Page 65 of Monstrous Travels as Wicked as Sin

Althea slipped the next excerpt under her arm and pushed another book against the wall in readiness. It was huge and heavy and hard to balance.

“Al…” The small sound sat there. She wasn’t sure if she’d like it if anyone else called her that, but she liked it from him. “You know, I’ve been getting your new passport organised. Your real one. And I saw that your birthday’s coming up.”

Another dangerous flutter of her heart. “Tomorrow.”

“Yeah. And, before this happened, I thought…” Long silence. “I was going to check with Percy, but I thought…” More silence. “I thought maybe I’d catch the train over and, um, depending what your plans were…” She turned around to look at him, so he dropped his gaze to the floor.

“That would have been fun.”

His eyes lightened and flitted back to hers, briefly, before lingering somewhere on the wall. “I thought I could get you your first official drink. Or something.”

Althea slammed the final book closed and clambered down to the floor. “I thought you weren’t supposed to drink.”

“I can. If I want to.” There was a rebellious anxiety in his features, mingled with what looked like irritation.

She took the teetering pile from him, impressed he hadn’t spilled it already. “Actually, there’s this place that does cheese toasties. And they use really fancy cheese. I think even Percy would approve. It’s got onions and… I don’t know, they put butter all over it, and garlic, and it all kind of crisps up and the cheese is all melted on the outside and inside at the same time and… Could we do that?”

“We could!” he virtually shouted.

Leo glowed. Positively glowed. He nodded, and Althea knew that one smile would keep her running for a good six weeks. “Okay. Let’s get this back so we can?—”

“Yeah.”

The wad of papers was, by this time, as heavy and as thick as her small hands could hold. As thick as stealing one of the larger books would have been. And Althea needed to stash it fast. “I don’t think this will fit down your jeans.”

“I could put some in these bags.” He shuffled them a little, smacking the meat dankly into the wall.

“Actually…” Althea disentangled the handles of the first bag, steadily cutting a red line into Leo’s fingers, and shoved itup onto the cistern. The meat sagged over the edges, but the containers of blood held it steady. Next, she took his other bag, which gave a metallic jangle. “This is heavy. What’s in it?” She dumped it on the closed toilet lid.

“Just tools,” Leo mumbled, turning his relieved wrists around

“Well, let’s see how much we can fit.” She pressed Leo’s arm to turn him, then lifted his shirt. He complied, and she went about shoving papers against his back, trying to keep the thing some sort of professional. Trying not to think too hard about how beautiful his slim, naked back was. Trying not to think too hard about that kiss. Trying not to wonder if he might turn back and kiss her now. If she should just kiss him. If he was half as turned on as she was thinking about kissing his neck. “Leo?”

He swivelled back around, pulling his shirt down over the stash with one hand, trying not to let the gigantic parka touch anything with the other. “How much is left?”

She pressed the remaining papers against his chest, he caught them by instinct, and perhaps having taken temporary leave of her senses due to the closeness of Leo in the toilet cubicle in the British Library during the theft of bookish goods, she ripped her shirt off, having remembered she was wearing her favourite purple bra, which she hoped would pull Leo a step closer to the kind of intimacy they’d shared in Italy. “Can you help me?”

Leo’s face turned blank, his cheeks turned pale, and he took several seconds to recover himself, which was both amusing and endearing to Althea. She pressed a hip towards him, but when he secured the papers, it wasn’t with the careful, smooth, moulding movements her hands had traced over Leo’s form. He arranged the papers brusquely, quickly. He blushed, but the sweet embarrassment was gone, and his eyebrows knit tightly.The documents being thus stored, he handed over her shirt, rough and uninterested.

Horrifying, the way she felt the need to turn away to put it back on. She slipped it down over the stolen pages, then felt the press of her parka against her elbow. She pulled it over the top of everything and zipped it right up to her chin.

When she faced him again, he had gathered his bags, and his hand was on the latch. There he paused with averted eyes just long enough to say, “As friends. Us going out, I mean.”

“Yeah,” she whispered, the hot press of humiliation burning against the back of her eyes. “I know. I didn’t think it was… something else.”

He gave a nod and opened the door, keeping about five paces ahead of her all the way to the station, where they boarded the train, then stood opposite one another, saying nothing all the way back to the safe house.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE

Percy thunk, thunk, thunked the flat side of his blade against his thigh while he thought his plan through.

How best to cut Joe so it would heal more easily? Where best to hurt him that would leave fewer noticeable scars? Exactly how far away was the nearest hospital? Was it a decent one? How long would they have to wait in the ER? How much blood is too much blood?

Any.

Any blood is too much blood

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