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  “Don’t be crude. And don’t argue.”

  I ducked my head, stunned into silence. It was as much of a scolding as I’d had from her in years. I tried to figure out how to get the answers I wanted without pissing her off. “Fine. You want me to go to Talia’s? You selling me to her?”

  She took her feet off of her desk and leaned her elbows on it to gaze at me. When I looked up, I saw a hint of compassion in her eyes. “I don’t sell my boys. You know that.”

  “Then why me?”

  She looked down at the blotter under her arms, toying with the pendant that hung between her breasts. She was deciding how much to tell me. “Talia has a client,” she said at last. “And I have a client. It just so happens that my client has a particular interest in her client, and her client has a penchant for exotic male whores.”

  I sighed and put my head in my hands. Most of the citizens of the city of Davlova had brown eyes, dusky skin, and sleek, dark brown hair. But not me. My skin was only a bit lighter than the norm, but my parents’ unnatural mixture of genes had granted me the dubious benefit of thick, black, kinky hair and bright green eyes. They made me stand out, which wasn’t exactly advantageous for a thief, but it was apparently enough to make me seem “exotic” to some flat.

  “I’m not a whore.” As if saying it enough times could make it true.

  She sighed. “Misha, I know you turn tricks.”

  “I pick the mark, and I have Jabin or Jimbo nearby if I need them. It’s not the same thing.”

  “But you know how to be fucked?”

  I felt myself blush, but she wasn’t being coy, so I swallowed hard and answered her. “I suppose I do.”

  I expected her to press, but she didn’t. Not yet. Instead, she stood and walked over to the buffet on the side of the room. I heard the clink of crystal. Her long lacy skirts swished around the ankles of her steel-tipped boots as she crossed back over to me. She set a glass of amber liquid down in front of me.

  “Drink.”

  The glass felt unusually cold against my skin. I lifted it and sniffed. Not the sour ale or the crabapple wine those of us in the trenches drank. Not whiskey, either. This was something elite and expensive. Something I didn’t even know the name of. It tasted like cold steel and made my lips numb.

  Anzhéla returned to her seat and leaned on her desk to study me. “This is a big fish, Misha. A really big fish. I have a client who wants information, and he’ll pay well for it. We’ve been looking for an in for two years, and we finally have one. You’re perfect, not just because of your looks, but because you have a good memory and you can talk without sounding like gutter trash. Plus, you’ve never been arrested.”

  I reached up instinctively to rub the nape of my neck, where the guards tattooed hash marks for each arrest. My neck was still clean. No blemishes there for this man to see while he fucked me. Nothing to tip him off that I was a criminal.

  “I can’t force you to go,” Anzhéla went on, pushing her advantage, “but I’m telling you: this is our chance, kid. The one we’ve been waiting for. The one that will take us from the trenches to the hill, like we’ve always dreamed.”

  “All I have to do is fuck him?”

  She held her hands up. “We’re not talking a one-night stiff here, Misha. This guy’s looking for a regular, and if you can convince him to let you fill that role, you’ll have access.”

  “To what?”

  “His house? His secrets? I don’t know for sure. What I know is, this man has enemies, and they’re willing to pay for information. Whatever information you can find that may benefit them.”

  I took another sip of the liquid. It made my extremities tingle, but it seemed to make my vision crystal clear.

  “This first night will be a test, Misha. I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know what he’ll do to you. If it’s too terrible, you can walk away tomorrow, I swear to the sky. But if you can hold strong...”

  I’d have a ticket out of the trenches. Away from the alleys full of refuse and wretches. Away from a life of thieving and whoring to make ends meet.

  Anzhéla watched me. Beautiful, as always, but with wrinkles starting to halo her eyes. A bit of sag in the flesh of her neck. She could have a man killed with a snap of her tiny fingers, but that wasn’t how she did things. There were plenty of stories on the street of clan kids being beaten or murdered by their den-marms, but not here. Not with her. She may have handed out a bruise or two now and then, but only when it was deserved.

