The delicate skin around Tabitha's eyes and mouth creased deeply as something disturbing crossed her features. "Laurena threatened Valarie to keep away from Byron. I didn't like what she insinuated about Valarie's brothers, either."

A cold feeling slithered around in my gut. Brothers, not brother. What could Laurena have said about Gratian? Because I knew deep in my gut, whatever it was, it wasn't about my younger brother Sander. I was about to ask what she meant, what she'd overheard Laurena saying, but Tabitha carried on speaking. "And I didn't like how she talked down to Valarie, or mocked her speech and her artwork."

Anyone else might have said speech impediment or stutter, but not Tabitha.

Tabitha's expression lightened and her eyes shone brighter. "I saw some of Valarie's artwork—she's really talented," she eagerly told me, a smile ghosting her mouth.

Yes, Val was.

And now it all made sense, how I'd suspected that my sister had previously met the servant girl—the look of familiarity that had passed between them when Tabitha had tipped her chin up as if to say to Valarie to stand strong when my sister's first impulse had been to decline Byron's offer of joining him on a picnic lunch.

And Laurena had threatened my sister, to the point Valarie had locked herself away in her bedroom for the night, so upset by it all she refused to tell me anything. Anger snaked through my blood. I wouldn't mind grabbing the scissors and hacking away at Laurena's hair, or better, slashing her throat.

Tabitha wasn't telling me the whole truth. I wasn't that gullible. But I liked how she fiercely defended my twin. I also wondered just how tangled I'd gotten within my own lies, pretending that I was a hunter and a member of her servant world, and how she was going to react when she discovered the truth.

I do not care.

Tabitha was purely for entertainment.

Fuck it—even I knew I was lying to myself. That kiss was insane.

Tabitha wriggled her body, trying to get free, which was the worst thing she could have done, grinding herself up against me. My entire body fucking sighed and then clenched tight. I didn't let her go, just loosened my grip on her nipped-in waist, allowing her movement but not freedom. She was wearing something hard beneath the hoodie that covered her shoulders and chest, and I glanced down. Her thighs looked bulkier too. "What the hells are you wearing?"

She pulled an annoyed face at me. "It's a disguise. I'm wearing football padding."

Looking at it now, it made sense, but as far as I was concerned it was a little overkill. "Aren't you overthinking this?"

She rose up on her tippy-toes to reach higher and closer to me. Her breath feathered my face, sending a shiver of hot pleasure down my spine. "I did think that too," she whispered earnestly, her head bobbing. "But you know what—it worked. I got spotted by some drunk guy. But he didn't think I was a girl at all. He called out—hey boy."

Tabitha turned from me and bent over the edge of the mattress to continue cutting away at Laurena's hair.

Holy fuck.

I'd pressed her into the wall, my hard body against her soft one, as I'd sucked on her ear and she'd melted into me. But this angle, with my fingers wrapped around her hips, and her, bent over with her tight ass pressed right there...it was wrong, so wrong to be hardening up once more. But that's what I was doing.

Tabitha abruptly snapped straight, half-twisting around with a startled look that morphed into an annoyed glare. "Are you...?"

"No," I shot back, lying through my teeth, trying to think of anything else but that body I was desperate to sink into.

Her eyes narrowed and became flinty as she jutted her chin, gesturing for me to back off. "I've got three minutes left to get this done and then sneak out of here. So do you mind?"

Yeah, I did mind. I wouldn't mind holding her like this for a lot longer...naked.

Fuck, that would be good. One hand gripping her hip for leverage, the other hand kneading her sweet peachy ass as I drove into her from behind, feeling her wet heat clench around me. The slap of sweat-slick hips painting her ass cheeks a glorious pink, while the melodic sound of her moans spilled through the room.

Tabitha's mouth fell open in shock. She tapped the tip of a finger at the creased corner of my left eye and scowled. "It's like every dirty thought you have can be seen through these."

I wagged my brows, opening my mouth to ask—

"No," she hissed before I got to voice it.

"You sure?"

"Yes," she snapped back. "Really sure." She shoved an elbow into my gut, hard. I shirked back with an oof, and despite the jarring pain blooming in my stomach, reluctantly let her go. She waved her scissors at Laurena's hand, adorned with the golden ring and whitish-gem. "Now if you're stealing, you'd better hurry up."

I shifted beside Tabitha, adjusted my iron-hard cock in my pants, and willed it to back down. I eyed her horrible workmanship—so fucking terrible—as she snipped away and tucked the locks of hair into a zip-lock bag. "How do you think you can get away with cutting off her hair and her not noticing when she wakes up?" I asked, frowning.

"I'm going to give her a vial of glamour potion," she replied, not looking at me as she wove her upper body side to side to have a good inspection of Laurena's shorn head. "She'll see what she wants to see and so will everyone else."

"What about anyone with truesight?"

