Page 39 of A Thief Among Fae

The guards linger as we retrieve our gear from the shop, which provides warded cabinets for daily storage. I balk at the fee, but Desmond doesn’t bat an eye.

As we approach the gates, the back of my neck prickles. Desmond stops and turns in a slow circle. His chin jerks up, and his eyes narrow at a rooftop behind me.

I whirl around and glimpse a hulking figure dressed head-to-toe in a cool gray that blends in with the sky. A wisp of white hair escapes from the mask that hides his face. It’s the same silent stranger who stopped me as I left the black market, the one seeking Desmond. I don’t have to see him up close to recall the menacing silver of his eyes.

The man breaks into a run down the rooftop, hops to another, and is soon out of sight. “Looks like you have a secret admirer,” I joke to Desmond. It falls flat. We both know it’s not the kind of admirer anyone gushes over having.

No, this one makes me want to lock my door and sleep with an extra dagger under my pillow, and they’re not even after me. “I saw him in the black market,” I add. “He showed everyone a wanted poster—and you were on it.”

Desmond shrugs. “An occupational hazard.”

“Charming,” I mutter. “How did you avoid him?”

We reach the gate where a line has formed to leave Mythos. “People have a hard time sneaking up on me,” he says with a harsh edge, like he wants me to drop my questions. Too bad.

“You took a risk lingering there, just to chastise me about the relic and bandage me.”

“And you underestimate me. Besides, I could hardly stand back and watch you foolishly drip blood, giving anyone permission to tie you into⁠—”

“A lethal bargain?” I cut in, narrowing my eyes.

He starts to object, but a scribe interrupts us. “Your paperwork, please.”

I dig mine out of my pack. The squat scribe studies them, his inspection prolonged by every glance he gives to the guards lurking ten steps behind us. He finally gives them back, then asks Desmond, “Your paperwork, sir?”

Desmond unshoulders his pack, takes out a bundle of crinkled parchment, and unrolls it before the scribe like it’s nothing more than a shopping list.

“D—Desmond Vale? The fae prince?” the scribe stutters as he takes the parchment. He stares up at Desmond, his eyes widening to saucers.

Desmond doesn’t lower his hood or deign to answer the scribe. He simply plants his feet, holds out his hand for the papers, and waits.

The scribe splutters. He hands the parchment back. A wax seal decorates the document below his name, Desmond Vale, along with written permission to enter Avedor per the terms of the treaty. And below that is the clause, I accept that violation of the Annexation Treaty will forfeit my life and all fae in my company. His signature, a perfect cursive, lies beneath it.

Desmond rolls it back up.

The scribe ushers us to pass with a frantic wave, not unlike if we were carriers of a plague, and I follow Desmond to the stables.

His horse is a sturdy, white mare with a rose-pink nose. The horse’s dark eyes narrow. She snorts as if assessing me, tossing her shaggy mane. Even as she chomps on Desmond’s offered apple, she still warily regards me.

“What’s her name?” I ask.

“Enbarr.” He surprises me by helping me onto Enbarr’s saddle, then mounts behind me.

I’m too aware of his muscled thighs squeezing mine, the press of his chest against my back as he leans forward to take the reins.

“Ready?” His voice sounds deeper, softer when he’s speaking just behind my ear.

“As I’ll ever be,” I grumble.

He knees Enbarr’s flank and leads her outside onto the worn stone path. Every clop of the horse’s hooves shifts our bodies together.

“This is our last chance to rent a second horse,” I mutter, staring straight ahead at the distant forest. It’s a failed attempt to keep my face from heating. Even if I can’t see him, I still feel him. The warm puffs of air on the back of my neck. The cage of his arms around mine.

“Or you could volunteer to walk,” he says with enough bite that I sense the threat inside of it. No complaining. Got it.

Desmond leads the horse not south toward Nettlerock, but east. Soon, the city wall is just a thin line in the distance behind us, and the cobblestone road becomes patchy. Every misplaced stone is a bump jostling us together, his crotch rhythmically grinding against me with an uncomfortable intimacy that has me gritting my teeth. It’s almost sensual, provocative in a way that I would enjoy with a different man.

Just not him. Of all the princes I could be straddling a horse with, why did it have to be a terrifying, surly fae Prince of Death? It doesn’t matter how enjoyable it is to stare at his strong hands on the reins, nor how nice it feels to have his arms around me.