Dark Dealings (8 page)

Ava had to remember to breathe. She fought to focus. She was meant to be taking his power, turning and twisting it and pushing it towards Fallon. But it was almost impossible to think anything with Heyerdar pressing close, his incredible scent, the mix of the open sky and wild nature sinking into her. She wanted to open her mouth to him. Consume him. All of him.

“And...and did you?”

“She’s a mage.” He pressed close kisses over her jaw, and she tilted her head, her hair falling back to expose her neck. “Their hoarded magic brings beauty.” He licked a line down her throat. “I wanted to taste her, every inch of her.” His breath was hot against Ava’s damp skin as he paused, his energy burning deep into her, swirling through her thoughts. She could almost see, almost feel the moment as he moved silently through Fallon’s rooms. Tasted her sweet scent in the cold air. Heard the increasing patter of the other woman’s heart. “Fuck her every way I could.”

Ava’s mouth dried and the slick heat of her need pulsed heavily within her. “Your first time, Heyerdar.” She swallowed as his mouth brushed over her nightgown, his tongue curling against the thin linen and wetting a line to the curve of her breast. “I only...”

“She pretended not to know I was in the room.”

His memory pushed into her—the pad of his feet over the deep rugs, the heat in his body, the knowledge that one of the Institute’s most beautiful woman waited for him, wanted
him.

“But she wasn’t asleep.” Heyerdar found her nipple and sucked. Hard.

Ava cried out, her body arching into his mouth, his magic surging into her flesh. He groaned and his teeth grazed her breast, her nipple. The fierce pull of her darkness on Heyerdar’s unending magic swept over her. Almost guiltily she wanted to keep it to herself, but his touch had a purpose. He wanted Fallon as much as she wanted Reist.

Her thoughts reached out, rushing into the night, into the few hours of future and finding Fallon. Ava pushed the raw feelings, the memory of Heyerdar finding her, into the other woman, opening a connection and feeding her own hot emotion into her dreams.

“Naked in moonlight.” He found her other breast, licking and sucking through the thin fabric.

She ached for his mouth on her skin, tasting her, the heat, the bite of his teeth, the tantalizing lick of his tongue knowing her, but this way was...proper. She was a placeholder.

“The first taste of her.” He teased his mouth back to the valley between Ava’s breasts, where her nightshirt dipped in a low vee. His tongue swept up over her breastbone, and a gasp broke from her. “Sunlight and earth, the lick of moonlight.”

His mouth hovered over hers, and her breaths were quick and uncertain, her body alive with his magic. She wanted to kiss him, let the wild surge of feeding and desire riot through her body. She ached for it. For Fallon. All for Fallon.

“She was unlike anyone else. The slightest touch almost broke her.” His teeth sank into Ava’s bottom lip. Her body snapped taut, and a dark wave rolled over her, hot and tight. She couldn’t stop the half cry that escaped. “Just. Like. That.”

The power of her unexpected release flowed through the connection she’d created. Her arms gave out and she sank to the bed. Her heart pounded, her surprise at losing herself so easily mixing with the rough spin of her thoughts. But she knew her limits with him now. He hadn’t overwhelmed her.

“Only a brief touch of my...skill, little thief.”

With a low laugh, Heyerdar eased her farther onto the bed, his hands firm and sure. He followed her down, close, but only just touching, his control absolute. His mouth burned against her jaw, her cheek, before he drew back. Light still wove around him, gleaming in his eyes. His power...her mouth watered at the thought of it, of it flowing into her, sinking into her. Of him stripping her and fucking her. Had this power scared even a higher mage?

“Then I took her. Fuck, she was sweet.” He laughed against Ava’s skin. “Mages want my magic, but sex exposes them. Scares them. They don’t have the protection of being an apprentice. That little tattoo on the back of their neck.” His lips brushed her ear and she drew in a quick breath, surprised by the excited shiver that rippled through her. “Fallon wanted to break that fear.”

“So you showed her your skill?”

His smile was dark. “Repeatedly and through the night.”

“Is that...?” Her heart drummed. She had to know if that was his plan for her because her resistance to him was nil. “Do you plan to fuck me?”

“I have so many plans for you.” His fingers drifted down over her collarbone, the damp fabric clinging to her breast, to skim her waist. He tugged the bottom of her nightshirt up and his bare fingers traced a slow, hot pattern against her hip. “Bite you, lick you, take you every way I can.”

