Page 50 of Thief of Night (The Charlatan Duology #2)

“The apartment that you told me was cheap?” Charlie’s thoughts were all over the place.

Posey gave her a guilty grin. “But don’t you love it?”

“Is working for them what you want?” Charlie asked. “I thought you hated the Cabals.”

Posey chewed on her lip. “It’s what I want for now.”

It wouldn’t be easy to get out if she changed her mind, but since Charlie had made the same bad bargain, there was no point in saying so.

It occurred to her that Posey seemed serious about protecting her, and Charlie very much hoped that wasn’t her real reason for joining. “Then okay. I’m glad for you.”

Posey seemed flummoxed by that reaction. “So I can help.”

Charlie surrendered to the inevitable. “If anyone can find out where the shadows are being kept, it’s Malhar right now. I’ll get out of the way. Text me what you find out.”

“I will,” Posey promised.

When Charlie returned to the table, she didn’t sit. Instead she stood beside Red’s chair and put a hand on his shoulder. He smiled up at her in a way that made her stomach hurt.

“We should go,” he said to Archie, as though he couldn’t bear to be without her a moment longer.

“Plenty of time for us to catch up tomorrow,” Archie said, then turned his attention to Charlie. “And for me to get to know the girl who stole Remy’s heart.”

“I hope so.” Charlie glanced over at Malhar. “It was so interesting to talk with you.”

Malhar met her eyes, his expression an apology and a plea. Archie slapped Red on the back. Posey gave Charlie a small nod.

The night had grown colder and a thin sheet of ice had frozen over everything. Salt crystals crunched under Charlie’s boots where the staff had scattered them.

“It looks so peaceful,” she said, shivering even under Red’s coat. She thought the sleepy Hatfield church must have looked the same before the massacre. As though nothing bad could ever happen there.

“Do you want to give up looking for the shadows and get your sister and Malhar out of here?” Red said.

Charlie gave him a long look, thinking of some of the things he’d said over the last few weeks. “Did you guess that she’d joined a Cabal?”

He looked at the frozen ground. “I figured she might be working for someone. And juicing her shadow.”

“You mean feeding it blood that’s not hers,” she offered incredulously, even though the context made it pretty clear.

“I don’t think she’s hurting anyone.” He paused for a moment, then shrugged. “Much.”

“She says she can find out where the shadows are being held on the property,” Charlie said. “Look, I know Mr. Punch is going to be furious when they go missing. But he’s going to be furious anyway. He has three gloamists here. They’re going to tell him he was impersonated.”

“We’ll have to be sure they don’t,” Red said, a threat in his voice.

“Mark has got to be mixed up in this somehow,” Charlie went on. “I told you how Mr. Punch tried to recruit me to steal shadows. He might have found a different thief.”

“He would have had to bring him on very recently,” Red reminded her. “You only just turned him down.”

“What else could Mark possibly be doing here?” she demanded.

Red frowned. “Gloamist?”

She shook her head. “Not when I knew him.” And definitely not enough money to be a guest.

“If we find him, I can persuade him to talk,” Red offered darkly.

She just bet he could. “In the meantime, we should check out where they’re putting Mr. Punch. It’s got to be close to where the Cabal security is staying.” Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she texted Posey: which is yr room?

Posey texted her back the name of the place: Woodgrove 3.

That would be one of the cottages on the property. Charlie held up her phone so he could see the message. He nodded and headed for their golf cart.

Red drove them down the dirt path, parking beside an iced-over lake. “I think it’s up that way.”

He climbed off the cart and crept toward the cottage. She followed. A sign at the edge of the driveway marked it as Woodgrove 3. Woodgrove 1 was across the street and inside, the lights were on. “Wait here,” he said. As a shadow, he slipped easily through the trees.

Charlie shivered, his coat around her shoulders. She slid her arms into the sleeves.

He was back a few moments later, but didn’t bother to shift from shadow. Against the bright snow in the moonlight, she could see him gesturing to her to follow him.

“ The men are inside Woodgrove 1, playing cards. So long as we don’t give them a reason to come across, they won’t .” The words were a whisper around her, almost as if they were carried by the wind.

Hoping that was true, she followed him across the road, to Woodgrove 3.

It was larger than the cottage where they were staying, with a teak hot tub in the back.

Red flowed under the back door and opened it for Charlie.

A fire had been lit in the living space and in the bedroom, the blankets had been turned down.

Fresh flowers sat on both bedside tables.

Posey’s suitcase was open on a stand. Clothing had been hung in the closet, toiletry bags placed in the bathroom.

Red came down from upstairs. “ Two more bedrooms, ” he said in that same whispery wind voice. “ Nothing in them .”

No shadows here, then. Nothing much else either. Charlie turned to go when she noticed a light blinking on the phone resting on a long desk, beside a domed plate of complimentary bonbons. She followed the printed directions on an attached sticker to get to the messages.

The first was from their personal butler at Solaluna, explaining how to get ahold of her, and several services she would be able to provide, including food at any time, spa appointments, and scheduling activities like archery or aerial yoga.

The second was from a different woman. Please bring the remainder of the stock to room 210, she said with a crisp efficiency.

Stock? Did that mean shadows? Taking out her cell, Charlie texted her sister: Your cottage is clear. No monsters under the bed. Can you find out who’s staying in room 210?

If her sister couldn’t, Charlie was going to have to make another run at the front desk.

Heading out of the cottage through the back door, she found Red suddenly beside her. No longer shadow, he pressed his foot against something, kicking it into the path. Two cigarette butts.

“Smoking at a wellness retreat?” Charlie raised her eyebrows.

“Everyone has habits they indulge in secret,” Red replied, although they both knew it was unlikely to be something so innocuous.

She leaned down and picked up the filter.

