Page 149 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
His answer a mere snort, Howlite embraced me again, breathing like a beast against my mouth.
I rolled my eyes. “Not until we’re in that room, buddy.” Where I’d have access to his seed stash.
Whether he heard me or not, I didn’t know, but his arms constricted me, his kiss suffocating. He slammed me against the door his fumbling fingers couldn’t unlock.
A tumbler clicked. I squealed as the door swung away from my back, and Howlite and I careened to the floorboards of his well-appointed rented room like a pair of dominoes. He landed on top, flattening me.
Can’t end up here!I realized in panic as the snickering hulk above me squirmed to get his hands under my skirts.Shit!
“Um, I also don’t have sex on floors.” I needed to get up! To find something heavy enough to knock him out with! “Aah! Hey! Please don’t touch that! That’s—hey! Knock it off! Get your face out of there!”
Struggling like a fly caught in a web, I didn’t understand what made Howlite slacken upon me. Then, heaving, I found Pete standing over us, a heavy lacquered candlestick in his clenched fist.
“Took you long enough!” I shoved Howlite’s heavy, drooling head out of my cleavage. “Oh, ew! Get him off me.”
Laughing, Pete placed the candlestick back on the hearth mantle, then nudged Howlite off me with his boot. The slaver faceplanted into the floor beside his bed.
Pete reached to help me up. “Either you’re mad or dangerously audacious, Shorty.”
I chuckled, sweating, as he yanked me to my wobbly feet. “Or I just knew I could rely on your help.”
Pete’s brows rose. “You’re calling me, aharbinger, reliable?”
I scanned the suite for a treasure trove. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
His mouth quirked aside. “Huh.”
“Where should we be looking for his seed stash?” I waved my hands about the room, which any resident of the Hundred Acre Wood would love. “And how big will this thing be?”
Pete had already unburdened Howlite of that night’s winnings. “His coffer doesn’t need to be big—or hidden for that matter. It’s likely spelled, so thieves can’t open or break it.”
“We’ll hash that out later.”
“We have more than enough now, Shorty.” Pete motioned toward the door. “We’d best count our blessings and steal into the night.”
“No!” I stomped, drunk and righteous. “All that money in that coffer—he made it by selling people, didn’t he?”
Pete expelled a breath. “All of it, I’d wager.”
“Then we’re taking it,” I insisted, impressed by Pete’s honesty—even when being so didn’t benefit his case. “Every last seed.”
“How does us filching it right any wrongs?” Pete debated, though he’d started aiding my search. “It’s still—”
“Found it!” I grabbed a gilded box, the size of a large men’s shoebox, off the furthest nightstand and plopped upon the bed. The perfect size for a slaver’s coffer, I decided.
Whether Howlite had spelled it against thieves or not, I couldn’t say, but I doubted so once I grazed the haft and it unlatched. The lid flipped open as if commanded. Pete gawped at the seeds galore in my lap.
“Ever see this many seeds together at once?” I removed a handful of assorted colors and illuminations, let them spill back into their nest, a glittering waterfall.
“No,” Pete croaked, padding around the bed to me. “Shorty, it hardly matters who holds that coffer. No matter the nobility of our cause, if we spend those seeds, we’re spending the blood of slaves. We’d be no better than Howlite or anyone else supporting the trade.”
My stomach sank like the Titanic.Please, Danu, don’t let Daddy have supported such a thing.
That’s where I discovered that intense, troubling thought combined with a gallon of honey ale created two sparking fire sylph hands and a freshly ignited coffer.
Pete barked a curse as I screeched and leapt to my feet. “The hearth, Shorty! Christ, put it in the hearth before you catch the tavern on fire!”
So, I did. Then we two watched in conspiring silence as the coffer of blood seeds burned to ash in the slaver’s rental room fireplace.