His finger teased down over her sex, and her hips bucked off the bed. The tip of his finger stroked over the little nub of too-sensitive flesh, and his name burst from her lips. Her reaction skittered away, feeding into the promise of Fallon’s heated dreams. Ava sucked in a clean breath, denying how much she ached to keep the joy for herself.

“And her?” That wasn’t a tinge of envy. She needed to press more of Heyerdar, the blistering heat of his touch, into the lover he truly wanted. “What else do you want me to give to her?”

Heyerdar stilled. “Fallon.” Her name was a soft growl and Ava willed herself to thread that into the other woman’s dreams. The want for him to say
her
name surprised her.

He sank back between her legs, resting on his heels, and his gaze fixed on her as he pressed the finger that had touched her sex against his bottom lip. His eyes darkened. Slow and deliberate, he sucked his finger into his mouth.

Embarrassed heat burned across her face. She had witnessed enough debauchery, and her thief craved it, but to see him lick her juices with obvious greed...made her feel her inexperience.

“That’s enough. You can bind the memory.”

Ava closed her eyes, focusing. Yes, she wanted to end her time with Heyerdar, find sleep and not dream herself. It hit that she hadn’t thought to tie a line of illusion to Reist. Her thief seemed reluctant to create the illusion. She didn’t question the motive. She couldn’t. Instead, she wrapped the remaining power around the push of memories, feelings, and the tight burn of Heyerdar murmuring Fallon’s name, and slid it deep into the woman’s mind. Ready and waiting for her in the long dark of the night.

Ava let out a slow sigh, tiredness sitting heavy on her now that the last of Heyerdar’s energy had flowed out of her. “Done.”

“Good.” Heyerdar eased back and swung himself down from her bed. The heavy crush of his weight still dipped the mattress. He stared down at her and Ava felt her blush deepen. Her nightgown was still a tangled mess of material around her waist and she tried to yank it down to cover herself again. He stopped her. His palm stroked her exposed belly, his fingers dipping between her legs again.

“Heyerdar!” His name was a shocked gasp. Their time was over. Like the illicit kisses, this was not a part of their deal.

He bent and, before she could stop him, he licked her, the flat of his tongue scaldingly hot against her sex. Hard hands kept her thighs pinned to the bed and he ignored her fingers as they tugged and fisted in his hair.

“The magic is set, Heyerdar.” The yawning emptiness of her soul rose again, eager for him, even as she knew she shouldn’t, couldn’t have him. He was dangerous. Her plan had been to take Reist no matter the cost...but Heyerdar was addictive. She couldn’t find confidence in the brief taste of how he could play her body. He’d hardly touched her and she’d found her release. “Tomorrow.”

He breathed against her damp flesh, his gaze fixed on her. “I told you your pussy is more mine than his.”

“No, it...”

His tongue curled against the sweet nub and she cried out, her hips pushing hard against his mouth. She ripped magic from him, and his soft groan only deepened the throb in her belly, the need of her thief to take him.

“It’s mine.” His words beat through her, but he drew back. His lips glistened. “But not tonight.” Fingertips stroked over her, and the bolt of need sparked under her skin. A sharp smile lifted his mouth. “I’ll allow you to sleep.”

A choked laugh escaped her and she tugged down her nightgown. “Nice of you.” The wild threads of his magic still buzzed under her skin, sharpening the unsatisfied ache he’d also left. She palmed out the creases, using his energy to give her strength and meet his golden gaze. “This isn’t about you and me, Heyerdar. It’s about them. I want, I need, Reist. I want him back. And you want her.”

He licked his fingers again and she wanted to slap the satisfied smirk from his face. “You have to be prepared for whatever happens, little thief.” He lifted his sword belt from the bedpost and buckled it around his hips. “For me to take everything.”

The previous night she had considered it. Now? Heyerdar wasn’t the simple, violent animal that evidence and rumor suggested. Having him...would she ever be able to pull away?

Ava broke their staring and climbed back into her twisted blankets. He wasn’t Reist. Sex and the fleeting hunger of her thief was all that drew her to him. With Reist, she had respect and years of friendship and trust. Heyerdar couldn’t compete with that. She plumped her pillow, turned away from him and sank back into the deep mattress. “Goodnight, Captain.”

