Double Trouble | Kelley Armstrong #4
As the murderous doppelg?nger noted, my hair truly is my best feature, and I wear it down, in the style befitting a maiden several years my junior. I look up at the guard from between my lashes and flutter them.
“Everyone says the doppelg?nger is utterly revolting to gaze upon,” I say breathily. “And I cannot stop thinking about that.” I give a shudder that mingles horror with delicious titillation, and of course, I make sure that shudder shakes my bosom, which entrances the man like a cobra.
“I would do anything to see it,” I whisper. While I am very adept at playing a virgin, I am even more adept at playing the type of virgin men fancy most – the ones who have never known the pleasures of the bed chamber and yet, somehow, are ripe to bursting with yearning for it.
I nibble at my lip, and his gaze moves to my mouth, which might be my second-best feature. “Is there any… any way I might see the creature? I have a few coppers to spare.”
His expression says coins are not what he wants.
“And while I hate to impose further,” I say huskily, “the hour does grow late. If there is any chance you might walk me home afterward. I live just outside the town. Through the forest.”
Really, by this point, any man should know he is being tricked. But I can also tell the sort of man who will believe he really is just this lucky, and this one – at least forty, with his hair blackened and slicked – is exactly the sort.
“I suppose I could do that,” he says. “It does grow late. You ought not to walk home alone.”
“Oh, thank you.” I exhale, bosom heaving. “May I see the creature, then?”
“Follow me.”
* * *
The guard leads me into Volkir’s cell, and then he lies down to take a nap. Or he is thrown down by an innocent virgin who turns into a wildcat without any shapeshifting ability, and I have the sense he might have liked that… if the wildcat had not knocked him out.
The doppelg?nger watches the whole exchange with amused interest, particularly when I start pulling endless lengths of cloth from my fabricated bosom and buttocks.
“I would applaud, but…” He gestures at his hands, shackled by iron to the wall.
I tie the guard up, lest he wake from his nap. Then I take the keys from his ring and start to undo the shackles from the wall.
“You will not be able to remove them from my wrists,” he says. “As you can see, the iron is welded shut. I will have to find a blacksmith.”
“Give me your hands.”
He extends both without hesitation. I take a length of the cloth and snake it into the shackle, pushing and prodding until it is between his skin and the iron. As I’m finishing, he grins at me… and changes into a cat.
The shackles fall away as he transforms. Then he reappears in his humanoid shape, the manacles on the floor beside him.
“Now we need to track my cousin,” he says.
“I found her. Or, unfortunately, she found me.”
“More unfortunate for her than you, I presume.” His lips curve, but grief touches his eyes.
“I am sorry,” I say. “It had to be done.”
“I know. Let us—”
“The beast is right down here,” a man’s voice says. “I don’t know where Marley is, but if he’s away, then I don’t owe him half of your viewing fees.”
Multiple voices laugh. Apparently, I am not the only townsperson eager to see the doppelg?nger prisoner.
“Change back to a cat,” I whisper. “Get out of here, and I will make up a story.”
“You have done enough,” Volkir says. “My turn. Now get on.”
“Get—?”
The word barely leaves my lips before he transforms, this time into a unicorn with glowing red eyes and a wickedly sharp horn. He looks menacing enough that I step back, instinctively reaching for my knife. But then he bows his front legs, and I remember what he said.
Get on.
I swing onto the unicorn’s back just as the hopeful group of visitors round the corner.
A woman shrieks. A man leaps into our path.
Volkir lowers his head with its deadly horn and charges, and the man stumbles aside, the group scrambling to get out of our way as Volkir gallops past and out the door to freedom.
* * *
I accompany Volkir to retrieve his belongings.
He reverts to cat form for that, and I feel a pang of envy for how much easier that must make fleeing a town while under threat of execution.
Yes, I have had to do that myself more than once.
I haven’t been hunting monsters long enough to be an expert at it, and the human monsters naturally do not want to be stopped, which is particularly inconvenient when they are in charge of the law and its enforcement.
Once we are safe in Volkir’s rented room, he changes back to pack his belongings, which are as meager as mine.
“If you want to find a saddle,” he says, “I could trans form into a horse and take you wherever you are heading.” He grins. “The unicorn is more fun, but it does attract undue attention.”
“That isn’t necessary, but thank you.”
He glances up from his packing and eyes me before saying, “Is that a polite way of telling me not to accompany you to your next stop?”
“I do not have a definitive next stop, though I have heard rumors of a dragon over by South Bank.”
He frowns. “There are no dragons anywhere near South Bank. It is entirely the wrong habitat.”
“I know that. You know that. But the people of South Bank do not, and a local duke is using the rumors to explain caravans being attacked, their guards massacred, all their goods whisked off to the dragon’s hoard.”
“The duke’s hoard.”
I nod. “That is mostly what I do. Sometimes there is an actual monster, doing actual damage, but that’s rare. If there is a monster, it is usually blameless, and most times, there is only a greedy human using a very old story.”
“That makes sense. We are excellent scapegoats.” He rises and hefts his pack. “So you hunt an evil duke rather than a dragon. It would be easier, though, if there were a dragon.”
I shudder. “It would not.”
He grins. “No?” He lifts a hand, and it trans forms into a claw. “I think it would be much easier if you gave this duke a dragon.”
I smile. “That could be… interesting.”
“A dragon who incinerates the duke for blaming the beast and then reveals the actual hoard in his coffers, to be returned to the people.” His eyes sparkle. “After we take our fee.”
When I don’t answer, he steps closer.
“Let me help you, Marielle. Allow me to repay my debt and then…” He shrugs. “Fighting monsters is a dangerous business. You can obviously take care of yourself, but it never hurts to have help.”
I look at him. Yes, I could always use help, but deep down, I fear I would be looking for companionship. This is a dangerous life, as he said, but even more than that, it’s a lonely one.
I want to say no. Shield myself against disappointment. But I look at him, and I still feel that tug from the first time we met. I remember how it was with his cousin, how my gut had known that wasn’t him, as ridiculous as it seemed.
“One duke, one dragon,” he says. “And then… Who knows? But we can start there.”
I take a deep breath, and then I say the most terrifying words of all. “All right. We can start there.”