Page 21 of The Orc's Thief
I don’t have all night to spend here. I need to return home and read the pages I stole from Damen’s ledger. They came at a high price, and I’ll be damned if I don’t make use of them. Besides, the entire gang will be searching for the burglar who dared break into their mansion, so it would be best if I made myself scarce for a few days. Or better yet, a few weeks, during which time I’ll find Lindie. Once I have her, she might be able to explain to her boss why I had to break into his office.
Or I might find myself permanently exiled from Ultrup. If Lindie is nowhere to be found, I won’t dare return to the city anytime soon.
I think of my cozy apartment above the bakery and Etta, who will worry about me if I disappear in the night. I’ll have to tell her I’m leaving for another messenger job that will keep me on the road for a while. I’ll use the money I stole to pay for my room in advance so she’s not short on funds.
In fact…
I inch closer to the unconscious man and pat him down, slipping the purse I’d chucked at him from his pocket. I stole this money fair and square, and he’s got more than enough stashed in that lockbox in his room. I mutter a curse, annoyed I didn’t think to check him for weapons earlier. Running my hands along his side, I find the hilt of a dagger strapped to his waist, snug in a thick leather sheath. I tug it free and toss it across the room. It’s too large for me, unbalanced in my hand, clearly custom-made for an orc.
When I reach for his left boot, he shifts with a low grunt. My breath catches in my throat, and I jerk my hands back. His face scrunches up, then he exhales, a long sigh that sends up a swirl of dust in front of his face.
I wait a heartbeat, then dip the fingers of my left hand into his right boot and find a short knife. I tuck it into my belt, just in case.
His satchel rests beside him, the flap half open. I flip it open fully and root through the contents. I discard a few metal clips and an apple, push aside a small glass jar filled with the same yellow ointment I saw in his room, and finally nick his coin purse. The chime of the coins inside is light and disappointing. Mostly silver and copper, not gold.
He groans, and I jerk back, jumping out of the way. Then I remind myself he’s tied up and relax just a little. I round his form again and crouch at a safe distance, watching his face intently.
He blinks, slowly at first, and furrows his brow. Then he tries to lift his head and lets out a hiss of pain.
“Fuck,” he mutters, scrunching his eyes shut.
I’m torn between wanting to reach over to help him and a strange sort of pride that I bested a man this strong.
I see the moment he realizes he’s been tied up. The muscles of his arms bunch, and he drags in a sharp breath, then stills, his entire body freezing in place.
Slowly, he twists his head enough to look up, and his dark gaze falls on me. We stare at each other in silence. His eyes widen at the sight of my face, and I remember I took off my scarf to stuff it under his head—an act of kindness I’m regretting now that he feasts his gaze hungrily on me.
I’ve never been looked at like this before. He traces the shape of my face with his gaze, but there’s more than just curiosity in his eyes. He stares at me as ifI’mthe prize he was after tonight, not the gold I stole.
And now he knows exactly what I look like.
Damn it, Tessa.
Lindie had warned me I was too soft-hearted to survive the streets. That’s why she talked me out of joining Damen’s gang full-time and only let me work select jobs. At first, I thought she just wanted the gang to herself, but the truth was, she was hardened in ways I wasn’t. I’d only lived this life for under a decade—she’d been surviving on the streets since she could walk.
Now my impulse to help this stranger has put me in danger. If nothing else, he could now identify me. He could sell the information about me to the gang leader, and I know Damen would pay him handsomely for it.
I really shouldn’t have stolen from him.
He’s still staring at me, but he makes no move to attack, so my breathing gradually levels out. His expression is calmer now, the raw hunger I glimpsed a moment ago gone, or simply hidden.
“Hello,” he rumbles, the deep timbre of his voice reverberating through the small space. “Lovely to meet you.”
I narrow my eyes at him. He’s tied and lying on his face, and he’s got the gall to fake politeness? I expected him to struggle and rage at me, but he’s merely observing, apparently in no hurry to escape his bindings.
“Why were you at the Ravens’?” I demand. “Were you looking for me?”
He sneezes, no doubt from the dust he’s inhaled. “Excuse me. Aye, I was looking for you. As I said on the roof—you stole from me.”
“And you want your gold back?”
He shakes his head as much as he can in his position. “I want the letters.”
Interesting. I read some of those, and nothing in them was worth more than two full purses of gold. Unless they were all written in code? That could be the real reason he wants them back. Perhaps they’re full of important information pertaining to the Ravens. He was watching their mansion before I ever stole from him.
I guess I’ll have to read them all and study them more closely.
“I burned them,” I lie. “So you can stop chasing after me if you don’t care about the gold.”