“First thing.” The light faded but the richness of his scent lingered, the sense of open freedom that seemed to wrap around him as thickly as his magic. “Pleasant dreams.”

Ava closed her eyes. She would dream of Reist...and not regret that Heyerdar had never once said her name.

Chapter Eight

Ava was almost late again. Her stomach growled as she ran up the steps to Reist’s chamber. He always fed her. She ignored the new knowledge that he fed her to keep her thief at bay. Even if he did, it was still proof that he cared for her. But then she would have to apply the same logic to Heyerdar...

Her dreams hadn’t been filled with the Highest Mage. In his stead, the elemental had chased her through dark alleys, until he caught her...and the wildness of their coupling brought with it the inexorable rise of her thief. It drove her to take more than his threads of magic. She had only a glimpse of his horror and pain as she ripped the meat from his bones, devoured him whole. Blood, thick and hot, filled her mouth—

And she’d jerked awake to the fact that she’d bitten through her lip.

Ava paused before Reist’s chamber door. She straightened the messenger tunic and smoothed her fingers over the sword belt hung across her hips. She missed her blades. The small actions didn’t help her to forget how sweet Heyerdar had tasted. It was a dream. Nothing more. Distracted, she lifted the latch on the door.

She stared. Her hand clamped to her mouth, she sank into the thick shadows of the doorway. Fallon in his room again. But it wasn’t the innocence of the night before. The woman sat astride Reist in his leather chair, her shoulders bare, her shirt tangled across her back. The leather squeaked as her body moved in a slow, easy rhythm. Morning light gleamed against her sweating skin, her piled hair falling loose and strands sticking to her face and neck.

Reist’s dark head was bent, his heavy desk blocking where his shirtless arms rested. He suckled her breast and the sound of his murmured pleasure, of Fallon’s increasing moans, the scent and the brilliant energy of sex that clung to every stone in the chamber, the passion, the overwhelming need, almost choked Ava. But she couldn’t shut her eyes to them.

Was Reist trying to push
her
away by having sex when she was there to meet him? The coward’s way to say there could never be anything between them. Not now. No, she couldn’t believe that. Reist wasn’t a coward.

Worse, had
she
done this? She hadn’t tied an illusion of herself to Reist. Had Fallon, full with her need for the elemental and fearing his power over her, used Reist to scratch her itch?
Fuck.

Ava had to run. Escape. She wanted to render Fallon into a pile of papery bones. It hadn’t worked. Not this time. The dream she’d fed into Fallon had simply increased her appetite for Reist, not pulled her back to Heyerdar. And Reist had agreed. Forgotten about her. Completely.

She blinked back tears, the tight pain in her chest making it hard to breathe. She staggered away. Let him wonder where she was. This was their time. Her work time. He paid her good imperial gold for her skills, and his chambers at dawn was where she took orders from him. If he thought fucking
her
was more important than ten years of tireless loyalty... She gritted her teeth.
Bastard.

Ava wanted to go back, rap hard on the door and watch them scramble to dress, see their embarrassment...but she would only be hurting herself. No. She sank behind her own cold darkness and wrapped the clear, emotionless mask around herself. She ignored the need she had to gut Fallon and turn her empty soul on Reist and eat him alive.

Her stomach growled. Two days now she’d missed breakfast. She detoured on her way to Heyerdar’s office to grab what cold meats she could from the kitchen. Reist’s breakfasts were always fine quality—used to be—not the overcooked leftovers from the night before.

She chewed on the tough meat, her jaw muscles and gut objecting as she strode the corridors to the palace.

Reist had betrayed her. Fucked another woman—her hands fisted at her sides—fucked
any
woman other than her. It was hard to breathe again. Silently, she cursed him and pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth to deny the hot burn of tears. He would see. She would fucking
make
him see.

Ava covered her eyes and let out a slow breath. Her thief sank back and she fought the increased pressure of seeing Reist and Fallon...together. Her stomach turned over.

Reist would see her as a woman. Whatever it took.

She was already outside Heyerdar’s office, the corridor bright with morning sunshine. The corporal frowned at her, but his expression cleared. “The Left Hand is expecting you. He is at his morning ritual.” He pulled back the door, the heavy wood gliding over the worn marble. “He has ordered breakfast. You are allowed to start without him.”

