ARWEN STOOD UP, DELICATELY TUCKED HER HANDS UNDER HER DRESS,
and pulled down the lace garments. Then she threw them onto the table.
“There,” she said. The chair beneath her scraped along the floor when she sat back down.
I bit down on my cheek until I tasted copper. A wisp of fabric shouldn’t have this kind of effect on a man. And yet a spike of lust so powerful it made me dizzy rushed through my blood. I couldn’t look at the others. I wouldn’t be able to control my rage.
“Arwen! You minx,” the witch lilted.
“I didn’t think the dainty thing had it in her,” Crawford muttered around his cigar.
But his eyes were so pleased. I wanted to carve them from his head.
Not being able to shift at all in Azurine was making it that much harder to control such urges. It was a release, it was exercise, and it staved off loneliness, bad impulses, and all my other brutish behavior. Though shifting used a lot of lighte, I wagered it was worth it, as I got myself into fewer scenarios that required I use my power in the first place.
Deep breaths.
Rhett’s coins clinked, the sweet, rich rum of Griffin’s drink filled my nostrils, and beside me smoke puffed from Trevyn’s fat cigar, making the lamplight hazy.
I studied Arwen. The petal-pink blush that had bloomed on her cheeks and across her nose, her barely parted bee-stung lips, the surprising look of success, of pride—despite losing the hand—that danced in her eyes.
She felt . . . good. Perhaps a little frightened. But bold. Attractive. Alive.
Two weeks of watching Arwen move through the world like a ghost, and tonight she had returned to the land of the living. I wasn’t naive to the siren call of sex and drink and danger. It had been my own lifeblood for many years.
“I’ll never be able to scrub that image from my mind.” Her brother groaned in disgust.
She laughed. Actually laughed. It had been weeks since I’d heard the sound. Like the ringing of temple bells, I felt that harmony in my entire body.
Nothing was safe. Not her bewitching smile when she laughed, nor her death glares when they were turned on me—on a daily basis, it was taking every inch of power in me, both lighte and sheer will, not to drop to the floor and beg her to put me out of my misery.
“You could have a promising career as a very specific type of entertainer, bird.” Finally she looked in my direction, only to shoot me a withering glare. I clenched my jaw to suppress a smirk.
I narrowed all my dwindling focus down to the cards in my hands instead.
A pair of aces. Excellent.
I appraised Crawford. He had been drinking all night, slowly bleeding coin to the rest of us, and had just crossed his thick arms in thought—a sign I had discovered hours ago reflected a mediocre hand. This was the moment I had been waiting for all night.
“I’m all in,” I crooned, shoving heavy stacks of coin and women’s accessories into the center of the table.
“I’ll call.” Crawford’s eyes were cool, even as anxious anticipation flashed in them. He turned his attention to Arwen, the only other player in the hand. “And what about the lady?”
Arwen considered her cards, then looked up at us. “All I have left to wager is my dress.”
“You had a good run.” I couldn’t help myself. Flirting with her was the most pleasurable thing I had ever done. “I’ll win your lacy underthings back for you.”
A challenge flickered in her eyes. “I’m in.” “Arwen, you’ll be naked,” I nearly sputtered.
“Bleeding Stones,” Ryder spat out, before tossing his cards into the center to fold.
“But I want something more than your coin for my final piece of clothing,” Arwen said to Crawford, ignoring us both.
He lifted a menacing brow. “Anything for the daring maiden.” “What can you offer me?” Seduction crept into her voice.
“Rubies? Diamonds? Name your price.” Crawford ran an eye along Arwen’s neck. A game now to him.
“Hmm.” She tapped her finger to her lips in thought. “I travel with a king, so have no need for more jewels. Maybe I underestimated your reach? I was hoping for something a bit more . . . special.” She frowned down at her cards and waited.
A huntress setting a trap.
“My reach is unlimited. What would excite you? Texts? Weapons?
Something less . . . refined?”
Arwen’s mouth soured at Crawford’s implication.
I was tempted to shear the skin off the man right then. To inflict as much agony on him as he had on others. On the Mer girls. It was beyond an injustice that he would never pay for his crimes in full.
But Arwen covered her revulsion with a weighing frown. “What kind of weapons? Anything impressive? Please don’t bore me with a shiny sword.”
Crawford leaned in from his side of the table. “I have just the highly sought-after prize you seek. But it’s worth a lot more than one naked woman.”
Griffin stiffened in his seat beside me.
“Careful, Crawford,” I murmured. I didn’t care if he had the blade in his breast pocket—the pig didn’t deserve to look at Arwen, let alone insult her.
But she just sat back, the picture of calm. “No, King Ravenwood. He’s right. Maybe I could just . . . see such an item?”
Crawford grinned. “That can be arranged. If you win.” “Let’s play, then.”
Rhett dealt the cards out to Crawford, Arwen, and me. A spread ideal for a flush—four of the five were spades. My aces of diamonds and clubs rendered worthless.
