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He gave me a crooked grin. “I bet you do.”
A few players nearby glanced over at us, then away again. The sailor adjusted his cards so he could keep playing around me, but his attention kept coming back to my lips, my cleavage, my eyes.
I studied him, but with less enthusiasm. Last night, with the buzz of drink in my veins, I’d been able to imagine that he was someone else. That his body was Yves’s body. That his mouth was Yves’s mouth. Now I realized how hard the drink had been working to help me fill in the gaps. I didn’t want to think about the vampire prince, but I was unable to stop myself from imagining how different it would feel to straddle his lap. How the sadness in his eyes would burn away the second I was on top of him. He’d run his hand down the laces of my bodice and twine his fingers in the strings. He’d yank me forward and claim my throat like it belonged to him.
The sailor’s breath ghosted against my face. The scent was laced with rum and the stink of tobacco. It was enough to pull me from the ridiculous fantasy. Yves was nothing to me, and I was nothing to him.
Which was why I threw his coin into the harbor.
“About this relic,” he inquired. “I need details.”
If he wanted to know how powerful it was, all he had to do was ask the doorman how I was able to slip in without paying a single coin.
But his question revealed a bigger problem: I still hadn’t decided which relic I was going to sell. After what happened in the alley, I knew which one needed to go. The most powerful, but also the most troublesome. “I have a very powerful relic—” Dominique’s name was on the tip of my tongue, but what came out was, “—touched by the Demon of Torment.”
I paused, not quite sure why I’d said that, but the discomfort slipped quickly away. I reasoned it didn’t matter which one I parted with, just that I had made a decision.
The sailor whistled. “If it’s really from Torment herself, Lou will buy it.”
I forced myself to say, “Good.”
“Oh, and before I take you to him, you should know that I take a finder’s fee.”
It was my turn to raise a brow. He’d been more than generous last night, offering to purchase my drinks. Now he wanted a cut of my sale?
“How much?” I inquired.
“Twenty percent.”
“Twenty!” I gasped, ready to throw his drink in his face. “Five.”
“Twenty,” he countered.
I pulled my wand and stuck the point between his ribs. “Five.”
“Naughty, naughty,” Hartley drawled as his hand found the curve of my hip and squeezed. “You can’t use dark magick against me when I’m wearing this.”
He glanced down at his medallion, and my eyes followed. My relics were powerful enough to slip past his little charm, but I decided to keep that fact to myself.
Hartley continued. “I do like a woman who knows what she wants.” His lips ghosted over my cheek. “I could be persuaded down to eighteen if you let me have another taste of you.”
I laughed at him, which was rude, but I didn’t apologize.
As much as I enjoyed getting a discount, I wasn’t going to let him fumble around for another ten minutes and sweat all over me. And as soon as I found Della, we were leaving. “Twenty it is.”
His grin fell, and I extricated myself from his lap.
“Well, if you’re sure,” he said, watching me adjust my tits with a dumbstruck look before collecting his crutch and using it to help himself out of his seat. “This way.”
Worry burrowed inside my stomach, and I glanced back toward the entry, wondering if this was all a mistake. If perhaps I shouldn’t have followed Mama’s shade. But I couldn’t turn back now. All I needed to do was swallow my discomfort, make the sale, and move on.
Chapter 9
Dévorante
CORA
The sailor led me across the tavern, and through a heavy black curtain he pushed aside with his crutch. The room behind it was smaller and darker, lit by hanging oil lamps that cast orange halos over a handful of red-haired witches sitting hunched over small tables, counting stacks of coins and making notes in ledgers.
