Page 60 of Ravenous
Nadje had blinked, her eight-year-old mind making quick connections. “Then if we stay here, won’t we turn too?” It was like when Mama had explained that eventually, even immortals died. The unspoken words:As will we.
Mama’s smile was forced. “We’ll save up some gold and buy passage out of here. One night, we’ll be free.”
One night? One night?That hadn’t been good enough for Nadje. She’d needed a plan. Gold. Passage.Now.
She’d had no patience to wait idly, still didn’t. Her mother had run out of time and paid with her life…
Inkletter’s voice drew Nadje back to the present. “Tonight is not my last job, because I doubt any others could match this one’s idiocy.”
She laughed, too sharp. “You’d be surprised.” Did he thinkshewas an idiot? Though she usually preferred others to underestimate her intelligence, she didn’t want Inkletter to believe her intellectually beneath him.
He parted his lips to speak, then closed them.
“Something else on your mind?”
After long moments, he said, “Have you fed recently?”
She frowned. “Not in a while. I’ve been surviving on blood mead.” Nadje was no royal, couldn’t simply order up a blood source. She and other servants usually hitched a demon ride to Umber every couple of weeks to hunt shifters or seduce pub-goers with a bite fetish. She’d been too busy. “What about you?”
“Between my research and our work, I’ve little time for sustenance.” Seduction. His eyes softened slightly. “Nevertheless, I am pleased we chose to remain platonic.”
So hehadthought about it too. She opened her mouth to agree with him—platonic is preferred!—but her throat burned from a potential lie. She finally said, “We make a good team.”
“Yes. I will see you at sunset tomorrow.”
“Don’t forget the Lykae king,” she reminded. “Tease him with the Queen of Questions.”
He inclined his head and vanished.
Nadje stood for a moment in the quiet, the room too still.
They would make a fortune with King Thane.But even that won’t be enough, she thought, while acknowledging there mightneverbe enough. The heft of her bag of gold felt too light.
She pried open a new wall cubby and pulled out her fourth chest. Counting coins usually soothed her—the rhythm, the shine, the promise of freedom—but tonight, the pieces felt dead and cold.
She found herself glancing toward the shadows, hoping Inkletter would reappear.
Nadje did trust him, and she genuinely enjoyed spending time on jobs with him. Still, if it came down to business or friendship, she would always put business first.
She would now as well.Right?The coins slipped through her suddenly limp fingers to goclink clink clinkin the chest.Right??She tried to reassure herself, whispering, “I’d choose this gold over more time with Inkletter,” and her throat burned and burned…
Chapter 25Thane
Full moon. Only hours away.
Soon it would rise, swollen with power, bringing even more turmoil to a male who’d spent weeks adrift in chaos—ever since he’d last seen Ditch atop the Mount.
Since she’d sauntered away in that scrap of lace, tail swishing.
Since she’d almost made him laugh…and awakened a possessiveness he’d never imagined he could feel.
As the noon sun spilled over the sea beyond his castle, he paced his chambers, fangs clenched. What else was there to do but stalk and stew? His days of deep drinking and carousing were over. He could think of nothing but her—his nemesis, his undoing—and that was even before her letters…
Greedy for more peeks into her complicated mind, he’d begun the exchange himself, summoning Jastorgh, an outside demon courier, to deliver a missive to the haunted Strix Keep.
In the first letter, Thane had kept it short, sharp, and meant to provoke:
Witch,