Crawford’s eyes had gone viciously black. “Flush,” he said, laying out his king and ace of spades. “Sorry, pretty.” Venom crept into his grin. “Now strip for me.”
If Arwen so much as stood to undress, I’d reduce this room to kindling before she got a single cotton layer above her knee.
But she only smiled. Not a phony, performative grin. But that genuine, brilliant, dazzling Arwen smile that made it hard for me to walk straight.
“No, I’m sorry. I believe I have a full house.” Arwen splayed the cards out in front of her. She did indeed have a full house—the only hand that beat Crawford’s.
Victory rang in my ears. My gorgeous, sneaky bird. Crawford said nothing, but Rhett let out a slow whistle. “Well done, Arwen,” Fedrik murmured.
Arwen pulled the mass of coin and clothing into her, handing back Mari’s shoes and belt. Crawford didn’t move a single muscle as she slid her undergarments on beneath the table.
“Now, about that prize,” she purred.
A dark cloud had settled over the collector’s competitive mood. “Come by my villa tomorrow night, and I’ll show it you.”
“We leave Azurine tomorrow, as my king said.”
My king.
“I’m afraid I don’t have the weapon on me at the moment.” He jerked his chin down to his oxblood tunic, with its fine gold threads and his heaps of thick jewelry.
“I’ll come to your villa tonight, then,” she pushed.
The table shifted in discomfort, Ryder picking at his nails, Fedrik looking out the window at the moon’s pale glow—but I only relaxed into my chair.
“Come on, Crawford, don’t disappoint the lady.” I grinned. “A deal’s a deal.”
“I don’t keep it at my villa,” Crawford said, his knees bumping against the table as he stood.
Arwen stood, too, face still a bit pink and flushed. “Then where?”
Griffin straightened in his seat. Crawford’s cursory gaze cut from me to him to Arwen. Then to Mari, and I wanted to kick Ryder for outing her as a powerful witch. I could see Crawford sizing up his odds against this room. My fists twitched with the thrill of the looming fight.
Lurching forward, Crawford grabbed his coin and barreled toward the back of the room, Rhett and Trevyn close behind him.
Now that, I actually hadn’t expected.
Crawford was fast for such a hefty piglet, but I was on him in seconds, my shoulder just narrowly edging open the distressed door at the back of the room they had slipped inside of, its wood marred by nicks and stains.
“Fuck off, Ravenwood,” Crawford spat through the crevice.
I would have laughed, had Arwen not raced toward the back room as well.
“Stay out there.”
“No chance in the Stones,” she huffed as she slipped with immeasurable grace through the narrow gap Crawford and I had inadvertently held open for her.
I had forgotten how damn lithe she was.
Promise to Isolde forgotten, I slammed the door open with shards of pure black mist, nearly sending the rickety thing off its hinges and knocking Crawford and the two men to the ground in a heap.
Crawford practically mangled Trevyn trying to lunge for me, swinging and missing by a mile. One swift kick to the gut sent him back down to the threadbare rug of his clandestine office.
The walls of the dimly lit room were plastered in antique oil paintings and framed clippings from local Citrine papers. But other than a shelf of tattered books, it held nothing but a soiled green love seat, a dented metallic barrel—filled with some kind of thieved spirit, I was sure—and a leather chair behind a single desk that at one time might have been richly carved but was now tired and worn.
I heard Mari squeak from the poker table as Griffin strode in beside me. “Should I knock the two goons out?”
“You can’t be serious,” Fedrik said, a lilt to his voice that petered out as he, too, stepped inside and met my eyes. “My parents and Crawford can come to some kind of agreement to suit you and your healer. All this over a mere gambling debt?”
Spineless twat was not only unobservant, he was a puppet for his parents. Always had been.
“Listen to the prince,” Crawford groaned from the dark carpet. “We can work this out easily.”
“No, I don’t believe we can.” I rolled my shirtsleeves up and stepped closer to Crawford. Rhett flinched and Trevyn scampered into the corner on all fours. “Fedrik, if you would so kindly take my healer, her brother, and the witch back to the palace, Griffin and I will be right behind you.”
When Crawford tried to crawl for his desk, I dug my boot into his outstretched fingers until I produced a satisfying crunch.
His pained moan curved my lips upward.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Arwen said, arms folded. “I’m owed a blade.”
“Arwen,” her brother chided. I cut a glance back at him, still out in the game room, one arm wrapped around Mari’s shoulders. “Come on.”
“Go back to the palace, Ryder,” Arwen said. “And take Mari with you.” He didn’t need to be asked again.
Ryder and Mari filed out with haste and Fedrik only looked back at us once before following after them.
I faced Griffin. “Make sure he doesn’t go straight to the queen.”
“Yep.” Griffin jerked his chin back toward Arwen, as if to say, And what about her?
“She’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t sure, but for an instant it seemed like that was pride gleaming in Arwen’s eyes.