Ava stopped a curse breaking free. The man she wanted was forgetting her, and the man she didn’t was all courtesy. “Thank you,” she muttered, stalking across the room to the little table set before the still-glowing hearth. Flopping into a small padded chair, she lifted the silver dome of the platter and breathed in the aroma of deliciously undercooked meats.

The corporal left with a quick nod and Ava settled back to eat. She frowned at the report that said they’d found one thing out of place in Searlaim’s house. A brothel token. Not unexpected, as Searlaim had been discovered frequenting a Madam Lunete’s establishment, but it was an old token. It came from the time before Lunete had taken command, a time before Searlaim was born, when the brothel had been under the license of a Madam Vina Ross. Heyerdar had the people who lived at the other end of his copper device cross-referencing known patrons and workers with anyone involved in the current investigation. As yet, he had found nothing.

So...another day and no further on. But work would help her mood, focus her, appease the thief in her, who still wanted to charge back to the Institute and gut herself some mages.

A wry smile pulled at her mouth and she stabbed her fork into a thinly sliced kidney. Reist would taste great with salty sweat on his hot, slicked skin.

“And I thought feeding you would drive down the hunger.” Heyerdar closed the door. He wore the plain leather tunic and long sword of an ordinary guard. In the sharp light, his blond hair gleamed and she could still taste the magic that had woven around him as he’d greeted the sun. “You’ve stopped watching me.”

Ava’s fork paused over the last slice of meat. She glanced at him. “You knew?”

“I knew.”

“Reist was too busy to see me this morning. Yesterday I slept late.” She didn’t want to admit to him that her plan had failed. She needed the last chance that Heyerdar could give her before she admitted defeat. “So today is the Vault and the Treasury?”

“Later. We’re headed out to one of the brothels by the South Gate. A girl remembered seeing Searlaim.”

“His smell?”

Heyerdar frowned. “No, his skin didn’t quite fit.”

“One of the thieves in Searlaim’s skin?” She blinked. “They’re so comfortable with their plan and disguises that one of them decides to go off for a quick fuck?” She ran her fingers though her loose hair, her fingers fisting at the nape of her neck. “Is this how thieves are meant to behave?”

“No.” He watched her eat. His gaze narrowed. “Fallon was fucking Reist, wasn’t she?”

Ava stared at the remains of her platter, her full belly suddenly soured. She gulped back a good mouthful of watered wine. She didn’t need a reminder. “Yes.” She wiped her mouth on a napkin. “Seems you’re feeding her needs, but not in the proper way.”

The dark smile that twisted his lips made her forget all about the heavy meat in her stomach, the wine, Fallon and Reist, everything. She could only breathe and feel the shocking desire in her flesh. She had to look away. Heyerdar was just a tool, the source to get to Reist. She didn’t want
him.

“Then I’ll have to fuck you.”

Her breath caught. His bald statement, the undercurrent of hot promise in his words, held her before she struggled to deny him. Not yet. She wasn’t ready. Not really. “No. What we did last night is enough. I just have to refocus.”

“So you want me to eat you?”

Ava closed her eyes.
Fuck.
Why had she set herself on this insane path? “The brothel, Captain?”

His laughter jerked her eyes open. He pushed himself away from the mantel. “A place of sex and debauchery. Not really a change of subject, little thief.”

“I have a name.” The irritation and disappointment from the night before hit her again. He never used her name. And she wanted it. To hear his smooth, rich voice curl around the word
Ava
... She stabbed at the slice of meat and shoved it into her mouth. Her belly protested. Still, she swallowed. “We should go.”

“Will you last the day?”

“With food or sex?”

His grin was sharp as he waved her towards the door. “Both.”

“I can get those in the city.”

Heyerdar laughed. “Reist has done a deal for you with stalls. Sex? Until two days ago, you were untouched.”

“Choice,” she muttered. She hated the bright light that bathed the pale stone and ripped away any obscuring shadows. It made her feel even more exposed. “Nothing more.”

“A skin-taker, a soul-stealer, a thief. I’m
certain
you’re still a virgin out of choice.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yes. You will.”

Ava wrapped her hand around the pommel of her short sword, letting the metal bite into her palm. She wanted to sink her teeth into him. Follow her dream and devour him, taking every scrap of his magic into herself. She’d eaten the dead. She would
enjoy
feasting on him, tasting his blood, tearing bone from his living flesh. Her heart thudded and her cold center flared, filling her veins. The thief in her rose fast. Her mouth watered.

