Total pages in book: 194
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Everything had gone right, and yet there was no bracelet. Where the hell could the queen be keeping it? She scoured the safe one more time, testing for a false back or hidden compartments, but no amount of looking would make the bracelet appear. With another curse, she sealed up the safe and made a quick sweep of the queen’s rooms, but there didn’t appear to be any other safe inside her chambers. There was likely another vault deep in the heart of the palace hiding the rest of her jewels, but that was an entirely different sort of mission. The kind Kierse would need a great deal more planning to attempt.
“Fuck,” she repeated as she backtracked to the window.
She made the return jump to the lantern, and her hand caught on the edge as she moved forward. She withheld a cry as it split open. At least she’d judged the trajectory better this time and landed on her feet on the neighboring balcony. Her palm was only bleeding a little, but still, she scoured the room until she found a handkerchief in a dresser drawer and wrapped it around her hand to stem the flow. Once that was finished, she reclaimed her heels, pulled them back on, and went to listen at the door.
It was silent, save for the two guards she had already accounted for. With a sigh, she pushed into slow motion and hustled back into the hallway. The guards didn’t even turn in her direction as she bypassed them. As soon as she was out of sight around a corner, she dropped out of slow motion with a huff. Her thoughts were locked on the bracelet and what she was going to have to do to acquire it now.
Then a vampire guard strode out of an alcove, fangs extended. A girl in a low-cut blue dress giggled behind him, trying to pull him back into their liaison. His nostrils flared before his eyes widened at the sight of Kierse.
The cut on her hand. Shit.
He barked at her in French.
“I…” she said in panic. She started to backtrack, but there were guards in the other direction as well.
“Wait, stop,” the man said, switching to English.
This would have been a good time for the rest of her new wisp powers to kick in. The powers she currently didn’t have but research said wisps were capable of. While she had time manipulation, absorption, glamours, and an affinity for finding treasure—which amounted to the ne’er-do-well thief variety of wisp magic—she was still missing magical intuition, pixy lights, portaling, and persuasion. Her ancestors had definitely been using the latter to lure people off their paths and manipulate them to a different course in all those old folktales. But she had spent all spring fighting with her powers and had come to the conclusion that either she couldn’t access them…or she didn’t have them. Since she was in dire straits with this vampire and they still didn’t manifest, she was going to go with the latter.
Which meant Plan B. Kierse could either play the stupid party guest or go for thieving rule number two: run. Running usually felt like the better option, but she didn’t have enough safe exits.
As the guard approached her, she made her choice. She put her hand to her chest and released a sniffle. “Thank God, I found you.”
Confusion flickered across his face. “You’re not supposed to be in here. You need to return to the party.”
“I got turned around,” she lied. “I’m not even sure how I got through here. And then I fell and cut myself.” She held her bleeding hand toward the vampire with a little tremble. “I would be so grateful if you could help me.”
She batted her eyelashes and tried to lay it on thick. She could act so long as she didn’t have to hold onto it for long. Stealth had always been a better option.
His eyes darted down to her hand, and then he hastily retracted his fangs. After clearing his throat, he said, “This way.”
He grasped her arm and propelled her down the hall.
“Wait, I—” she began.
Then a man rounded the corner ahead of them and said in a smooth voice, “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
A chill ran up her back as she promptly froze. The guard stuttered in shock at the sight of the man dressed in a pitch-black suit. His midnight-blue hair was artfully pushed off of his angular face, and his gray eyes held the power of thunderstorms. He was easily the most beautiful nightmare Kierse had ever seen.
“Graves,” she whispered.
“Unhand my wife.”
Chapter Two
Wife.
Had he just said wife?
Graves held a gloved hand out to her. “Shall we?” The tilt of his lips said he knew exactly what she thought of the title he’d bestowed upon her. But she was smart enough to take the out he was offering.