Page 69 of A City of Flames

I look at him with a bored expression. “We?”

I curse the unwise part of me for coming here.

“Well, by we, I mean mostly you.”

Staring at him, like I’ve heard wrong, I wait for him to say otherwise. He doesn’t, so silently, I turn to walk away when his hand snakes around my waist, twirling me back to him.

He’s tall and sturdy. I give him that.

“Where are you going, Goldie?” He murmurs with a smirk.

I try to squirm from his hold. “Back to the barracks! I’m already having to help you steal a pendant—from the queen might I add—” I raise a brow. “And I’m not going to help you steal something else. Now let go of me.”

He does, and I huff, dusting my cloak off as if he’s messed it up.

“Come on, it will be fun,” he cajoles. “It’ll be great practice for the real thing.”

“The real thing wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for your blood.” My lips pucker with vexation as I glance around. “You know I could easily cut you and drain it from your body.” It would have been simpler to do that from the start.

I look back at him, and his brow rises with delight. “I think you’ve unlocked a new kink in me, Goldie.”

A noise of disgust comes from my mouth. “What do you even want to steal that requires us to be at a tavern?”

His arm slides across the counter, his face a meter away from mine as he cocks his head over my shoulder. “See that guy over there.”

I turn, looking at a table in the far corner of the tavern. Men surround it, playing backgammon with one, in particular, staring at them with an intense frown.

“Name’s Tarron Gurn,” Darius continues. “Owner of this place though he loves to take money away from his workers to buy his own goods.”

I glance back at him and scrunch my nose into a smile. “Sounds just like you.”

He huffs a laugh from his nose, not at all offended. “He has a backroom, guarded by many of his men, and no one’s allowed through except the women he invites back there.”

From the way Darius says all this, it seems he’s stolen from him before or at least thought of doing it.

“He’s a tricky man to get hold of, but he’ll approach you if he’s interested in you.”

“So, you want me to get his attention?”

He nods. “He has valuables in that room, including an emerald crystal, worth a lot of money.” His brows rise as if for emphasis. Everyone around him continues drinking and dancing, unaware of who is in front of me right now. “So, are you in, Goldie? Or are you going to try to walk away again?”

My brows squish into an offended frown. I look to my right as a barmaid slides a tankard across to someone, but I snatch it off the counter before he can grab it. He yells something at me as I turn to Darius and shout, “How dare you break my friend’s heart!” Launching the contents inside of it all over him.

He looks alarmed, eyes widening as he wipes his face with his glove. People turn to us; some even stop dancing. Darius glances around and chuckles as he leans in with a whisper, “What are you doing?”

A smile lifts at the side of my lips. “Getting his attention.”

I reach for the other tankard and do the same before he can react. “And that—” I say, shaking off the mead from my fingers. “Is for you just being you.”

He’s wholly soaked as he rubs the pad of his thumb along his bottom lip and chuckles.

Smug, I flick a brow up and turn my back to him, moving toward one of the chairs near Tarron.

Tarron’s eyes focus on me as he runs a hand over his growing beard, and all I do is sit and wait.

Barely any time passes as I look up to a standing Tarron before me. Sconces gild his long blonde hair, and half his face is shadowed before he sits down opposite me.

“That was quite a scene over there.” He gestures to the bar. I don’t look as I lean over the table and smile.

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