Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Magic.
Holy fuck . . . magic.
All those years with monsters. They’d come out of the dark, killing humans and other monsters alike. Those days had been bleak. If she hadn’t turned to thieving before the war, she would have been dead with all the others once it started.
In some way, Jason had saved her life by throwing her into his own dark world. Not that she hadn’t suffered considerably at his hands over and over again. But even in all those years of death and destruction, she’d always known that it was monsters not magic. Monsters . . . not magic. And yet . . .
“Now do you believe me?” he asked.
She opened and closed her mouth. “Why are you telling me this?”
Nothing ever came for free. Not in her world. Not with all she had gone through. If magic was a rare and precious thing that had been hidden from the public even when monsters had come out of hiding and somehow, against all odds, she had some sort of the gift in her wretched veins, then what was the price of it all?
“Because I want to offer you a job.”
Chapter Four
A job. There was the cost.
The last thing in the world she wanted to do was work for him. She hated the puffed-up, insipid billionaires she stole for, but they were predictable. They wanted knickknacks and baubles and artwork and other useless things. They paid her handsomely for them, though. So she worked for crime bosses and madams and anyone else who had the means to pay her to do the thing she enjoyed.
But with Graves, she knew, she just knew that getting involved with him would be the death of her. Anything he’d ask her to steal would be an entirely different kind of danger. Already he spoke of magic. So impossible and yet somehow . . . real. She had learned an important lesson growing up on the streets—what was and wasn’t worth dying for.
Still, she pursed her lips and waited for the offer. This should be interesting.
“What kind of job?” she asked evenly.
“The kind you’re clearly good at. I need you to steal something for me.”
She eyed him up and down. Looked through the cool exterior he portrayed. He’d gone from wanting to kill her to offering her a job a little too fast. This was something he wanted badly. Something he’d cough up a lot of money for. She could read that on her mark already.
The part she didn’t understand was why her and what was in it for her. Because money wasn’t enough on a job like this. Even the security she so desperately wanted for her friends wasn’t worth certain death.
She let her eyes go round, revealing the doe-eyed look that made men underestimate her. “Why would you need me?”
He smiled slowly. “Because I can’t get everything I want myself, obviously.”
So, she was valuable, then? Well, that gave her leverage.
If he couldn’t get this item himself and another thief wouldn’t do, then did that make her the only person he could work with? She wished she could read more off of him, but he was a closed book. Only revealing enough information to get her interested in the offer. Clever. It was her own favorite tactic.
“I can pay you handsomely,” Graves said when she didn’t respond. “I can make your life very, very comfortable.”
“What? You think I need the money?” Her voice lowered to a rasp.
He dragged his gaze up and down her figure clad in black. Her clothes were enough to get by. Nothing fancy, but they worked. But she knew what he saw when he looked at her. He saw exactly what she wanted him to see. A torn collar from his roughhousing, scuffed boots, and gross overconfidence.
His smirk grew. “Come now. It’s plain you need money. This bauble here,” he said, extracting the ring. “It can probably fetch you several thousand. Enough to get by for a couple of months in this city.”
She blatantly winced, giving him the impression that she had no idea how much a diamond of that size was actually worth.
“Not even that much?” he asked, noting her expression, walking right into her trap. “Pity.”
Even though she’d been reaching for it, she still hated the word. Pity was a death kiss. When she’d been running in the slums, she’d despised the pitying looks. The stares that said she’d never amount to anything.
The looks from Jason’s other protégés. At first envious that she was singled out and then . . . the torment for being his favorite. Worse, the pity when they found the bruises he tried so carefully to hide on her body.
But they all realized eventually what Graves soon would when she fleeced him out of everything.
“I don’t need your pity,” she snarled defensively.
“Fine. I can pay and pay well. Just say yes. Let me give you all that you desire.”