Three Vows To Sin

Chapter 1

MARIETTA

The brass ring in the lion’s mouth glimmered in the faint light of the gas lamps. Fierce yellow eyes surveyed me from above the enchanted loop, questioning my nerve. My trembling fingers curled around the cold metal and rapped it against the plate.

The brisk night air sliced across my spell-bare skin, sharp enough to cut. I secured my loathed new gossamer shawl more tightly and pressed my ear to the door.

Only the soft, smoky sweetness of nightmoth tallow drifted from the seams of the frame.

I looked into the lion’s eyes, then rapped the knocker once more.

Silence swallowed the night. Only the shifting breeze answered my despair. Would this be the end of my search—an empty hall and no one at home? Another closed door? The last seal on Kennen’s coffin?

No. I couldn’t think that way.

A faint trembling shook me. Nerves and stress and fear.

I hadn’t slept in days. Hadn’t eaten a real meal in twice that time.

My older brother’s insistence that the gilded not see our steady financial decline had turned precious gold pieces into box seats at the werewolf races for Ferris, gryphon-hide boots for Kennen, and a moonspider-spun shawl for me.

Utter stupidity.

And yet had I just kept my mouth shut for once and not argued, our yelling wouldn’t have caused Kennen to flee the house. Keeping quiet—yet another spell I failed to master.

The trembling grew worse. I had to hold it together. My fingers slipped on the metal.

A broken rhythm—footsteps, a pause, the heavy clack of a man’s boots against a marble floor—made my heart lurch. I straightened and pressed my chest to still the frantic beat.

Sound ceased on the other side of the oak frame.

Please, open the door.

I had nowhere else to go. Every other door had closed.

The oak swung without a sound, nary a creak. I squinted in the sudden brilliance.

A large man leaned against the door frame, bright light from the hall backlighting him into shadow. “Yes?”

I hadn’t expected pleasantries. No respectable woman would be calling at this hour of the night.

A reputable person would have sent a note in the morning to set up a meeting.

But I couldn’t afford to wait that long—I’d never avoid the mobs during the daylight hours.

And the talk of a mage who might be able to help my brother had given me a thread of hope that I couldn’t allow sleep to break.

“I need to speak to Gabriel Noble.”

The man looked past me, scanning the street, his features lost in shadow. “An odd time to be calling in Ember Square for spiritblossom tea.”

I attempted a smile. “It is urgent that I speak with Master Noble—Master First Noble. Please.”

“He isn’t taking visitors this time of night. Return in the morning.” He didn’t move from the frame, but his arms dropped from the cross of his chest.

Defiance had carried me through years of closed doors and cold shoulders. Hope in a future I hadn’t yet reached had been so fierce that I’d thought I could survive on it alone. The constant ache in my belly, the sleepless nights, and Kennen’s fate had shattered that illusion.

“Please.” I fumbled for the card I’d been given. “I can’t return in the morning. Please.” I thrust the card forward.

Shadowed eyes surveyed me for five heart-stopping beats.

Lean fingers reached forward. I released the card with reluctance. He gave it a cursory glance before flipping it over and between his fingers. My stomach dropped as the card traveled across his knuckles to his smallest finger before weaving its way back.

That card represented my brother’s life. His eyes pierced the darkness between us, daring me for a response.

I set my jaw, tilted my chin up. Defiance might not feed me, but it could still hold me upright. I would not retreat.

Something changed in his posture, though I couldn’t pinpoint what it was in the dark. He stepped back. I ducked inside.

Light exploded around me.

The hall was lovely—the gold, navy, and mahogany shades tasteful and elegant without being overstated. Gabriel Noble showed his wealth well.

I turned to thank the servant and my mouth dropped. I snapped my jaw closed with a jarring clack. Fire lit my cheeks.

“Thank you for letting me wait inside.” I gripped my purse to keep my hands steady. As if throwing myself on the mercy of a stranger in the dead of night wasn’t enough, the stranger had to look like this.

Tall and well made, he wore a disheveled but expensive cut of clothing that displayed strong shoulders with no padding in sight.

Any formal trappings had been shed for a simple fitted white shirt, open at the collar, and snug black trousers.

He was slimmer than the boxing brute I’d first thought him, though by no means skinny.

I inhaled, refining my first thought to extremely well made.

