I’ll be honest with you, saints above—I hadn’t expected the girl under the hood to look like that. I’d expected fangs, or at the very least a nose crooked from too many bad alley fights.
Someone with a face that said "I bite for fun" rather than "I accidentally wandered out of a village orchard and tripped straight into Hell." But there she was, pinned under my knee, her chest heaving against the stone floor, sword pressed to her throat.
Auburn hair spilled out from her hood like autumn leaves somebody had crushed under their boots, her hazelnut eyes wide enough to swallow lantern light whole, freckles scattered across her cheeks as though some mystic god had sneezed cinnamon on her during creation.
She was beautiful, but in the meek kind of way that makes you want to pinch cheeks rather than write odes. And saints help me, I had absolutely no business finding that adorable.
I pressed the blade just a hair closer to her throat—not enough to draw blood, just enough to give her a little perfume sample of mortality—and smiled down at her with the sort of grin that always gets me into trouble.
"Well, darling," I purred, "now would be an excellent time to introduce yourself. Unless you’d like me to christen you myself. I’m very good at it, you know—half my old clients only answered to names I gave them."
Her mouth opened and shut like a fish that had just realized the pond wasn’t water but boiling oil. She panted, chest fluttering under my knee, her lips trembling around words that refused to hatch. I tilted the blade another fraction closer, and that did the trick.
"M–Mia!" she squeaked, the name tumbling out in a breathless rush.
I arched one brow, lips curling wider. "Mia," I repeated, rolling the syllables around my tongue as though tasting a fine wine. "How cute. Sweet, simple, almost edible. Saints, if I weren’t me, I’d be tempted to keep you in my pocket like a pet mouse."
Her cheeks darkened under the soot, the blush rising like a sunrise across freckles, and I nearly laughed outright at the sight. Even under threat of death, she had the audacity to blush at a compliment. Oh, I liked her already.
"Tell me, Mia," I continued, lowering my voice into a conspiratorial murmur as though we were whispering beneath blankets, "who sent you?"
Her hazel eyes flicked left, then right, as though searching for escape routes. She whimpered, turning her head away from me like a child refusing to eat her vegetables.
I sighed, long and theatrical, the kind of sigh that announces you’ve just been personally insulted by the world’s sheer incompetence. "You don’t know, do you?"
She hesitated—gods above, the girl even hesitated at that—but finally gave the smallest nod, as though confessing to a murder rather than a simple fact.
"Of course not," I muttered, rolling my eyes skyward as if perhaps the ceiling had answers I lacked. "Whoever sent you wouldn’t let you know. Keep the pawn blind so it doesn’t realize it’s expendable. A classic move, really. Tragic, but classic."
In truth, my mind was already sprinting past her nod and into the wide, terrifying forest of possibilities. It was obvious she belonged to a rival gang, sent here as a messenger or a sacrifice depending on how charitable you wanted to be.
But which gang? And more importantly, were the bastards working together? A united front would complicate things. One rival you can seduce, two you can outwit, three you can play against each other. But a choir of them singing the same hymn? Gods, it made me giddy just thinking about it.
But before strategy could take the wheel entirely, Mia’s quivering voice interrupted my storm. "Are... are you going to kill me?"
Oh, gods, the way she said it—like she’d rehearsed it in her head a thousand times already, and each time it ended with her throat slit. Tears shimmered at the corners of her eyes, breaking free to streak little paths down her dirty cheeks.
I leaned closer until my lips nearly brushed her ear. I giggled—yes, giggled, like the brat I am—before whispering, "Of course not. Don’t be silly. You’re far too pretty to waste. I have much bigger plans for you."
Her breath hitched, a tiny gasp that sent her shoulders trembling. Gods above, I couldn’t resist. With one hand I wiped away her tears, trailing my thumb across her cheek in something dangerously close to tenderness.
Then, because I can never leave well enough alone, I let my hand slip lower, brushing across the soft swell of her breast.
She yelped, a little shiver racing through her, her blush deepening into the kind of crimson that belongs to ripe apples and impending disasters. I laughed harder, the sound echoing across the tavern until half the room joined in, men sneering and snickering at the poor girl’s expense.
Finally, I stood, pulling the blade from her throat and offering her my free hand. She stared at it like it was a viper ready to strike, but after a heartbeat’s hesitation, she took it. Her palm was clammy, her grip weak, but she rose to her feet with all the courage of a mouse at a cat’s banquet.
She glanced around then, taking in the sneers and jeers of the men, the walls that boxed her in, the utter absence of escape routes. Saints, she looked like she might faint on the spot.
I leaned closer, voice low but carrying. "You’re coming with us, Ms. Mia. Consider yourself... recruited."
We brought her back to the warehouse in a little parade of menace and curiosity, our men trailing us like children eager to see what toy their parents had bought.
By the time we shoved through the doors, Atticus had already taken the lead, steering us into one of the back rooms—a boiler chamber that hissed and groaned like an angry beast.
Pipes clanged overhead, dripping condensation onto the stone floor. Steam hissed from valves in sharp bursts that made Mia flinch every time, squeaking like a terrified rabbit.
She sat on a crate in the center, knees drawn together, hands twisting in her lap, her wide eyes darting between the shadows of the machinery. I leaned against the wall, watching her like a cat watches a nervous bird.
Finally she broke, her voice trembling. "W-What do you want from me?"
Oh, saints, the way her mind must’ve been racing. I could practically see the parade of imagined horrors flashing behind her eyes—whips, collars, and far too little clothing. And the best part? Every one of those horrors had probably just been made worse by the fact that I was smiling at her like she was evening dessert.
"What do I want?" I purred, pushing off the wall with a slow, lazy swagger. "Simple, darling. From this day forth, you’re going to be our little double agent. You’ll gather information, manipulate your employer, and bring every tasty secret back to us."
Her eyes went wide enough to swallow the light whole. "What?!" she squeaked, shaking her head so hard her auburn hair whipped her cheeks. "That’s impossible! I was forced to work for them in the first place! They barely know me, they don’t trust me. How could I, of all people, gather information from them?"
I rolled my eyes, the way one does when a child insists gravity is optional. "You’ll seduce them. Obviously."
Behind me, Atticus choked on his own breath like someone had just asked him to recite bawdy poetry in church. Brutus let out a low chuckle, the sound rumbling through the room like a landslide.
Mia’s blush hit new heights, her hands flying to her cheeks. "S-Seduce?!" she stammered. "I—I don’t know how to do that!"
I giggled, high and sharp, letting it dance around the steam pipes. "Oh, don’t you worry, Mia dear. I’ll teach you. I’m excellent at it."
Before she could protest again, I seized her hand and yanked her to her feet. She wobbled like a newborn foal, squeaking again as I leaned in close.
"Out," I ordered the others, my eyes never leaving hers. Brutus raised a brow, Atticus muttered something about poor decisions, but they obeyed all the same, filing out with reluctant amusement. The door shut behind them, leaving me and Mia alone in the hiss and groan of the boiler room.
I turned back to her then, mustering the biggest, most wicked, most delightfully sadistic smile I could conjure. It stretched across my face like a knife, promising trouble wrapped in velvet.
"Lesson one," I murmured, tilting her chin up with the tip of my finger. "Seduction isn’t about what you know. It’s about what they think you know. And lucky for you, darling, I happen to be an expert in making people believe the impossible."