Spin the Shadows (Dark and Wicked Fae #1) - Cate Corvin Page 0,40

my haste to get in full view as quickly as possible.

Striding over several cobblestones, I made a show of flipping my pale blue hair over my shoulder, looking over the Market with a bored expression, and making sure I was standing in a pool of lantern-light that caught my glamoured scales to maximum advantage.

I knew I’d won when Calder abruptly stopped talking. Casting my eyes lazily over the crowd, I finally let them settle on the satyr, taking in his open mouth and glazed eyes, and trying not to look at the fur stirring under his belly.

I smiled, running a finger over my glittering cleavage, and Calder hung up his phone without even saying goodbye.

He shoved it in the front of his jacket and trotted forward, his tail wagging madly.

“Haven’t seen you here before, beautiful.” He was practically panting, his leer making me feel naked.

My expression became superior. “Fresh from Tír fo Thuinn. One hundred for thirty minutes.”

It was a price that most of the johns here wouldn’t spend on a Skin Market hooker, but if Calder was as loaded off the human slave trade as we thought…

He nodded, a bit of drool clinging to his lower lip. I suppressed a wince. It was one of the worst things about satyrs; they literally drooled when they were horny.

“Yeah, yeah, a hundred works. Haven’t had you before. Come on, come with me. I’ve got a nice place for us.”

The Dullahans stared at me with dead eyes but said nothing. The glamour worked on them, at least.

Calder jerked his head back towards the tunnel he’d come from, pointing with his horns. I followed him at a leisurely pace, marking the rusted sign hung over the entrance: the Tunnel of Thorns.

The Dullahans closed in behind me, blocking the way back to the Skin Market as we entered. The tunnel forked several times until we stopped in a cobblestone passage, where a series of doors appeared in the walls.

I counted six doors before we stopped. One of Calder’s bodyguards unlocked it, leading the way into his home.

Calder took my hand and pulled me in after him, stroking my fingers. His hands were greasy. “Come on now.”

I stepped inside, feeling nauseated now that the time had come.

Robin is depending on you. You’re Agent Awesome now.

The floor was covered in rotting Oriental rugs. Crates were stacked along a far wall, along with a table and chairs. The table was covered with empty bottles and a plate of moldy food. Everything was lit with lamps wired from the city above, which meant Calder certainly did have money if he could afford the stolen electricity in a temporary hideout.

There was another door leading to what I assumed passed for a bedroom. The Dullahans, being dead, didn’t need to sleep.

“Right through here,” Calder said with another leer. He pushed the door open, running his hand up the back of my thigh.

“Wine?” I asked, injecting a hopeful note in my fake accent. “I take twenty off for wine.”

Calder was wasting no time. “Dubh! Get the wine!” he snapped. The slimy little bastard even snapped his fingers like he was calling a dog.

One of the Dullahans rummaged in a broken-down cabinet, finally coming up with an unopened bottle of dark wine. The dead face at his side stared at me as he brought it to Calder, and I held my breath, praying the undead spirit wouldn’t see through my glamour.

He turned away, thank the trees.

Calder popped the cork, sniffed the bottle, and made a face. “We’ll have to drink from the bottle, darlin’,” he said, and took a healthy swig before passing it over to me. It was the nastiest kind of rotgut the Undercity had to offer.

“Perfect,” I purred.

I gripped it, making sure to touch his fingers despite their greasiness, and grabbed him by the collar, dragging him inside the room and kicking the door shut behind me.

He had a large bed covered in dirty linens. I pretended not to see a roach crawling in it as I pushed him onto it, making him chuckle.

“You’re pretty feisty, ya know?” he asked me, spreading his furred legs wide. His dick was fully erect and about the size of my ring finger. Poor Calder.

I lifted the bottle to my lips and tipped it, though I kept my mouth tightly closed, pretending to drink.

When I handed it back to Calder, he was already jerking off, staring at my scaled cleavage.

“Drink,” I demanded, taking a step closer and placing my hands on my hips.