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Chelsea Handler Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang (epub
Brit Brinson [Dia of the Dead Dia of the Dead (epub)
Cody Goodfellow [Radiant Dawn Radiant Dawn (epub)
Cate Tiernan [Immortal Belove Immortal Beloved (epub)
C J Busby [Deep Amber 01] Deep Amber (retail) (epub)
Carl Ashmore [Time Hunters 01 The Time Hunters (epub)
Drew Hayes [Super Powereds 02 Super Powereds Year 2 (epub) i
Beth Harbison [Shoe Addict 02 Secrets of a Shoe Addict (epub)
Cara Lynn Shultz [Dark World The Dark World (retail) (epub)
Covert One 3 The Paris Option Ludlum Robert

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.One by one he discarded my books.With a muffled curse, he upended my bag and pawed through the papers and silly oddments I had snatched up to bring with me.Family birth warrants and the Camarilla validations of our handmarks.My parents’ marriage contract.Montclaire’s planting book, which I would need to return to Bernard, merited a brief look.A thumb-sized portrait of my mother.The journal I’d not written in since I was an overimaginative twelve-year-old.The magnifying glass from the study.The engraved silver scissors Mama had given me on my sixteenth birthday.Bits and pieces of a life in splinters.The Norgandi seized on the journal at once and set it aside.Had I not been increasingly sick at the thought of his magic working, I would have laughed at the consideration of desperate criminals reading my lurid speculations on male anatomy, “women’s mysteries,” and what went on in my parents’ bedchamber.The planting book went with the journal.The papers he reviewed and tossed aside.The scissors and the glass also merited study.The masked sorcerer laid the magnifying lens on a silver plate from his cloak, encircled them with the length of yarn, and mumbled a word that sounded something like fyacor or fillator, words that meant starfish or evil brother or something like.My Aljyssian vocabulary had evaporated for the moment.Though he blew a note of disappointment, the Norgandi tossed the magnifier atop the journal.His examination of my scissors resulted in the same.“Baggage seems a mite scant for a lahddee traverling.” Though its molded expression remained serene, his displeasure battered me like hailstones.He jerked his head at his men.“Outen their pockies ’n see what’s else hid.Soft wi’ the lahddee.Nae want ’er mussed till we scoff’er spiniks.”What were spiniks? My head was spinning.Not jewels.Treasures? No.Something to be scoffed—stolen.Thank the stars that the cart carrying Lianelle’s letter and charms had lagged so far behind us.As he dumped clothes and sundries from Duplais’ case, two of the others sheathed their weapons.While the fellow with the hoop earrings stood behind Duplais, the Fassid searched the secretary from neck to boots.Duplais stood rigid, as the brigand tossed a slim leather-bound book, an overlarge silver coin, and a small, tarnished brass case to the ground.Then it was my turn.The man with the hoop earrings laid his thick-knuckled fingers on my shoulders and slid them down my arms all the way to the wrists.My flesh shrank away from my skin.When he returned his creeping hands to my shoulders, his thumbs strayed above my bodice to my bare throat, and stroked the skin with a slow, discomforting pressure.Then his fingers splayed wide and his thumbs circled downward.The fire in my gut blossomed.“Don’t touch me!” I said hoarsely, bringing my forearms up sharply between his and slapping them outward, knocking his hands away.At the same time I lurched backward, right into the arms of the Fassid.I flailed at him and dodged to the side before he could grab me.“I’ve no pockets and nothing you would—”A guttural screech split the gloom.Something huge and dark swept out of the trees.A rider.Pandemonium erupted as someone’s grunting curse turned to a bubbling shriek.Duplais’ chestnut reared.Ladyslipper whinnied.With frightened snorts, our horses vanished into the wood.As I strained and twisted, Duplais enveloped me in his arms and slammed me to the ground.A second horse and rider charged into the fray, so close the wind of their passing fluttered Duplais’ collar into my eyes.They must have crossed the very spot we’d been standing.Duplais’ heart drummed through his coat as I tried to wriggle out from under him.Two steps away, the Fassid lay unmoving, an arrow protruding from his eye.“Into the trees,” Duplais growled into my ear, before rolling off me.Gripping my hand and pressing my head low, he half led, half dragged me deep into the twiggy underbrush.“Fitch the lahddee! Fitch ’er!” The breathless Norgandi sounded as if he were too busy to fitch me himself.Savage grunts accompanied the clank and scrape of steel.Duplais gave me no chance to heed my footing.When I tripped on a mass of roots, he had me up again before I could spit out the dirt and dead leaves.We’d gone perhaps twenty metres from the road when he backed me against a tree.Stronger than he appeared, he forced me still and pressed a finger to my lips.I shoved his finger from my mouth, but bit my lip and stayed quiet.The weapons fell silent.Hoofbeats retreated toward the crossing.But Duplais did not move until a nighthawk, which did not sound exactly like a proper Aubine nighthawk, trilled plaintively.“I believe we can go back now.” Duplais stepped away and straightened his doublet.The Fassid and two others lay dead.My eyes dwelt on the bloodslathered bodies only long enough to see that neither the leader with the shaped mask nor the man with the earrings was among them.I hoped they were collapsed around the next bend.A broad-chested, mustachioed man, his sweating skin the rich golden tan of long-brewed tea, moved from one body to the next, kicking them to elicit signs of life.He carried himself soldierly, and his leather armor was spangled with steel plates, which spoke of true battle experience, so my father had taught me.But his hair fell all the way to his jaw—most unsoldierly.I knew why when his head whipped around at our approach.Slow and purposeful, he drew his black locks behind his ears—horribly mutilated ears.I quickly dropped my gaze, my skin flooded with shame.Only a determination to decency forced words out of me.“Captain de Santo, it appears you and your”—I glanced about in vain for the rider in black—“friend saved our lives.Thank you.”“I was asked,” he said, jerking his head at Duplais, “else I might have thought different.”My father had done this.To hide his own duplicity, Papa had made a distraction of de Santo, once captain of the king’s guard, by accusing him of jeopardizing the king’s life.He had badgered and bullied and rushed the captain to judgment, cropping his ears with an ax, thus condemning him to everlasting humiliation and disgrace far worse than the pain of the mutilation.It had cost a good soldier his honor, his livelihood, and his family.De Santo had testified at Papa’s trial, as I had.I hoped bearing witness against his tormentor had restored his honor in his own mind, even if no one in the world would ever see past the testimony of his cropped ears.“The others got away?” Duplais was examining the bodies, yanking off the masks, searching for anything to identify them.“The shadow man took after them,” said de Santo.“The henchman’s skewered already.I doubt he’ll tell us aught when he stumbles.I stayed back, lest they’ve friends about.”Indeed, moments later, the black horse dragged a fourth body—that of the man with the earrings—into the trampled glen.“No luck with the leader?” said Duplais.The “shadow man,” dressed and cloaked in the color of midnight, shook his head.A black silk scarf wound around his face and neck hid all features save his eyes, and a flat, wide-brimmed hat shielded those from view.As soon as de Santo untied the rope, the rider moved off into the trees, denying me any chance of identifying him in the future, except that he was more graceful in the saddle than any horseman I’d ever observed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]