  A big fish. The one we’d been waiting for. And I was the one she needed to see it through.

  I downed the rest of the liquid in one swallow. It was time to earn my keep.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I went to the back door of the whorehouse, as Anzhéla had instructed. It wouldn’t do for Talia’s upscale clients to see a petty thief walking up and ringing the bell. Inside, a petite woman led me to a marble bathroom. A tub of hot scented bubbles waited.

  I was nervous about what was to come—so nervous in fact that I’d vomited up my dinner on the way across town—but never in my life had I been granted access to such luxury. I soaked in the bath, scrubbing myself clean of the ash I usually used to dull my hair. Two women entered without knocking. They motioned me out of the tub and dried me off. They made me take the brown lenses out of my green eyes, then rubbed my skin with scented oils until I shone. One of them offered me a jar of thick, aromatic salve. “You’ll want to be ready in case he’s in a hurry. Do you want me to do your entrance?”

  I could only blink at her, unable to believe she’d asked me such a question. She was obviously a whore. Stunningly beautiful. In other circumstances, an offer like that might have been erotic, even if I wasn’t generally attracted to women. But not this time. My anxiety kept my cock in check.

  “I think I can handle that part myself.”

  When my skin met their satisfaction, they moved to my hair. Normally, I wore it tied in a tight queue down my back, but they were obviously intent on making me stand out. They used a gold band to hold it off of my forehead, then teased against its natural kink, making it stand around my head like some kind of crown. They rubbed handfuls of tinted oil into it until it glistened black, but reflected shades of blue and violet. They strapped me into strangely baggy purple pants, thick-soled boots, and a silk shirt. I thought a tailored jacket would come next, but instead, they draped a heavy brocade cape of silver and violet over my shoulders. It probably cost a mint. Finally, they painted black kohl around my eyes and gold glitter on my eyelids. When they were done, I surveyed myself in the mirror.

  Exotic.

  It pissed me off to have to admit it, but I sure as fuck seemed to fit the bill.

  I always carried two knives with me—one at my belt and one in my right boot—but they shook their heads at me in amusement when I asked for them. “You can’t go in with a weapon.”

  “Then how do I defend myself?”

  They glanced at each other, as if trying to decide which one of them would break the news to me.

  “You don’t,” the older one finally said.

  I didn’t like that answer at all, but there was no point in arguing. I was tucked into a carriage. A silent driver I hadn’t managed to see steered the team down the street. Past the trenches. Through the plaza. We stopped briefly at the gate so they could check the credentials of the carriage and driver—wouldn’t do to let gutter trash through, unless it was exotic-looking trash ordered up by one of the tattooed bastards for a night of entertainment—and then we went into the upper city and right up the fucking hill.

  My heart began to pound. Anzhéla had said a big fish. Still, it hadn’t quite occurred to me that she meant this big. One of the noble pureborn.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small packet of pills the whores had given me. “The white ones will keep you hard,” she’d said to me. “Talia says that’s important.”

  “And the blue ones?”

  “They’ll keep you calm.” She
blinked as if to hold back tears. “Trust me. It will make it easier. But only one at a time. They’re strong. Two will leave you barely conscious. More than three, and you might not wake up.”

  The idea of taking such a strong sedative scared me. At the time I hadn’t wanted it, but now I did. I left the white ones and dry-swallowed one of the others. I watched out the window and waited for the pill to take effect.

  The lower city may have been filled with dirt and squalor, but not here. The houses were built of shining white stone, bigger than Anzhéla’s theatre, bigger than Talia’s whorehouse, bigger than any inn. Gardens lined the walks. Stoops were lit by bright white lights—not gas-powered, but electric. Even that was forbidden to the lowborn in the trenches.

  Finally, the carriage pulled down an alley, although not the sort of alley I was familiar with. Not the kind full of refuse and waste. This was a cobbled walk, made for tidy house servants, well-fed horses and well-used slaves. I was taken through a gate, and then the carriage stopped. The driver came around and opened the carriage door.