It was marked with distinctive gold lines.

“This guy definitely has some bad habits.” If the former harvester was here, what was he looking for?

Immediately she wondered if his presence had to do with her or Red, but since these cigarettes were found outside Mr. Punch’s assigned cottage, it seemed likely he was looking for the gloamist leader.

And considering what he’d done to Rooster, she didn’t want to think about what he’d do to her sister.

“If he spots Malhar,” Red said, loping back in the direction of the golf cart, “then he’ll believe Mr. Punch is staying elsewhere.”

Charlie hoped that was true. “Assuming he knows Mr. Punch’s real identity.” But she thought the harvester probably did. If Mr. Punch was trying to recruit Charlie, then he was trying to keep what he’d been doing away from the rest of his organization.

“You should take the cart back,” he said. “The cold won’t bother me. Leave me here and I’ll watch to see if he returns. At the very least, I can make sure Posey and Malhar return unharmed.”

“I’ll stay for a while with you.”

Red glared. “You’re going to freeze.”

“Distract me. Tell me about Archie.” She shifted closer to him on the cart. “He seems to think the Cabals are a cult, but I think he kind of wants to join.”

“I think he’d rather be the leader.”

Charlie snorted. “ We could start a cult too. Make everyone wear white and donate blood to you.”

Red gave her a half-smile. “And dance naked under the full moon?”

“In the summer,” she told him, trying to surreptitiously pull his coat more tightly around herself. Watched her own breath fog in the air.

“You’re cold,” he said. “We should—”

“ You’re cold,” she accused.

Red laughed, then shook his head—maybe at her, maybe at himself. “Were you always like this?”

“Worse,” she told him.

“And I liked it?” But his sarcasm was soft-edged, inviting her to play along.

“You loved it,” she told him.

Catching her gaze, he leaned forward and pulled her into his arms. Surprise stilled Charlie’s movements as he kissed her. His mouth was gentle, but she felt the touch of his lips like a shock going through her. Fork in an electric socket.

She hadn’t expected him to touch her. She hadn’t been sure he wanted to touch her.

Red’s rough fingers slid into her hair to cup the back of her head. He moved to kiss her cheek. Her eyebrow. Her hairline. She shivered with sensation. Her skin felt starved. She wanted his hands everywhere at once.

“You should go back.” His voice sounded as ragged as if he’d been shouting.

“Well, I’m definitely not doing that now .”

This time when he kissed her, it was a hard, bruising kiss that she met and matched.

She pressed her mouth to his in a snarl.

Moving up onto her knees on the seat to angle closer to him, she dipped her fingers into the waistband of his suit pants.

His hands slid beneath her coat, cold against the silk of her dress and her overheated skin.

Then his hands were pushing up her slip dress, finding the hot skin of her thighs.

She shivered against him.

Headlights swung around the curve. He pulled back from her abruptly, looking at her as though he’d woken from some enchantment. As though she was the villain who’d put the spell on him.

The car sped past, a Mercedes, driving faster than it should on these roads. Another gloamist, checking in. Soon the place would be full of them.

“We should stop,” Red said, closing his eyes against the sight of her, disheveled, with kiss-swollen lips.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Definitely should.”

His eyes were coals, burning in the night. He leaned toward her again, pressing his mouth to hers. He licked over her lips and then parted them, his tongue hot in her mouth.

She shifted, swinging her leg over him so that she was straddling his thighs. His hardness pressed against her stomach and she moved against him, in a pantomime of what she wanted, a promise.

Red gave a soft, pained groan, his mouth on her throat. His teeth scraped over her skin.

His gaze on her was hot and hungry as his hands pushed her dress higher. She gasped as the cold air hit her exposed skin. The spark of desire was so sharp that it hurt.

“Nothing scares you,” he whispered against her neck. “Not even monsters. But what if I horrify you?”

She saw the hard edge of his features in the moonlight and felt a jolt of nerves. Felt the firm grip of his hands. She stilled her movements, although the thrum of her desire felt like a second heartbeat. “You won’t.”

“There are things I could show you.” He shifted a little, blurring at the edges. Eyes sparking coals, body half shadow.

A thick, warm fog slid over her skin. Her eyes went wide in surprise and she sucked in a sharp breath as it moved over her belly, over the knot of scarred skin where the bullet had struck her, over the curve of her breasts.

It was hot and strange and absolutely terrifying.

She felt as though some midnight god had fallen to earth.

“ Tell me to stop and I will .” His voice was in the air around her, making her shiver with something that wasn’t at all cold.

“I—” Charlie started. “Can you enjoy this?”

“ I want your desire, ” he said, and never had his otherness been so clear. “ For me. As I am .”

“I want your desire too,” she said and closed her eyes, because despite him calling her fearless, part of her was very, very scared.

Scared, as shadow stroked over her nipples, shadow tendrils glided up her thigh, touching her impossibly, all at once, in so many places. Afraid, and filled with wonder too, as though the night sky itself had descended to lie with her in all its spangled glory.

She had to look, had to see him. She opened her eyes to his burning gaze.

“ I have never wanted anyone more than you, ” he said and kissed her again. She tried to focus on his mouth, to hold on to one solid thing in a blur of sensation.

She whimpered against his lips as shadow touched her everywhere, over the curve of her backside, pooling in the hollow of her throat, parting her thighs, parting her slickness. It was like being touched with a thousand tongues, a thousand licking flames. Her whole body throbbed.

Then he moved over her, and inside her, and all around her. He was the chasm and the firmament. He was the air she breathed.

Charlie became a candle that needed no wick, because the wax was aflame. She forgot to move. Forgot the cold. Forgot not to cry out as inhuman pleasure broke over her, obliterating all thoughts of anything but sensation.