Free The Witch Thief (Harlequin Nocturne) by Lori Devoti Page A

her.
But once she was on her feet he watched her. Suspicion shone from his eyes.
“Why should I trust you?” he asked.
Her shirt and skirt were wet. The thin cotton of her blouse clung to her breasts and tiny bits of gravel had embedded themselves into her skin. She brushed her hands over her body, knocking as many free as she could and then stared at him. “I can leave.”
“Yes, you can. So, why are you here? What do you hope to gain?”
She gritted her teeth. He said he wanted her to follow him, then when she did… She turned on her heel and started to walk away.
He grabbed her by the arm and twirled her back around. “Talk to me.”
His voice was at least low now, encouraging rather than demanding.
She swallowed. She wouldn’t tell him the truth, that she wasn’t sure why she had followed him, or even a partial truth, that she wanted the chalice for herself. Instead she’d stick with the lie she’d concocted at the bar.
“You said you’d make it worth my while. I’ve been locked out of my body for one hundred years. Anything I had is long gone. I have nothing.”
“What about your home?” He’d moved to the side. His face was lost in shadows, but his tone sounded concerned. It stopped her for a moment, made her wonder again if she should have run.
“I don’t have a home. I never did. I just stayed with one sister or the other, and only one of them had a real home. The other roamed, and not to nice places.”
“The witch with the hellhounds, the one that is missing.”
She nodded. “With her gone…” She let her words drift away. Her position was evident and what she had said was horribly true. She had nowhere to go. Wherever she went from here, wherever she wound up calling home now, would have to be of her own creation. She dropped her gaze. She hadn’t considered her situation before, not really.
She had no one and nowhere to go.
Joarr sniffed the air. “Humans,” he announced. “Have you been here before?” He moved out of the shadows; the fingers of one hand twisted the manacle that still hung from his other wrist.
Amma let out a breath. “When you—” She motioned with her hand. Joarr and his hellhound friend had captured her in the human world.
“Before that.”
“Do you mean, is this where I sold the chalice?” She shook her head. “No, I went to Nidavellir.” The underground world of the dwarves. She had expected to hate the land, but to her surprise, the small, twisting tunnels had made her feel safe, perhaps even bold. “A cave, far underground. It wasn’t exactly on the main path. Wasn’t a place I could find again.”
“You went by portal?” he asked.
She ran her hands up her arms and nodded. “But like our trip here, it was prepaid and I wasn’t given a location. I could just tell it was somewhere in Nidavellir.” The land of the dwarves was hard to mistake for any other place.
Joarr’s gaze flickered and he stepped closer. He looked as if he was about to say something.
A man half of Joarr’s height, dressed in stained sweats and reeking of grain alcohol, staggered past.
He brushed against Joarr. The dragon grabbed Amma and pulled her tight against him.
As the man continued on his drunken wanderings, Amma looked up. Her tone dry, she said, “How gallant.”
Joarr squeezed her upper arm. “I could call him back if you like.” When she didn’t reply, he said, “So, I’m preferable to something.”
“Not much,” she murmured, but low. She wanted him to hear, wanted herself to hear, too—needed to remind herself that she and Joarr weren’t on the same side. No one was on her side, no one ever had been, not really.
Joarr smiled and his fingers danced across her middle. Her loose top slipped up, and his fingers found the bare skin revealed there. She shivered. He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Oh, I think you find me preferable to many things. Perhaps we should find a room and discuss just how many.”
* * *
     
Amma flicked a cigarette butt off the