Page 48 of House of Crimson Kisses
He slaps me on the back. “We need to do less shagging and more cardio.”
I laugh hard enough I’m sick again. I wholeheartedly agree with him. “Except we won’t,” I say.
“Not a fucking chance. Right. Beers on me tonight. Where are we going from here?”
We meander down several narrow alleyways. The city shifts in appearance this far out of the centre. While our city has a distinct border, the next city has spread out. It’s a sprawling area with seven distinct regions. One for each of the ruling families. Because of the sprawl, there are scattered villages and towns that aren’t quite in their jurisdiction but not really in ours either. The villagers live a little like us and a little like them.
No one pays them much attention, and they don’t really bother or cause trouble for us. But these villages and towns make for excellent neutral ground.
We pass out of Sangui City’s border and into a forest area heading for a specific village. Finding Rhea takes longer than I’d like because I can’t remember the exact road the cottage is on. I have to edge my way through the forest, trying to recognise buildings and the landscape. At this point, running would get us lost.
Eventually I find it; a little cottage nestled in a set of about ten other houses, three of which are set above the ground. We’re stood outside when my back prickles.
I scan the trees looking for someone, and I find nothing. But the scents of cinnamon, mint, and smoke drift on the air.
“Octavia Beaumont, as I live and breathe. What’s it been? Four? Five years?”
“Rhea Nightfall,” I say grinning. “Son of a bitch, where are you?”
She drops down from a tree less than fifteen feet from us; she was utterly cloaked in the shadows of the night, and I’d missed her.
I never miss a threat, and she really is a threat. Gods dammit. She’s getting good.
“What can I do for you?” she says and takes a puff of her cigarillo. She blows several rings of smoke and then taps the cigarette out on the tree trunk.
“I need your help.”
She tilts her head. “Help is expensive.”
I smile. “I expected nothing less.”
“Then come, friend. Let us have a drink and discuss what help you need.”
Xavier and I enter the cottage, and she guides us to her office. Rhea is as tall as me, though her body is far more toned. I have to remind myself not to stare at her ears and the strange point they have at the tip. They poke out from her shorn hair. Most of the fae I’ve encountered have long hair, but Rhea never was one to follow the rules.
She leads us into her office and Xavier whistles.
“Gods. There must be a hundred ways to murder a man in here.”
Rhea laughs as she takes a seat behind her desk and kicks her legs up on it. She pulls an ashtray back towards her and opens a fresh packet of cigarillos. She knocks the bottom of the packet and yanks one out, shoving it in on the edge of her lips.
She lights up and then pulls in a deep drag. “Three hundred and eighty-six weapons. Seven hundred different poisons, sixty-nine different types of bullets and I dare say more than a few things I can’t confess to owning. Doesn’t matter whether you’re a fucking vampire, fae, magician, demon, shifter or any other fucking species. If you’re living and breathing, I got a way to kill you in this office.”
“And you’re friends with this woman?” Xavier says, his eyes startled.
Rhea huffs a laugh and takes another drag on her cigarillo. “Being friends with me is better than the alternative... no?”
I glance around the room. Each wall is filled floor to ceiling with shelves and display cabinets. Each of them rammed with equipment, weapons, arrays of jars and vials and herbs and gods know what.
She leans back in her chair and gestures for us to sit in the seats on the other side of the table. “By all means, make yourself at home.”
Xavier glances at me, giving me a look of,are you sure about this?I wave him off. I’m absolutely sure.
“Sit down, boy,” Rhea says.
He does, rather promptly, and it makes me laugh, which I turn into a snuffled cough when Xavier glares at me.
“Now, what can I do for you, Octavia?”
