Chapter 10
He’d never understand witches. Elric stood outside the shop that was much more traditional than Elissa’s birdcage.
A classic square building with pretty white shutters and warm wooden walls, it was exactly what he’d expected the shop to look like.
Even right down to the white fencing that was truly remarkable to look at.
Completely white, enchanted to look like it was dusted with pearls.
Beautiful, and not at all the kind of place from which his ladies should be stealing clothing.
Who was he to tell them what to do, though? Tonight Elric was just the muscle outside the door, with his eyes on the crowd that passed by. Apparently, he would not be helpful in this endeavor, likely because he was too much of a distraction himself. At least, that was what they told him.
He had a feeling both Jessamine and Sybil thought he would get overly bored with the whole deception and just start taking things.
If someone tried to stop him, he was always happy to kill them.
A human life was simply less valuable to him than the clothing that would get them one step closer to their goal.
And Jessamine’s goal was his now. It was the only purpose he had while he floundered, trying to remember what it was to be a god again, and what he was supposed to be doing here.
Shaking his head, he tried to ignore those thoughts. They tended to make him spiral, and he had a job to do.
A woman strutted up to him wearing a tiny hat with a large blue plume on top.
Her hair was so tightly coiled in ringlets they didn’t look real, and that annoyed him.
They looked like snakes next to her face.
He barely even glanced at the matching blue gown that was sewn so tightly onto her body he wondered if she could get out without cutting it off.
“Well, you are certainly quite the vision.” She looked him up and down in a hungry way that made him want to tear off his skin. “I haven’t seen you in these parts before. Surely you aren’t here for a gown?”
He looked back at the shop, then looked at her. “No entry at this time.”
“Not even for little ol’ me?” She pursed her lips, clearly trying to persuade him that he was attracted enough to let her in.
“Not even for you.”
“I could make it worth your while.” Her hand brushed his chest, fingers dancing along the lines of his muscles.
Immediately, dark memories flashed in front of his eyes.
Countless witches had done the same thing to him.
Witches who had cocked their hips to the side and devoured him with their gaze.
He was useful to them. He would be sacrificed to the few so the many could survive, but they had used him and they had twisted his mind just like this woman was trying to do.
Anger flared in his chest. It took everything he had in him not to snap. He could not be cajoled by a pretty face simply because she thought he was a weak man. He was a god, and for the life of him, all he wanted was to be left alone.
But then a small hand pressed against his lower back, and he felt himself ease like a cool wind had blown across his overheated face.
Jessamine leaned around him, a sharp smile on her face. “I’m sorry. Did you not hear him?”
“I heard him.” The woman’s expression tightened. “And who are you? His keeper?”
“In a way.”
“You must be new to the Pleasure District, darling. We share all our good fortune here.” The woman licked her fucking lips just like the witches used to. “And this one is very good fortune indeed.”
Panic bloomed in his chest. He could feel his throat closing up and the guilt in his chest bubbling, because what if this woman was right?
What if he really was only useful to satisfy the needs of others?
This life was meant to be a new reckoning for him.
A new coven, a new future, a new gravesinger who looked at him like he was more than just a tool.
But what if this was all a glimmer of nothing but fool’s hope?
“Oh, I know my good fortune, but I do not share. Unless, of course, it is sharing in blood. I partake in the old ways, stranger. If you want him, you can try and take him from me.” Along with Jessamine’s words came the tug of magic from her side and the flare of desire that spread from his lower back straight to his cock.
He almost arched into her touch, and perhaps did a bit because the stranger’s eyes followed his movement before looking back at Jessamine.
“Interesting,” the woman said—but she made no other protest before hurrying away.
He could hardly breathe after the magic Jessamine had siphoned off. She’d been ready to attack another woman for him, just because they’d made him uncomfortable.
Elric wasn’t sure what to do. He was a god, after all. He should be able to protect himself, but knowing that she was so willing to do so for him at the merest hint of offense?
It made every hair on his body stand on end.
“You okay?” Jessamine asked, her eyes on his every move.
