.
Even if there wasn’t a storm blowing in, the sands were home to all manner of beasts and monsters.
It was a place only a fool would dare to travel and even those taking the stone road out of here, heading to another city or kingdom, knew to travel in a group with plenty of guards.
Many a man made his coin by travelling those roads as a hired sword, but that had never appealed to me.
I’d seen the scars those men sported from their encounters with the fire drakes, basilisks, rot worms and ripsian boars out there – and those were the tamest of the creatures which could be found lurking in the sands.
There was even a man in the slums who claimed he had lost a leg to a dragon in the Lyrian Desert years ago – though I wasn’t fool enough to believe that any of those remained out there.
They’d been lost a long time ago, along with the gods who had forsaken us when the Fae fell.
The countess moaned again, garbling something about Balthazar’s cock staining her impeccable reputation and I slid down the tiles, aiming for the window Balthazar had thrown open for me and getting back to what I’d come here for in the first place.
I caught the edge of the roof and swung myself inside, dropping through the window and landing silently in the huge building with a grin.
Balthazar looked up at me from his position on top of the countess and he pushed her face down into the pillows as she continued to wail in response to his efforts.
He had his britches unbuckled and his tunic hanging open to reveal his flexing abs, but had kept everything on his body one way or another so that he’d be ready to make a quick escape if needed.
I tilted my head to the side for a moment as I watched him slamming his cock in and out of her dry old pussy, analysing his efforts before awarding him a three out of ten and holding up three fingers to let him know how low I rated him.
I wasn’t turned on one bit by the free pornography he was performing, and though that might have had a lot to do with his partner, I did feel he could have made an effort to spice things up a bit.
Maybe stick a finger in her arse or a bit of spanking at the least. But no.
Plain old pounding the hole seemed to be his style. I guessed it got the job done anyway.
Balthazar cut me a pissed off look, his dark brown eyes glimmering with irritation at just how long it had taken me to make it inside.
But what could I say? It had sounded like they were enjoying themselves – or at least like the countess was.
And yeah, I might have waited out there for longer than necessary, but I wanted to be sure he had her completely distracted before I made my entrance.
I knew he’d try to get away with finger fucking her if he could, but I’d wanted him balls deep in her moustached cunt so that I could remind him of it as frequently as possible after tonight.
Seeing as he was already pissed at me, I decided I could spare a few moments to rub salt in the wound of his current predicament.
I picked up a heavy vase and took a moment to thrust my hips back and forth at it in a mockery of the act he was performing, biting my bottom lip and pretending to spank it while his dark skin coloured with barely concealed rage.
He started fucking her harder, presumably as an outlet for some of the pounding he wished he could be inflicting on my face with his fists, and she wailed beneath him as he kept her face buried in the blankets on the bed so that she wouldn’t spot me.
I put on a good performance of pretending I was coming inside the vase, tipping my head back in imagined pleasure and winking at Balthazar as he mouthed a curse at me.
The countess tried to raise her head and he shoved her down more firmly.
“That’s it, baby,” he growled as she moaned again, and I stifled a laugh at his attempt at faking pleasure in her company.
Points to him for taking her from behind so that he didn’t have to look at her face though.
That was damn smart. If he wasn’t currently looking at my pretty face, then he could have been imagining the woman beneath him was one of the big-titted whores he preferred down at the brothel.
But as he was currently stuck looking at my unshaven face and scraping his cock in and out of a prune pussy, I was willing to bet he was having trouble even staying hard right now.
And his efforts at distracting our mark wouldn’t exactly do us much good if he went all floppy worm inside her.
Yeah okay, I was being a major prick about the woman on that bed.
But she was the wife of a man who’d had three thieves hung last week, and she’d stood proud and smiling at them when their feet had stopped kicking.
So I might have been a little salty, and this job was at least eight percent based on the desire to get revenge.
Don’t get me wrong, I was no hero out to save anyone else’s arse, but I was willing to strike at those who deserved it if I knew the payday would be worth the work.