Page 128 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

And he worried whatever she was about to do would make her slip away for good.

“What is the charge?” he clipped out. His throat was tight.

The Snake Charmer tutted, smile curling. “Emmeline knows the deal I offer all my patrons. They want information. Money. Time. A place to hide. They must do something for me in turn.” He took a sip of his drink, an unnaturally green liquor, and smacked his lips. “For her, that means a dance.”

A dance…

“What…” The lights in the front of the room. The predator’s curl of the Snake Charmer’s lip. Emmeline’s fear thickening the air.

Roremar crossed the room to her, Snake Charmer be damned. Blocked that vile man from view so all she could see was him. He dropped his voice. “I don’t know what’s going on here. I don’t give a Fate’s fuck what this man knows. I can tell how uncomfortable you are.” Tentatively, he cupped her cheek, turning her gaze up to his. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I do,” she said, voice the melodic, distant tone he associated with her Fate ties, and he thought there was an apology beneath those words.

“No,” he swore vehemently, all his anger with her fading. Lifting her hand, he held it against his chest, between both of his. “You don’t, Emmeline. We’ll figure it out without his information. You have a choice.”

“Sadly, Reckless, I never have.”

Roremar was forced to sit in a stiff wooden chair beside the Snake Charmer while Emmeline…performed. She’d been escorted to a back room with a trio of other dancers, distinctly avoiding Roremar’s eyes as she went. His heart hammered against his ribs the entire time.

The mystlights above the stage flared to life, dimming quickly to a sultry hue. The Snake Charmer shifted in his seat, taking a lengthy sip of the sickly-sweet green liquor Roremar could smell from here.

Just before the dancers walked on stage, Roremar leaned over and whispered, “She leaves here with even a hair on her head harmed, and I’ll take pleasure in slicing out your entrails and hanging you from the balcony by them.”

The Snake Charmer only laughed. “Don’t worry, brute. She’s trained for years.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Roremar seethed, though he had no idea what the serpent meant.

Every idea left his head, though, when he saw her.

The outfit they’d dressed her in was barely an outfit at all, even less fabric than the dancers downstairs. A small slip of silver silk covered her tits and a matching set of panties, sheer strips of chiffon hanging from the waistband. Beads lined the chain belt and hems, her every step a sick symphony.

The other dancers around her grinned salaciously at the men filling the tables, but Roremar didn’t give a damn about those women. They could perform if they wanted—if that was their choice, who was he to judge—but it so clearly wasn’t Emmeline’s.

“Absolutely not,” Roremar growled as they took their places, and she avoided his eye. He pushed up from his seat, sword burning at his back, but firm hands pressed on his shoulders, and a guard shoved him down.

The Snake Charmer, all too amused, leaned across the table and growled in his ear, “You want your information? Sit and watch.”

No information was worth the distress in her eyes. It wasn’t a fear of being seen up there, it was something much deeper, something he didn’t understand but that he was ready to shred the skies to fix.

But Emmeline met his eye briefly and again shook her head.

That one motion rooted a helplessness in him that he hated more than anything.

But he sat.

And she looked away.

Music began, a gentle hum. The same kind of beat that laced the halls downstairs. And with it, the women all started to move.

In an instant, Roremar knew Emmeline had done this before. Had been trained to. Despite the bile burning the back of his throat, he was entranced with her. The way her body was the music, every move lyrical and fluid. But no matter how graceful, it wasn’t desire coursing through him. It was horror. While the other women seemed to enjoy the attention, to thrive off it, Emmeline’s stare was somehow more blank than before.

Fuck, how was he supposed to sit here and endure this? He had to get whatever information Emmeline needed from the Snake Charmer as quickly as possible to end it.

“How long have you been on Lyra?” Roremar asked him.

“About four years,” he answered, twirling the silver hoop through his lip.

“What made you leave the continent? Surely business was better there than on the Constellation Isles.”