Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
“Who do you work for?” he asked, both hands now fisted and his shoulders tense.
“You know who. You killed her earlier.”
“Granny,” he said. I didn’t bother nodding. “When did she employ you?”
“She didn’t, at first. She harbored me.”
His brows drew together, his gaze intensifying. “When did you first start making drugs?”
“A year after I got here, she started working with me. A hobby, at first. When I showed promise, at about fourteen, she started teaching me the craft. I tried various products on the market, read books, and learned to duplicate. Over the years, I kept pace with other shadow market products—mostly—until she started bringing home some books and . . . documents to help me learn. She brought home apothecary supplies, as well, and explained how other people had altered them. In the last five years, I made the craft my own.”
“And in the last three, you made your craft more deadly.”
“I made the journeys smoother, I put in fail-safes, and I made the experience more pleasant. As I told your colorful accomplice, my product is not now, nor ever has been, deadly. I assume you toured my village. You should’ve seen that for yourself.”
“How could I have seen for myself? Do you typically keep dead people on display?”
I opened my mouth for a rebuttal, but he had me there. We had quite a few empty residences since no new people had moved into our community in quite a few years. Old age had removed others. I didn’t have the proof I was boasting.
“It isn’t deadly or terribly dangerous for the mostly healthy,” I grit out. “People here have taken my product. I have. No one has died from it. Do you assume we are some sort of ultra-powerful species that don’t suffer the same way others do? I don’t even have magic. If it was deadly, I’d have been gone a long time ago. I developed a more robust catalog as time went on, not a more dangerous one.”
“Not dangerous—” He huffed, his eyes murderous. “Do you believe the lies you tell? Do they help you sleep at night?”
“Help me sleep at night? You invaded this village unlawfully. You killed and are in the act of abducting. Is creating a few hallucinogens worse than that? Worse than the murder of an old woman? Clearly the dragons do keep you around to make them feel smarter.”
He took a step forward, anger vibrating his frame. I realized how much larger he was than me. At five-foot-two it wasn’t unusual, but he was so much thicker. So much stronger. When I killed him, it would have to be by surprise. From behind, maybe. Something sharp into his neck so he couldn’t heal before the job was done.
“The difference between you and me is I’m not going after innocents,” he growled, stopping right in front of me, leaning into my space. His proximity sent a flurry through my stomach.
“What part about people venturing into a seedy shadow market in search of unlawful drugs screams innocent at you?” I replied, my own anger now getting the better of me.
“And what about drugs slipped into drinks and given as gifts, wrapped up like little presents? Those pushed on children who don’t know any better?”
“You think I travel the world slipping my product into the hands of the unsuspecting? What sort of awful place are you even from that those thoughts enter your head?”
He bent a little more, his face mere inches from mine. His fragrance wrapped my mind in a dizzying, delicious cocoon.
“Have a care with how you speak to me,” he growled, his voice low and rough, sizzling across my skin. “You might not personally push those drugs onto people who have no idea what they are getting themselves into, but the organization you work for does. You’re guilty by association.”
“Granny sells to her network. She always has. She has no control over what they do, or what people who buy the product do. No one does. The only difference I’ve become aware of in the last three years is that the king and queen are now in on it, and that has I think been a recent change. Maybe you should take it up with them.”
“Or maybe I should take out the source and wash my hands of it.”
I looked at his lips, slightly parted as he breathed heavy. My core pounded with need I did not want.
Now it was I who spoke low and firm, straightening up as much as I could and returning my gaze to his eyes. Lust burned brightly there, very loosely controlled, much like my own. He was just as frustrated by that fact. I could feel it—feel him—in every cell of my body, as though he’d grafted himself to my flesh.
“Your threats won’t make you right or just. You are a murderer and a hypocrite, and nothing you say will have any value to me.”