  And for the second time that night, I went like somebody’s dirty little secret through a back door.

  The first thing I noticed upon entering the house was the light—not the sputtering, yellow light of candles or gas lamps, but the unwavering white glow of electricity. The walls were unstained by soot. Everything felt cleaner, and yet the brightness made my eyes water.

  I was met by a short, grey-haired man whose clothes marked him as either a servant or a well-dressed slave. He surveyed me up and down with eyes that betrayed nothing, then led me without a word down a hallway, up some stairs, through a door, down another hallway, up more stairs...

  The house was a maze. I couldn’t have found my way back to the door without help. Thick carpet muffled our steps, and music floated to me from some seemingly distant room. Ornate mirrors and gigantic portraits covered the walls, but the butler moved fast and I had to hurry to keep up. Finally, he admitted me into a bedchamber. I was surprised when he stepped in behind me and shut the door, his motions furtive and twitchy.

  Whatever he was about to do, I knew without asking it was forbidden.

  “Nobody here has names,” he said. “If you want to work for him, remember that.”

  Then he was gone.

  I looked around, studying my surroundings. The room was lit by bright electric overhead lamps, but was otherwise sparsely furnished. A giant, four-poster bed filled one corner. A small cabinet sat next to it. In the other corner, a single upholstered armchair rested in front of a barred and locked window. A doorway in the opposite wall led to a bathroom. I played with the faucets, simply because I could. Most buildings in the trenches had running water, but only one temperature. Here, the red knob shot steaming hot water into my waiting hands.

  The pill was beginning to take effect. My heart stopped racing. My hands stopped shaking. My senses became comfortably muffled. I took the other pills out and used my hand to cup water into my mouth to swallow them.

  I went back into the bedchamber to wait. I was afraid to touch the bed. It looked immaculately clean and ornate, topped with silk pillows and a fur coverlet. I worried my hands would dirty it until I remembered that I was cleaner than I’d ever been. I tested the mattress. I tangled my fingers into the thick fur of the blanket. It was coarser than it looked. I lay down on my back and looked up at the ceiling. I found myself staring back down from mirrored tiles. The ridiculous brocade cape was spread out beneath me. The white silk shirt made my skin look golden. My heavily lined green eyes seemed to glow.

  Inside my pants, the pills were doing their thing. It was strange to feel myself rising, and yet to feel no arousal. I watched myself in the mirror. The bulge was easy to discern under the purple fabric of my pants. I reached down and touched it, noting the languid smoothness of my motions. I rubbed my erection through my pants and was pleased to note that it still felt good.

  It felt damn good.

  I wrapped my hand around it. Not stroking. Just holding. I closed my eyes.

  I was starting to hope this might be fun.

  A deep voice woke me from my dream. “And here’s my whore.”

  The man—both my client and my mark—stood between me and the door. He was tall. Broad but lean.

  “Stand up.”

  I did. Even with the pills in my system, my heart began to race. My palms started to sweat. My ridiculous erection made a wobbly tent of my pants. I didn’t dare meet his eyes. I stared at a spot on wall over his left shoulder.

  “What’s your name?”

  I almost said it, but then I remember the butler’s words. I swallowed hard and said, “It’s whatever you want it to be.”

  He chuckled. “Very good, little whore. Either you’re very smart, or somebody in my house tipped you off.”

  I didn’t want him to think I was intelligent. I’d learned long ago that it’s always good to let the mark think he’s the smarter man. But I didn’t want to get the butler in trouble either. “Neither,” I said. “It was my mistress.”

  A grunt. I wasn’t sure if it was disgust or approval.

  “Look at me.”

  I did. He was several inches taller than I was. I guessed his age at near fifty, although he was still trim and fit. He had slate grey hair, slicked back from his temples, and the spidery blue tattoos of the pureborn on his right cheek.

  “Do you know me?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “My name is Donato. Do you know who I am?”

