Chapter 2 #2
“I don’t recall mentioning anything about thieving, but it is excellent that you are taking the initiative, Marietta,” he said with mock approval. “The favors are deliberately unspecified; your compliance mandated by magic itself.”
“Surely there is a codicil in the contract for my satisfaction with your service?” I lifted my jaw, clenching teeth around threadbare pride.
A faint smile touched his mouth. “If you wish. I can offer a guarantee. I’ve never left anyone unsatisfied. But you will give me what I ask for. Your service will be to me.”
His smile turned edged and sensual. I clenched my gloved hands together, trying to strengthen the enchantments within, to gird myself against his hypnotic effects.
“You think highly of yourself. I will do my part as long as you do yours.”
“You seem much more confident today, Lady Winters.” Long bare fingers stroked a well-defined jaw. “Is this the real you, I wonder?”
“You make me nervous.” And resolute—neither emotion had radically changed.
“Hardly something I’d admit to a virtual stranger. Who knows what I might do with that information?” His voice grew lazy. “Too nervous to kneel?”
I held my posture, unable to answer.
His lazy air disappeared as quickly as it had formed. He leaned forward, and the air, the tension, coalesced sharply. I pressed into velvet. He was at least two feet away, but it suddenly seemed like inches.
“Are you frightened, Marietta Winters?” he whispered, his tone somewhere between a threat and a taunt. The interior seemed darker, the shadows longer.
“Do I have reason to be?” I faked a calmness I didn’t feel.
His eyes turned from bright green to black as he pressed beyond the fairy light. “Completely.”
My lips parted and my thoughts froze. But, no, I would not be trapped. I could escape any gaze. I could hide. I threw up a hammer in my mind to break the ice.
“Ah, even more interesting.” He sat back, the light turning his irises back to that startling green, almost too bright to be real as we rocked around another corner. He pulled the supple leather gloves through his fingers again. “I will use you well, Marietta Winters.”
“What—” My breath stuttered. “What did you do?”
“That you don’t know, but found a way around just piques my interest more. Do you understand what it means to make this vow? What about your older brother? Your society connections? You may be on the fringes, but your family clings tenaciously.”
I stiffened at the dig, and his knowledge. “Ferris can only influence what he sees.” Too far in the bottle to be a problem. “And my social connections matter little now.”
“Social connections, especially for the gilded, mean a great deal. The citywide net that protects family and sect secrets means personal gatherings are required for information to be exchanged. The gilded are dependent on their balls and invites. Do not think to lie to me so early in our negotiations.” His mouth was smiling, mocking; his eyes were narrowed and remote.
“With Kennen’s arrest and our dwindling estate magic, our social connections have already been severed.
The servants will take care of the rest when they find me missing again.
They’ll make up whatever pays best.” I looked away, wishing the shade was open so I could blindly stare at the passing scenery.
“We didn’t receive a single invitation today or yesterday.
And the day before we received only two—and that was because the news had come too late to destroy them. ”
“No suitors waiting in the wings?”
“No,” I said tightly.
His gaze weighed my soul. “You could weather this storm, tainted though your family line would be. But working with me will ruin any future offers from the strata to which your family so desperately clings.”
“I know.” My voice was more vulnerable than I wished.
I longed for a stable home, one where I didn’t have to worry about my next meal or the ceiling enchantments caving in or how I could reach beyond a meager core.
But that seemed an impossible dream. I wasn’t magically gifted.
I didn’t live on a powerful square or estate.
I had no dowry of crystals or grimoires.
I had no beauty that could rival a fae. And defiance of my place had made my tongue sharp.
The gilded hoarded power: through dynasty, through knowledge, through their young. Until twenty-five—the age of magical majority—I was legally under my brother’s authority.
Now first in our dwindling family, Ferris had charge of my interests and offers for another year.
Intolerant of the lower classes, he had steadfastly refused to let me marry into or become part of the merchant or business lines.
And at this point, I doubted even a street enchanter would want to be saddled with someone so closely related to the Vein Ripper.
“You could distance yourself from your younger brother.”
I shut my eyes. “I could.” It had been obliquely stated by Ferris himself. I opened them again, in defiance. “But it would show poor character, would it not, were I to care more for my marital prospects than my brother’s life?”
He tilted his head. “We shall see.” The leather lazily passed through his fingers as he regarded me, eyes piercing and weighing. “So, what say you, Marietta Winters? Will you agree to my bargain?”
My heart hammered. “Three favors for your help in freeing my brother?”
“For three favors, I will help you free your brother, I so do vow.” He held out his hand. His bare hand. I put my trembling, gloved one in his.
He slowly turned my hand until my palm faced up. “Do you vow, Marietta?” He pinched the first fingertip of my glove, tugging it the barest inch free.
My lips parted, breath coming even faster.
“Do”—he did the same to the next digit, then the next, pulling agonizingly slow—“you”—pulling and pulling until the fabric was free of my fingers, exposing my bare flesh to his gaze and hands—“vow?”
