Fortune Favors the Cruel - Kel Carpenter Page 0,37
with the rest of them any further.” He watched her, a pregnant pause lingering before answering.
“If I do this, what do I get?”
Her eyebrows drew together. That wasn’t the reply she’d been expecting. “What do you want?”
“I want you to listen to me. When I ask you to stay somewhere, you stay. When I tell you to help Lorraine with something, you help.” Quinn wrinkled her nose. “You stop fighting me about this arrangement, and I can make it a lot more pleasurable.”
“That’s a lot to ask for a horse and some peace and quiet,” Quinn pointed out. “You need to sweeten the deal.”
“What else do you want?” he asked, staying remarkably patient though she could tell that thread was fraying.
“Information.” His jaw ticked, and this time she knew it was because she was pushing her luck, but in that brief pause he hadn’t said no and so she pushed. “I have no idea what I’m doing here, Lazarus. You pulled me from my home and brought me on this trip, not because me or anyone else wanted it, but you. Why?”
Lazarus ran a hand down his face, his eyelids falling closed as he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, inhaling deeply. Quinn waited as he weighed what to tell her.
“It’s complicated,” he began, and she let out a frustrated huff, starting to turn away as his fingers tightened around the arm she forgot he held. “Don’t walk off. Let me finish.” The chastisement had her biting her tongue, but she stood there, turned back, and listened. “There are a lot of pieces still in motion right now, and you’re only one of them. A great number of very small slipups could put us all in jeopardy, which is why I’m careful not to tell anyone the full extent of what we’re doing here. Not Lorraine. Not Draeven. Not Dominicus. No one, Quinn.”
“They at least know something—”
“They know bits and pieces, but it’s far less than you believe. The difference is that Lorraine, Draeven, and Dominicus trust me. They know there is a reason for what we are doing, even if they don’t see it yet. You don’t have that same trust for me … yet,” he paused, then added, “nor I for you.”
Well, she thought, he isn’t wrong.
“Then what do we do? You don’t trust me, and I don’t trust you.” His fingers slipped from her arm and cold filled the empty space instantly. She hadn’t even realized warmth had settled in before it was gone.
“We give it time,” he answered. “We learn how to work together, how to … trust one another.”
“That’s not enough—”
“We’ve been over this.” His voice was midnight and shadow, and something … else. Where Quinn became the apathetic cold to the world, Lazarus burned with a savageness that could not be contained. At the core of it, he was right that they were no different, but in the way the darkness showed—they were far from the same. “I have an idea that might help this situation we’ve found ourselves in.”
“Oh?” she asked, biting her cheek to stop herself from being so drawn into his terrible, consuming gaze.
“Once a week, you get to ask me a question and I’ll answer it.”
“Truthfully?” She raised her chin, tightening her arms around herself as a very real wind swept down the streets, stirring the dirt and dust.
“Truthfully, but—” His eyes flashed with something she couldn’t place. “I get to ask you a question as well, and you have to answer it.”
Quinn pressed her lips together because Gods be damned, he had her.
“Alright, I’ll bite.” She nodded. “But this is part of our contract now, so you can’t go back on it in a week after I’ve done my part.”
Mirth danced on his face as the slightest hint of a grin settled. “It’s part of our contract now,” he agreed. “Along with you not stabbing or otherwise harming my other vassals,” he paused, waiting for her to agree. “Right?”
“Mhmm,” she hummed.
Something settled in the air with both parties’ agreements, the contract changed. She couldn’t see it because it wasn’t tangible, but she could feel it through the emblazoned signature scrawled across her skin.
The tables were turning. Her cards were changing.
But as they turned and walked the rest of the way back to the Moonlight Inn in silence, Quinn couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d seen in the alley that night.
Like calls to like, he’d said. But what exactly does that mean?