And his face… I was used to glamours and spells—the fae ruled with them, and sorcerers rarely went without. But there was always a subtle effect to the magic—an overlay that could be sensed, though not fully grasped.

There were no spells on this man.

Long dark lashes brushed over brilliant green eyes—eyes that a sorceress would kill for. But no woman would call him pretty. His cheekbones were too stark. His jaw too strong.

A compelling face, arresting, sensual. No hum of a glamour, no shimmer of illusion. In a town filled with otherworldly beings, he had a masculine beauty completely rooted in reality. Off-putting and absurd.

The cynical bend to his left brow and the tilt of his head suggested he knew exactly what reaction his looks would provoke.

The brow rose higher.

I blinked, heat flooding me from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes. “Yes, right.” I dragged the remnants of my tattered pride around me like my too-thin shawl. “I need to speak with the First Noble. Please. I know it is late.”

Women likely threw themselves at this man’s feet, but that didn’t ease my embarrassment or need. Unless he could charm Montranc’s guards into releasing Kennen, or stop the mobs from tearing anyone associated with him apart, this man’s beauty would do me little good.

Unreadable eyes assessed me. I forced the color from my cheeks and met his stare. My last resort. My last sliver of hope.

He gestured and pivoted, striding down the hall, my card dangling carelessly from two fingers. I hesitated for half a second as he disappeared into a dimly lit room, but followed.

A fire crackling in the hearth flared higher at a flick of his fingers as I entered. Papers littered a deep mahogany desk, piles of books and documents stacked haphazardly across the surface. He tossed the card onto the mess, pointed to a chair, then left without a word.

I tentatively sat in the indicated seat.

He was the oddest servant I’d ever encountered.

The cut of his clothes was finer than most, but his manner was not that of a lord.

Not with the way he’d pointed to my chair, gestured for me to follow, and walked as if attempting to blend into his surroundings.

As if he could ever blend in, with that face. With the way he filled his clothes and held himself.

The beautiful man strode back through the door, grabbed a tome from one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and rounded the desk. The Gilded Thousand gleamed in shiny foil as the book thumped onto an already tottering stack. The complete list of every house worth knowing.

He dropped into the large chocolate leather chair on the other side and leaned back, drumming his fingers on the only uncovered portion of mahogany. “Now, what is it you need so desperately that you had to appear at such an hour and in such a state?”

For a moment, I was speechless. “I need to speak with Gabriel Noble.”

“Then congratulations, you have achieved your purpose. Shall I see you to the door?” He motioned casually, his eyes piercing. His body was languid in the chair, belying his expression and the tilt of his dark head. Indolent, yet commanding.

My shoulders tightened. “You are Gabriel Noble?”

“I am.”

My breath caught at the formal admission and expression in his sharp, abnormally vivid green eyes.

The mannerisms of a servant seemed ludicrous now—an impulsive flight of fancy on my part.

The man seated in front of me looked as ruthless and capable as I’d been told.

And I couldn’t sense his power levels at all.

Something in me rebelled. “But you answered the door. And your dress.” I waved a hand at his simple white shirt, loose and slightly rumpled above black trousers.

A mage living on Ember Square would have a dozen retainers and servants lurking around, and be wearing a powered cloak to receive visitors at the least.

He raised a brow and began winding a half-coiled piece of spell wire around his finger. “It’s the dead of night. My butler and two footmen are out on a task for me. If we are making assumptions…”

His eyes passed over my mussed hair, which had long since escaped its butterfly pins, to my clutched hands and battered bag, down to the mud-stained hem of my dress.

“You look as if you are two steps from scrubbing pots, yet your bearing speaks otherwise. You hold your head as if comfortable in disdain. Not that a member of the—” He gave me another once-over.

“—gilded would be afforded more goodwill from me than a wash maid. I’ve often found the opposite to be true.

A wash maid earns her place, after all.”

If he desired, I could show him my earned skills with the pistol stashed in my torn dress pocket.

“Lord Seventh of Frostwood gave you this for a reason.” He plucked the card from the mess, twirling it negligently between his fingers, then sent it spinning across the desk to land in front of me. “One would assume.”

“How did you…?” There were no identifying marks or charms on the card. It simply said Gabriel Noble in an embossed but plain script. But then magic and secrets went hand in hand in the gilded world. They were the currency that powered everything.