His words wrapped me, kindling an aching heat.
“You can still refuse.” His finger traced my wrist.
We both knew I wouldn’t. I’d already been his the moment I walked through his door.
The vow hummed between us, ready to snap into place whether I spoke or not—there was a reason the weak or rich wore gloves. His finger on my bare wrist could bind me without a word—could force the vow through touch alone, his power overwhelming mine.
“Do you vow?”
That he was asking deliberately, waiting for my words rather than simply taking what magic and power would allow...
“I so do vow,” I whispered.
The magic of the oath was immediate. It gave will to the caster’s preference, and dark forms bloomed in a burning that sank beneath skin, into muscle—into something deeper that held the heart of my magic. I gasped, but his grip held firm. Unyielding.
Three uneven stars carved themselves into my flesh. They grew from within, black as the space between constellations, edges sharp enough to cut—searing the inside of my wrist, where my pulse beat frantically beneath.
The pain drowned beneath the surge of power wrapping around mine. Something shifted between one heartbeat and the next—not just the binding settling into place, but something stirring deeper inside me.
“Each will fade and disappear with a favor marked complete.” His eyes hadn’t left my wrist. His voice was rougher than before. “Complete all three, and you will be free.”
Free. The word felt like a lie even as he said it. I stared at the marks on my skin—marks that would fade with service, proof of what I’d just sold. Three stars. Three favors. Three pieces of my will that now belonged to him.
The pain was nothing to the weight of what I’d promised.
“And what will happen, if I don’t complete them?”
He smiled. I clutched my wrist.
He set my glove on my palm. “Now that we have that decided, I’ll need to see your younger brother’s rooms and belongings.”
“Tomorrow—”
“Now.”
“Now?” I spluttered. “It’s the middle of the night. If I’m seen—”
“We have less of a chance of being seen now.” He rapped the trap. “And you need to gather your possessions.”
“Gather my possessions?” Anticipation—I was going to save Kennen—mixed with fear.
“I’ll need you close.” He uncurled from the seat as the carriage made a third turn, and our weak house wards brushed my magic again.
Rising to his full-seated height, he looked down at me with his heat-provoking face and cold eyes.
“You will move into a house of mine. Somewhere you can come and go as I please.”
“What?” I choked out. “With you?”
“You just said your brother’s life was worth more than your marital prospects. Seeing as you aren’t worried about your reputation—”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t worried about it,” I hissed.
He pulled his gloves on, tugging one finger at a time. “So leaving your home at any time of night wouldn’t attract attention? No matter what you’re wearing? You could stroll outside and no one would say or notice a thing? Excellent.”
Spellwork against servants was one thing. Spellwork against gilded social climbers actively charm-combing neighborhood thoroughfares for gossip while looking to be seen was something entirely different.
I envisioned walking through any Gildon square in something entirely inappropriate. They had made their disdain vocal today and yesterday. What would they say if Noble followed through on his threats? “Where is the house located, and who will be with us?”
Fingers straightened each covered digit. “Midtown, nearer the East End. There is talk of renaming your brother the Carowell Ripper, since two of the murders have taken place there. We should hunt there first, don’t you agree?”
His mocking tone made my natural defiance rise. “What staff do you have in place?”
“Staff? None. It will be just the two of us.”
My jaw dropped. Nothing resembling a word emerged.
“You are in luck. I’ve just finished a case and can devote myself completely to yours. And you…interest me, Marietta Winters.” The door opened. “Gather your belongings.”
“I can’t stay in a house with just you.” The words were out before sense could stop them—an idiotic response, with the talk of my battered reputation and lack of marital prospects.
At least my belligerence continued to survive.
“I assure you that my tastes don’t run to the underfed. You have no cause for concern on my account.”
He barely spared me a once-over as he exited the carriage, and it stung my vanity, little though I thought I still possessed.
“You are a remarkably rude and awful man,” I said as I exited after him and ascended the walk. “I have no idea why I am even listening to you. You have done nothing with which to give me confidence.”
He stopped and turned. I expected anger or irritation at the insult, but was surprised to see amusement instead. “No?”
He circled around me, the cuffs of his shirt brushing against my sleeve, against the small of my back. “But I could be twice as awful, and though you might complain you would still follow, would you not?”
His voice was a whisper above my ear. “Because you have nowhere else to turn and the dear, earnest Lord Seventh of Frostwood said you could trust me. And that’s what you are going to do, Marietta, is it not?”
Every hair on my body rose in response to the carnal tones. I gritted my teeth against the sensation. “I don’t believe I like you, Master First Noble.”
He laughed softly. I shivered and smoothed a hand down the back of my neck.
“I don’t care, Lady Second Winters.” His tone was seductive and low, but there was steel underneath. “As long as you keep your end of the bargain, I don’t care in the least. Now get moving.”