“Decidedly uncomfortable now, but yes. I am well.”
Perhaps she could see how heated his cheeks were, or that his ears were aflame. Because a slow smile spread across Jessamine’s lips, and she did her best not to roll those pretty eyes. “Deathless One, why don’t you go wander? We’re almost done here.”
“How are you stealing the clothes?”
“Elissa is rather impressive. She has a bag from her mother that appears to be bottomless. Where the clothes are going, I have no idea. But we’ve been stuffing them in one by one while poor Sybil is torn apart by the harpy who owns the place.
She’s been forcing the shopkeeper to alter a dress while still on her form but keeps spelling the needles to prick her skin.
There are at least fifteen blood spots, and they’ve gotten into four shouting matches already.
Apparently, she’s the most difficult client the woman has ever met.
” She huffed out a chuckle. “We’ll be set for a while, I imagine. ”
“Good enough. What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to do what you want to do. You don’t have to stand in front of this door and be subjected to… that.” Her gaze was worried as it skated over his features, perhaps seeing how rattled he really was.
An escape sounded better than the alternative. So he decided to look over this Pleasure District a little more and headed down the small path to the street. Much of this place was unfamiliar to him, having changed dramatically in the 275 years since he’d last been here.
“Be safe,” she breathed, but he would have heard her amid the screams of thousands. Elric knew her voice better than any other. His heart knew her every movement, her every tone, and every tiny bit of what made her… her.
Before he left, he took one last glance at the shop.
Jessamine leaned out the door, keeping it slightly closed against her back.
In comparison to the other women here, she stood out like a smudge of darkness, wearing a dusty black dress with an overlarge bodice that hung off her too-thin frame.
The scar around her throat was bare for all to see, not to mention the others that they couldn’t.
All the marks of where she had almost died and where he simply hadn’t let her.
How did he get so lucky as to find a woman like her? When there were countless who would have taken advantage of his weaknesses, she was the one to find him.
“Gravesinger,” he said, his voice perhaps a little too loud. “I would worship at your altar if I had but a sacrifice worthy of you.”
A pretty blush burned her cheeks. “Go on with yourself, Elric. Do what you must and then come home to me.”
He sighed and disappeared into the crowd.
It was easier to stay moving. No one suspected there was something odd about him when he didn’t give them a chance to stare long enough.
No one even attempted to talk with him as he made his way through the throngs of people.
Sure, there were a few lingering looks from both men and women, but no one thought they could interrupt him.
And so Elric got lost in the crowds. He allowed himself to take a moment as he had many times when he was last alive.
Whenever the witches allowed him outside of their coven home, or if he snuck out the way that he enjoyed, he always took a moment like this.
Standing in the middle of a crowd with no one knowing who he was.
He breathed in deeply and listened to all the conversations happening around him.
To his left, a man was buying a new dress for his mistress.
He didn’t want the woman only a few steps away to know, because she was his wife.
In the back corner of the square, a little girl pointed out to her mother a window full of purebred cats.
Their fluff looked so soft, and the little girl claimed she’d always wanted a kitten.
But the mother sensed that there was something off about the cats, which there was.
They were all spelled to look like cats, but really they were little spies who reported to the shopkeeper what people were looking to buy.
Elric turned away, listening to a group of women in the central square who had draped themselves beside a fountain. The statue in the middle was a beautiful nude woman pouring a pitcher of water into the pool below.
“Did you hear? Someone claimed the Deathless One is back,” one said. Her flaxen hair was dangerously close to dipping into the water from where she lay, looking up at the clouds.
“Is he now?” replied a woman in a dark purple gown. She sat stiffly at the edge, likely because of the boning in her corset. “Do you think he could make us witches?”
“You shouldn’t even joke about that. You know how the king feels about witchcraft.”
“All the nobles hate witchcraft, but they always have. It doesn’t mean we can’t even talk about it.” Purple Gown reached into the water and pulled out a gleaming coin. “Do you think if I made a wish to the Deathless One that he’d grant it?”