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“Hey, what’s wrong with the way we’re dressed?” I say, my voice going shrill and making Brynn shush me.
“You look lovely, woman, but I’d hope there’d be a lot more skin if you were here for sex. What do you want? I’d like to go back to sleep.”
Brynn and I exchange a glance, silently arguing how to play this. She clearly wants to pick up the earlier plan, and I am not willing.
The guy stomps a foot so hard, the floorboards rattle.
“The truth,” he thunders.
“We need something,” I spit out before my partner-in-literal-crime can beat me to an excuse. “Your storehouse is the only way we know how to get it.”
“Vi!” she hisses and shoves my shoulder hard enough that I fall over.
Brynn locks eyes with the guy, and he glares back.
Before I know what’s happening, she dives for her Bowie knife.
The guy on the bed springs into action. Two steps and his foot stamps down onto the blade the moment Brynn sets a hand on the handle.
He flicks his foot, and the dagger jumps into the air.
She launches after it, but he snatches it first and she falls helplessly against him.
Brynn Hathaway, the most dominant woman I’ve met in a good long while, crumples at the big man’s feet insolently.
He grips the hilt of the dagger and uses the rounded pommel to lift her chin.
“Your name, woman,” he demands.
“Brynn.”
“And her?”
“Violet.”
“Brynn and Violet. Such lovely, feminine names for breaking and entering. I like it. Show more skin next time and I might let you keep the knife.”
She harrumphs, but it only makes him smile. It displays even, white teeth with pointed canines. He notices me watching and tongues a chip in one side.
“Down, fella,” Brynn says. “Are all gnomes this hard up? We’re thieves, for fuck’s sake.”
“Pretty thieves. Now, Brynn and Violet. I’m Edo Akevan. For the thousandth time, what do you want?”
In the corner of my eye, Brynn’s hands move in incremental changes.
“An amethyst,” I admit and shift to draw his attention. “We need an amethyst.”
“Amethysts are easy to come by,” Edo says.
“Has to be wish-kissed and at least nine inches.”
“I’ve got—”
Brynn surges forward, cutting off his words. She presses a small object against his gut. There’s a flash of light, but I can’t see what it is.
“Finish that sentence at your peril,” Brynn says. He tilts his chin to peer down at her.
“I like you,” he says.
