Page 28 of The Hood and his Thief

“No, please. It’s alright.” Paul insisted, the Talent overtaking his voice entirely. Try as she might to ignore him, his voice wormed into her skull and laid a warm blanket over her thoughts.

Even as her eyelids grew heavy and she couldn’t make out what Paul was saying, only the lulling cadence of his words, she tried to make sense of what was happening.

Paul must be working with Ansel. Maybe he had left his sponsored position with the Gower’s for a life of crime after all.

The sting of betrayal cut through the exhaustion now weighing down every limb. She fought against it, trying to blink rapidly and shake her head. A wave of anger rolled over her as her sluggish brain processed the thoughts, almost breaking her free of Paul’s mental grasp.

She had given her youth to protecting the Lions and fighting the Inquiries, so children like Paul and Olivia could have the life she had given up by choosing to stay with Nate and Kristoff. All that sacrifice, and here Paul was, throwing in with a criminal despite it all. Maybe being a lower-city urchin wasn’t something you could outgrow, no matter how much Rhosyn fought.

With that thought, despair washed away the tide of Rhosyn’s rage, leaving her empty and vulnerable to Paul’s Talent. The thug beneath her slipped out of her slackening grip, leaving her off balance. She tipped forward, too tired to even put out her hands to break her fall.

Before she could pitch off the table and slam face first into the parquet floor, arms closed around her. Her face pressed into a well-sculpted chest, as the one who had caught her pulled her to him. Rhosyn’s nose filled with a smell that was both sweet and spicy, like burnt sugar, undercut with a musk of masculinity.

She was too tired to muster up frustration at Ansel having the audacity to smell so good while ripping her life to shreds. Instead, she used the magically-induced exhaustion as an excuse to take a deep lung-full as she fell into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter seven

Rhosyn’s position this time she woke from an artificially induced slumber was much less comfortable. The wooden slats of a chair dug into her arms, wrenched back and tied firmly behind her. Still, her eyes opened sluggishly, despite the sharpness of the discomfort dragging her towards consciousness.

As she blinked away the bleariness in her vision, the reason for her placidity became apparent. Paul sat in a chair across from her, expression wary as he muttered soothing nonsense. It left her too tired to struggle against her bonds, but he wasn’t keeping her fully asleep.

Instead of trying to tug free, she took inventory of her situation, looking down to find her ankles and calves roped to the legs of the chair.

“I see my accommodations have been downgraded.” Her voice came out more drowsy than scathing, but Paul still grimaced when she looked back at him.

“It was the one piece of furniture around here we thought you might not be able to break,” he admitted.

“You’re stronger than you look, but we already knew that,” a female voice chimed in.

Rhosyn turned her head, the movement feeling slow, as if she were underwater, and was greeted by a familiar round face.

“Olivia!” A mix of relief and disappointment washed over her. She was glad to see the girl safe, even if she had hoped Paul’s sister hadn’t also fallen in with Ansel.

“I would say it was good to see you again but…” Olivia twisted her hands fitfully in the apron she wore.

“Tying me to the chair wasn’t the greeting I had hoped for. And after I had been so worried about you!” Rhosyn’s words came out with more bite now that Paul was no longer talking, his Talent only working with his voice.

“I couldn’t let you hurt any more people,” Paul admitted ruefully, his tone devoid of any persuasive hypnotism.

“You can’t blame me for roughing up the people who I thought had kidnapped you,” Rhosyn argued.

“But now you know we’re not here against our will—” Olivia started.

“Which doesn’t make me any less inclined to punch something,” Rhosyn shot before biting her tongue. Olivia’s eyes widened and Rhosyn shoved down the guilt she felt at causing such an expression. Even though that doe-eyed look made her look like the child who had been plagued by nightmares until her brother’s Talent awoke, she was a teenager now, and old enough to know wrong from right.

“Nate and Contessa, they—we have fought too hard to give you the chance for a life where you don’t have to run from the law. And then you throw it all away…for what?” Rhosyn fumed. “You’ve thrown in with thieves. After all we’ve gone through.”

Rhosyn swallowed thickly, the acid taste of hurt clawing up her throat. How could Paul and Olivia be siding against her? Not when they had been in that group of children captured by Caleb and the Rattlesnakes, who Contessa and Nate had risked life and limb to get back.

But the real bitterness came from the fact that a small part of her understood. After all, hadn’t she just slipped into the haze of a street brawler so easily when faced with a challenge? Her police training had flown out the window in a mere second, leaving her throwing punches in a gambling den like she had never left.

“It’s not like that,” Paul chimed in softly. “You’ve—I’d hoped you’d understand, if you’d just give us a chance to explain.”

Olivia’s wide eyes continued to fix her with a beseeching stare. Rhosyn slumped, the awkward angle pulling at her shoulders as they bent around the chair behind her.

“You have until my arms go numb to convince me that I wouldn’t be a corrupt police officer for not arresting you alongside Ansel.”

The siblings exchanged a glance before both started speaking at once.