Page 76 of The Robin on the Oak Throne

He was right. And more than that…he could have toldher it was a magical problem and solved it with his own powers. The fact that he was going to involve someone else, different kinds of magic and science, showed that he would leave no stone unturned. He was looking out forher.

“When do we go?”

“Next week. I wanted to give you time to settle in.”

She tapped her fingers against the desk. “Well, with that, Gen and I are about to leave.”

He tensed. “To see Colette.”

“Yes and then Ethan,” she told him with a shrug.

“And Lorcan?”

She nodded. “We need answers.”

Graves replaced his drink on the table and stood to face her. His body was large and domineering, caging her back against the desk. She stilled under the gaze of a predator, lifting her chin just enough to let him know that she would not back down. But the pounding of her heart betrayed her own bravado.

He rested his hands to either side of her on the desk and leaned her back into it, towering over her. She swallowed as her body came alive. Her core pulsed in response to his nearness. His lips so close. His eyes devouring her whole. She existed nowhere except in this moment.

They weren’t even touching, and all she wanted to do was rip his clothes off and give in to this temptation. Forget the goblin market with its litany of temptations. Hers was directly before her, body so hot that he was an inferno raging in his precious library. And if she gave in, they’d burn the whole place down.

He brushed a lock of her dark hair off of her face. His fingers ran down her neck, feeling her jumpy pulse, goinglower, lower, lower, to the spot between her breasts where her wren pendant rested. She felt him graze the side of her breast as he examined the precious metal with a dangerous smirk.

“My wren,” he said like a caress.

He closed his fist around the pendant and slowly but inexorably pulled her forward against him, crushing their lips together. His heat enveloped her. Soft and hard and wanton all at once. A temptation more seductive than the most enticing incubus. A desire more potent than water in the desert. An ache that no touch had been able to satisfy.

His tongue darted into her mouth, commanding and controlling, overwhelming her senses and besieging her mind. She was putty in his hands, and a low moan escaped her, unbidden. Her fingers dug into his sides, dragging them closer, wanting so much more.

And then, he released her, leaving her reeling.

“What was that?” she asked.

He let the metal fall from his fingers. “Just a reminder before you go.”

She swallowed, prepared to tell him that she didn’t need any such reminder, but she couldn’t get the lie past her teeth. She wantedeveryreminder. Damn him.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Gen stared down into the gloom of the subway entrance at Amsterdam and 72nd Street. “Maybe we should take a cab.”

“We’re New Yorkers. We can brave a troll or two to take the subway.”

“Dublin spoiled me.”

“That is a fact,” Kierse said as they trotted down the stairs.

Dublin proper was in drastic contrast to a post–Monster War New York City. During the war, New York had been sliced up into territories by the monsters and the human gangs. The vampire elite held the Upper East Side, the werewolves Chelsea, and the mer Central Park. There were wraiths doing business in Midtown, and a few disputed territories like Times Square that were just now starting to bring in wide-eyed tourists again. Humans occupied much of downtown with the Roulettes on the Lower East Side and the Jackals in Nolita, while the Italian mafia still ruled in Little Italy.

Traveling around the landscape was like navigating a minefield. Each subway entrance was controlled by a different gang and collected fees beyond what the city already acquired through the tills.

Kierse reached the bottom of the stairs to find a troll blocking the entrance. He wasn’t as big as the one she’d metat Versailles, but his head still grazed the ceiling as he glared at them through his small, bulbous eyes. He was shirtless in tattered green pants that flexed around his tree-trunk legs.

“Payment,” he grunted.

Gen gulped. While she’d refused to be held back by her chronic eye condition, she hadn’t used the subway as much as Kierse and Ethan. The trolls rightfully intimidated her, and she preferred to walk if she could.

Kierse stepped between Gen and the troll. The damn things weren’t intelligent, but they could sniff out fear like a bloodhound.

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