Spin the Shadows (Dark and Wicked Fae #1) - Cate Corvin Page 0,8
me. He looked like he could eat me alive.
I heard her loud and clear behind me. “I’m not brewing shit, Robin. This is what we call a windfall.”
While Sisse was talking, I’d started trembling harder. Everyone in Avilion knew that badge and the crest on it, the upraised hand backed by a stylized sun and the wings of a swan.
This man was the Left Hand of the Queen.
The Garda answered to him. Unlike the Queen’s Right Hand, her guardian knight, the Left Hand made her problems disappear without a trace.
If he wanted to make me disappear, no one would even remember the name Briallen Appletree by next Tuesday.
Robin’s lips flattened as he looked me over, and Sisse flew across the room to land lightly on one of his broad shoulders. She left a glittering stream of pixie dust in her wake.
“Be reasonable, Robin. Since you refuse to attempt it, you need one of their kind.”
He waved an impatient hand. Sisse abruptly stopped talking, but she looked smug, like she’d won a debate, her spectacles glinting in my direction. I wrapped my arms around myself tighter.
I was not in a fine place to bargain for my life. All I had to my name right now was a bike, a cracked Dandelion+ that was three years out of date, and a pair of fake pixie wings.
But Robin’s expression had gone from annoyance to consideration, which didn’t bode well. Even if he wasn’t actually the Ghosthand Killer. Actually, I wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t take the Ghosthand over the Queen’s Left Hand.
Sisse fluttered off his shoulder when he stepped forward, and I almost backed into the desk.
Robin cocked his head and grabbed my chin, gently but firmly, forcing my face up towards his.
Being so close to that sapphire stare was more than a little unnerving. He looked at me like he could pull all my secrets right out of my head, his gaze drifting from my messy bun to the freckles on my nose, and finally down to my mouth.
We were in such a strangely intimate pose that for a crazy moment I wondered if he was going to kiss me, but he just touched my lips with his thumb. His skin was warm against mine.
“Your lips are stained purple. You ate my faerie fruit.” It wasn’t a question. The evidence was right there on my face.
I nodded jerkily.
“How many?” he demanded, his voice soft but commanding.
He didn’t need to tell me that he’d see right through a lie. I saw it in the hardness of his eyes. “I ate six berries,” I said, entirely truthful.
He made a small noise of assent, still examining me intently. I caught a whiff of his cologne, mint and bergamot, before he released my chin. “What’s your name, dryad?”
I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed that he’d let me go. “Briallen Appletree of Emain Ablach. I have a valid visa and ID… look, please, I swear by the trees I’ll never breathe a word to anyone for as long as I live if you just let me take the potion and go. I didn’t mean to eat the fruit or… or to see your chopped-up feet...”
Robin’s eyes glittered in amusement. “I didn’t mean for you to see my chopped-up feet either, but here we are. You stole six faerie fruits, Briallen Appletree.”
My throat closed up. “Stealing is a harsh word,” I said, my voice cracking.
“So I’ll make you a deal.”
I stopped myself from spilling into another torrent of babble as he rounded the desk. A deal? That wasn’t how this encounter was supposed to go.
He leaned down and opened a desk drawer, seeming supremely unconcerned that I might try to bolt again, and pulled out a shot glass and a decanter filled with a liquid that glowed jade green. “Six months of service to me, one month for every fruit you ate. I have need of… of a woman, and a dryad will do just fine for these purposes.”
“What do you mean, need of a woman?” I asked suspiciously. “I’m not sleeping with you, if that’s what you mean.”
Robin just stared at me, and I slowly turned red. “Sleeping with me is not one of the job requirements. When I say service, I mean spying. Tailing Fae on my orders. Capturing photographic or physical evidence. Breaking and entering, forgery, and thievery.”
“Oh, Blessed Branches,” I whispered. “I can’t… forgery? Thievery? I can’t do that!”
If I was caught, my visa to live and work in Avilion would