The Devil's Concubine by Jill Braden

Author:Jill Braden
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Suspense, thriller
ISBN: 9781938757075
Publisher: Wayzgoose Press
Published: 2012-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

~ ~ ~

They hurried away from the harbor master’s apartment, gasping the clean, ocean-scented air. They slowed after a minute, and then QuiTai decided that the building with the number eight painted above the doors was a lucky spot, so she sat on the front stoop. Kyam groaned as he sat next to her. His shoulders rubbed against hers. She moved over a bit.

“That was the harbor master, yes? I don’t think I’ve ever talked to him,” she said. The werewolves handled that side of the Devil’s business. Her nose wrinkled. The harbor master’s replacement would doubtless be as corrupt as his predecessor, but if he wasn’t it could cause problems. Petrof needed to know about the situation.

“That was him,” Kyam said.

“Just making sure. He was fit enough to captain a skiff.”

They sat in silence for a while. She sniffed her clothes and the scarf. They smelled of bruised leaves and churned earth; the scent of death hadn’t had time to work its way into the fibers. The sarong and blouse she didn’t care about, but she would have been sad to part with the scarf. She ran the silk through her fingers. Not only was it the highest quality, but it would, indeed, match most of the colors she usually wore. How flattering that Kyam paid attention to such things. Maybe he truly had an artist’s eye.

She looked up and surprised him studying her with a hint of a smile.

If she was going to talk to PhaNyan and LiHoun, she had to convince Kyam that they needed to go to town square for some reason. She pretended to him that all their misdirection and sleight of hand was narcissistic, that no one cared what they did, but she knew that Petrof had her watched. And she knew that she was in a race against Kyam and the colonial government to reach the Ravidians first.

And the Devil. She mustn’t forget the Devil. Who had said that? Kyam had.

She was in a race against Petrof too.

Where had that idea come from? Surely she meant to think that it she was in this race for Petrof. She was supposed to be rededicating herself to him, and proving her loyalty. Yet there it was, that unbidden thought with its ring of truth. So for now, she had to keep everyone looking the wrong direction while she... well, she wasn’t sure what she’d do yet, but she believed the answer would present itself soon. There were hazy details to her vision of the future, like exactly how the Ravidians planned to use the sea wasps. She knew how she’d use them, and that was all that mattered.

The Ravidian’s plan was quite elegant, she mused, and executed with precision she admired. But they shouldn’t have killed the harbor master. The greedy bastard had probably blackmailed them, but they should have paid him anyway. How else would they get supplies? From the harbor master’s brother? That’s where her admiration dimmed; everyone knew that you couldn’t trust an addict, ever.

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