Page 37 of Dance with the Dragon Duke

“I know,” she choked, and her hand fell away. Her eyes blinked shut again. She gripped his tail so tight he felt the anguish in the bite of her nails.

He brushed his lips across her trembling chin. “Just get some rest. I know you need it.”

Her breath left her in a rush, her shoulders relaxed, and her fingers softened. The lines of her face smoothed. She was asleep in seconds.

Dark didn’t stare at her all night. Just for most of it.

Chapter 9

Tomorrow

Tomorrow awoke before the sun. She unwound herself from Dark’s tail, then attended to her morning rituals, wrapping herself in a housecoat before going in search of Margot and Susan.

She found Susan first. The madam sat in the dining room, holding a newspaper, her honey-colored hair in a knot at her nape. She ignored the hardboiled eggs before her in favor of two steaming pots of coffee.

“I need to show you something,” Susan told her. She set aside the paper and rose to her feet, ushering Tomorrow toward the entryway. The madam pulled open the front door and stepped aside. Outside, the sky was dark. Gaslights illuminated the opening.

“What is—” After adjusting to the light, Tomorrow’s eyes went wide. “Is that a . . . ?”

“Our Bloody Queen of Night works fast, doesn’t she?” Susan said proudly, gesturing at the gory stump of a large fae foxtail nailed to the door. Her nose wrinkled. “Wish they weren’t sowetwhen she puts them up, though. We’ll have to repaint the entrance again.”

The madam closed the door. Tomorrow hugged herself against winter’s chill, unable to process her feelings. That tail belonged to the brute who’d followed her, the man who’d beenthere that night ready to hurt her with his other scoundrels. But someone had finally listened. Someone with power finally cared.

It was a revelation. She wondered if anyone would have helped at all if she hadn’t gotten so lucky in her friends. Her stomach did a small flip.

Susan scratched her chin contemplatively. “We’d probably better wait until the queen’s through before we paint anything. There were, what, four of them that night, plus your cousin? Maybe more if she learns of others he’s used along the way.”

Would bits of Glen Freest soon be hanging from that door? Gods above and below, Tomorrow hoped so. She wouldn’t be personally responsible for his death, but if the Queen took justice into her own hands, as was her right, well then that didn’t make her a rat, now did it?

With Susan’s help, a messenger was dispatched to the Westarow estate. Margot joined them in the dining room for a quick, early breakfast.

“Do either of you ever sleep?” Tomorrow asked. The brothel kept them busy most of the day and night, and then they often attended nocturnal events just before sunrise.

“The wicked never sleep, love,” Margot told her with a wink.

“We catch a few hours here and there,” Susan said, sipping her coffee.

“More there than here,” Margot teased. She then gave Tomorrow a rundown of her efforts with the magistrate from the day before.

Later, Margot returned to the bedroom with Tomorrow to help her dress in a few new borrowed things.

“You’re right,” Tomorrow said, standing in her shift, keeping her voice down so she didn’t disturb the duke still asleep in the fourposter. She gestured at her borrowed clothing. “These do fit me better.”

“Took them in at the waist and hemmed them myself, I did,” Margot said. “I was supposed to be a seamstress in another life, but that’sbrutalwork and I’ve always loved a good time too much.”

Tomorrow held her corset in place while Margot worked the laces.

Dark stirred and sat up in bed, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. His linen nightshirt hung loose below his neck, revealing the top of a hairless chest and a pattern of black and gilded scales that trailed down the valley of his abdomen, out of sight. A pattern of scales Tomorrow wanted very much to trace until she could see where they ended.

She worked her throat and kept her thoughts to herself.

“You look like you’re feeling better,” he said, voice thick.

“I am feeling better.” Tomorrow’s chin dropped. The unpleasant memory of the night before assaulted her. The things she’d had to say to him made her stomach churn.

“Well, it’s been a few days since anyone has tried to murder her,” Margot said. “That’s got to make a person feel good. And the queen nailed a gift to our door last night.”

Tomorrow’s laugh lacked humor. “It all certainly helps.”

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