Heyerdar stroked a finger over her cheek. Taunting her. “You won’t be taking a bite out of me.”

“We have an agreement, Captain.” She kept her voice calm, the only thread she had to cling to as she stopped herself from turning on him. She was a thief. But she—unlike the men who’d killed so many in the city, who’d carved up a baby for sport—had control. “I will let you fuck me. For a reason. That reason is Reist.”

“The brothel.” His finger drew a line across her lip, the taste of him so close her blood pounded. “Sex magic, little thief.” He laughed at her. “Try not to eat the patrons.”

* * *

Ava avoided brothels. For the exact reason that had so amused Heyerdar. Sex burned, filling the air as it did in the apprentice lower halls, but it had a sharper taste. A brothel was only about sex. And it sharpened her need to devour and render. Would anyone be safe as she could now simply breathe in its raw power? With her empty soul, her barely contained thief and the anger and frustration twisting through her, a den of debauchery was the last thing she wanted.

She stared up at the wooden building, whitewashed to stand out in the heavy shadow of the south wall. High, open windows, their shutters pushed back against the walls, gave a darkened glimpse to the main hall of the brothel. Shadows moved and the rip of raucous laughter pushed out to the street.

A hulking man dressed in patched leather stood underneath the open archway in the center of the building. He folded his meaty arms, and the odor of stale beer and fat wafted through the street-stink of piss and dung.

“We’ve no need of the Guard this morning. Your commander hounded Madam Lunete before dawn.”

A cart rumbled past, forcing Ava to step forward. The man’s hand dropped to the dagger at his hip, and his thick fingers flexed around the hilt. Her skin itched. Too quick, the cold darkness of her empty soul and its thief companion pushed over her body, wrapping around her anger. She wet her lips. She’d eaten worse.

Heyerdar placed a hand on her arm. His sudden touch forced her to yank back her ache to feed. He focused on the man. “Nuno, isn’t it? New here. One of your girls reported she fucked a Regan Searlaim last night.”

Nuno frowned. He shifted his weight and his boots scuffed the flagstones. “So? No laws against that. Madam Lunete pays her taxes. The girls are clean. We have no trouble here.”

“I need to speak with Mairin.”

His eyes narrowed and the solid muscle of his jaw tensed. “It’s early.
Madam Lunete
can’t be seen before the fourth hour.”

“I’m on business from Captain Heyerdar.”

The man blinked and stepped back into the thicker shadow of the archway. “Servants of the Left Hand are always welcome.” He waved his arm to the open door. “Behind the bar—”

“I know the way.”

Ava trailed after him into the brothel. Already the familiar scent of sex broke across her senses, trapped and thickened by the shadows. She had to stay calm, stay in control without its cold mask. Feeding on the sexual energy—or, worse, her restless thief taking a bite out of one of the prostitutes—would be wrong.

Heyerdar strode ahead of her. Sinking her teeth into him? Something altogether different.

“We have an agreement.” His low voice echoed in the corridor. “You don’t bite if I can’t bite you.”

Ava wanted to growl at him. She’d never had anyone so aware of her magical self. Not even Reist. But then Heyerdar was old magic. Even she didn’t know what he could know. She had the mages to thank for that ignorance.

The corridor opened out into a long taproom, the wreath of hearth smoke bitter in the air. The hint of sex thinned with the open windows. Ava was grateful. The narrowed, suspicious glances from the women and the way the slumming rich men ducked their heads, hid behind raised beer pots or slunk back into the shadows already pushed at her raw nerves. No one saw her. She was a thief. Everyone being so aware of her was...wrong.

Heyerdar strode through the mess of tables and past the wooden length of the bar. Ava hurried after him. Fuck. He couldn’t leave her alone in this room.

She caught up with him as he rapped on a black door. “Mairin?” He rapped again.

The door swung open and a tall blonde woman leaned against the jamb. She frowned. “Nahum?” Her head tilted and a dark smile touched her mouth. “Not a social call?”

The scent of sex clung to the woman, the golden lines of it still tracing over her skin and the thin silk of her robe. It didn’t fit and revealed too much skin untouched by the sun. Her folded arms pushed her deep cleavage up in an obvious way. Ava’s fingers itched. She missed her blades.