Free Sands of Aggar: Amazons of Aggar Book 3 by Chris Anne Wolfe

from view. “My room’s in the attic. I get off on the hour.”
    Mary strode away without another word, mingling with the other patrons in the common room. Adrian leaned back in her chair, her hood falling lower over her face, a triumphant smile turning the corners of her lips. Mary moved with a familiar confidence through the crowd, taking their drunken advances and unintelligible orders with ease. Adrian lingered over the lines of her body, the swells and curves so rare in the women of the north.
    She ran her fingers over the lines of Mary’s key, her attention wandering to other corners of the inn, counting every Circle member mingling and drinking around her, oblivious to her presence. She felt bloodlust, hot and all-consuming swelling beneath her skin as she imagined burying her knife in every one of the thugs from the Core. Her cheeks darkened as she imagined how enraged the Twins would be, losing their precious band of vandals and murderers.
    Adrian felt a sharp pain at her shin and glanced down in surprise. A sleek water ferret had crawled under the table and nipped her leg just above the cuff of her boot. She scowled and nudged it away, its tiny claws skittering across the stone floor as it fought to stay under the table. Adrian snarled under her breath as she continued to ward off the creature, the tip of her boot bobbing and parrying like a sword as the creature savaged her leather shoe with tiny claws and teeth.
    “Fisk!”
    The terse command cut through the noise of the inn like a knife. The ferret instantly froze, rearing up onto its hind legs, revealing patches of luminous deep green and aqua scales along its belly. Adrian glanced up at Rox, sitting in the opposite corner with her feet propped on the table, her glare locked on the ferret. She snapped and the creature raced back toward her, scaling her leg, spiraling up her torso and ducking into the folds of her hood like a burrow.
    Rox didn’t acknowledge Adrian, simply returned to her drink. Adrian found herself, once again, captivated by the woman’s presence. She wasn’t Adrian’s usual type, lean and rough around the edges, but she suddenly found herself wishing it was Rox’s key clenched in her fist. Adrian wondered what she was doing with the Circle. She clearly detested the Circle she traveled with and the Twins rarely ever employed women, let alone women who were so physically unimposing. Still, no mala’ would have such fire in her eyes or be as brazen as Rox had been with the drunk marauders before. She was likely a guide or a magician. Adrian wondered with a brief sinking feeling if she’d ever have to kill Rox.
    Mary passed in front of Adrian’s table as she stepped back into the kitchens, returning shortly without her apron or dishes.
    “I’m going to bed, Da’,” she called to the bar. The burly blond barkeep nodded to his daughter with an affectionate smile and Mary strolled up the stairs to the higher levels of the inn.
    Adrian waited until the barkeep’s attention had returned to his customers before standing and slowly following Mary up the worn wooden stairs. She passed a long hallway of hostel-style rooms lined with bunks and cots until she found a narrow, angled staircase leading up to the attic. She focused on a series of illusion spells, running her hands through her silver hair, darkening it to a pale gold before unlocking Mary’s door and stepping inside.
    The room was cloaked in darkness, heavy curtains drawn over the only windows, edged in moonlight leaking through the edges of the tattered material. She tensed, instinctively crouching into a fighting stance as she tuned her other senses on searching for a trap.
    A single candle flared to life on the opposite end of the room, releasing a single, sharp scent of ash and flame, creating dark gold pools of light across a carved wooden night table and a narrow bed dressed with thick, hand-stitched quilts. Mary stood leaning back against the wall along the edge of the