  My heart skipped a beat. Yes, I knew him, not on sight but by name. Donato was the city’s jury, judge and executioner. Anybody arrested or rounded up in the raids faced this man. He decided who walked free, who went to the prison camps, and who faced the gallows. It was said he took his morning tea while watching the executions from his balcony. I felt my bile rise. “By reputation only,” I said. And what a reputation it was. This was not a man to be crossed.

  “Good. Of course, in this room, I expect to be addressed as ‘sir’ or ‘master.’ Is that clear?”

  “Absolutely, sir.”

  He smiled at me. It wasn’t a nice smile. He looked eerily like a hawk, and I definitely felt like a mouse. The tattoos of aristocracy on his face were in an ancient language few could read. They were harsh and jagged. Ominous. I concentrated on calming my nerves.

  He reached out and touched my erection through my pants. He brushed his finger up my length. I couldn’t decide if it was erotic or not, if what I felt was discomfort or pleasure, but it made my breath catch in my throat.

  “Another hint from your mistress?” he asked.

  Do I say yes? Or do I pretend he had actually inspired my arousal?

  “It doesn’t matter,” Donato said, before I could formulate an answer. He grabbed my silk shirt and tore it open. He brushed his fingers up my chest. “I expect you to enjoy whatever I do to you. I don’t care what you have to do to make that happen—I don’t care if you take their drugs, or if you actually get off, or if you only pretend. But one way or another, I want to be convinced. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  He pinched my nipple hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. “Did you misunderstand my orders as to how you are to address me?”

  “No, sir. I mean, yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

  “You’re forgiven. This time.” He pinched again, not quite as hard as before, but hard enough. I moaned, remembering as I did that this should look like pleasure to him, even if it wasn’t. I closed my eyes and tipped my head backward, trying to concentrate on the warm pressure in my groin. I remembered how it felt to lie on the bed and see myself in the mirrors. When he pinched the other side, my moan of pleasure was only halfway pretend.

  “Good,” he said. “My little whore learns fast.” He let go of me. “Take off your clothes.”

  They were the nicest clothes I’d ever had on my body, even if the shirt was now torn. I placed them carefully on the chair before turning back to him, naked and vulnerab
le, uncomfortably aware of my cock sticking straight out from my groin like a battering ram.

  “I liked the cloak,” he said. “Put it back on.”

  I obeyed. When I turned to face him again, I could tell he liked what he saw. I didn’t like the man much, but seeing the naked lust in his eyes as he admired me made me feel powerful.

  “You are an awfully pretty whore,” In two quick strides, he crossed the room and grabbed a handful of my hair, pulling hard. “Get down on your knees.”

  I did. It wasn’t as if I had a choice. Once I was there, he used my hair to twist my head back, forcing me to look up at him.

  With his right hand, he touched the bulge in his pants. “Take it out.”

  My hands shook. I fought back tears. My cock was still hard, but only because of the pills.

  His pants were ornate, with overlapping folds of fabric and laces instead of buttons and zippers. I fumbled at the ties, and finally pulled open his fly. His cock bobbed out, thick and hard, his foreskin beaded with moisture. I must have done it too slowly, because he grabbed it with his right hand. He pulled my hair harder, tipping my head back so far, I feared my neck would break. He put the tip of his cock against my lips. I tasted the salt of his cum.

  He smelled good. I had to give him that. He at least smelled clean.

  “Now, pretty little whore. Show me how much you like making me come.”

  And I did. I sucked him as though my life depended on it because I could almost believe it was true. I moaned. I used my hands. I looked up into his eyes as often as I dared, frightened at the stark blue ink on his face, doing my best to look like a high-class whore who got off on his job and not some guttersnipe marking a flat. In the end, I even started to enjoy it. He was big and masculine, and had I not known how cruel he could be, I might have found him attractive. He could have continued to be rough while I did the job, but he wasn’t. He held my head, but he let me work. He gave himself up to the pleasure of being serviced.

  “What a good little whore,” he moaned as I sucked him. “Pretty, dirty little whore.”