She sucked in a sharp breath, pausing momentarily in her work. She worried her bottom lip with her teeth. "It's rare, very rare, hardly anyone has it...apart from the Crowthers. And I don't think Valarie is going to spill my secret anytime soon."

"The glamour potion will wear off."

"Not for three days, and by then she'll be back home," she replied, snipping a lock perilously close to Laurena's ear.

It was still a risk.

And I could see the guilt and anxiety scoring across Tabitha's face, and something else I couldn't quite decipher. Perhaps she had no choice in the madness of cutting off Laurena's hair. What did she need those locks of hair for? And had someone blackmailed her into doing it?

Vicious anger twisted my insides into knots to think someone might be coercing her into this, but the emotion was split apart as soon as Tabitha whispered, the sound of her slicing blades a soft schlicking accompaniment to her words, "Though...I don't know about her brother, Varen. I've heard he's a stone-cold death-dealer. A wild, savage beast with a terrible personality."

My eyebrows rose. It wasn't the wild beast I was offended by, it was the terrible personality. I had a great fucking personality thank you very much.

"No filter, apparently. He just says whatever is on his mind." She stopped her snipping and wiped her brow with the back of her hand. "I think maybe he's the one I'm really worried about." She gave me a curious sidelong look. "Have you met him?"

I pretended to think, tapping a finger against my bottom lip. I was thinking. I was a hunter working for the Lyon brothers, so I wouldn't have direct contact with Varen Crowther, but our roles occasionally intersected. "A couple of times."

"And?"

"He seems like a good guy. Eloquent, funny even, intelligent, good looking—ridiculously good looking." Maybe I was overselling myself judging by the disbelieving snort she made.

"He told Rosa Battagli her constant chatter was boring the,"—a pause—"out of him, and to shut her mouth before he stitched it shut himself."

I gasped. Rosa, the fucking tattle-tale!

I wouldn't put it past her, gossiping about me to anyone who would listen.

"He was so horrible to her that she cried," Tabitha said, going back to work with her scissors.

Fuck. Rosa cried.

And then I had Rosa's miserable face in my head with fat tears rolling down her round cheeks. Because I had been an asshole. Too busy wallowing in my own pity party to endure another word about her new puppy.

Guilt hit the back of my throat and made it hard to swallow.

"How are you getting out of here?" she asked, straightening and tucking another handful of hair into the zip-lock bag.

I shrugged. I was just going to dash out while Laurena's bodyguard was turned away, kind of how I got in here in the first place. I was a thief with faster-than-human speed that had been bred into my family line since the Horned Gods were birthed. "I'll punch the bodyguard and knock him out."

She gave me an appalled look. "That's your plan?"

I rolled my eyes. "No. I'm going to sneak out when his attention is elsewhere."

Tabitha only had the hair growing on the nape of Laurena's head to go. What on earth was she really going to use those locks of hair for? Because I knew she wasn't telling me the full truth about wanting to pay back Laurena. And even using a glamour potion, was she going to get away with this?

I half-bent over and carefully lifted Laurena's hand. Her snoring was horrendous. It scraped at my ears. "Gods, she's loud," I hissed through my teeth.

Tabitha glanced up. The light caught her just right across her nose and cheeks and caused her freckles to glow like a galaxy as she grinned at me. "I know, right?" She made a piggish-snoring sound, which made me huff a laugh and grin back.

For a brief moment, I registered how weird that felt on my face—a broad unrestrained grin—and she'd teased them so easily out of me.

Laurena's hand was smooth upon my palm. Her slender fingers were softly padded, not calloused like my sister's from her artwork or use with her blades, nor slightly work-roughened like Tabitha's through her role as a servant, dusting and polishing and scrubbing away with damp cloths. Every aspect of Laurena's life was done for her. She'd been born into a family of royalty. She'd never bleed like my family did to ensure her existence and to keep our world hidden from the mortals. The worst that would happen to Laurena would be her being married off to her family's advantage, probably to a Pelan, since alliances were shifting.

It took a bit of coaxing—a twist and wriggle—but I managed to slide the golden band over her knuckles and off her finger. I raised the ring high, and let the neon explosions erupting across the sky change the gem's whitish hue to a rainbow of vivid colors.

Gratian would have delighted in this, stealing the ring and leaving a fake one in its place. He'd have laughed boisterously every time he'd seen Laurena wearing it later on, and made sly innuendos, giving himself away.

But I didn't have it in me.

In truth, now that I had the ring, I didn't know how I felt. I sure as fuck didn't feel any better about myself.

I lowered the ring to the bedding and left it upon the folds of the quilt. While still holding Laurena's hand, I dug into my suit pocket with my free hand and pulled out the fake ring. I slid it onto her finger, adjusting it slightly to sit just right. Laurena would never know the difference—unless she got it appraised. Which was un-fucking-likely. She wore a piece of jewelry for a short time, and once bored with it, back it went into the Wychthorns' treasury, whereupon she'd pick a new trinket to wear.

Tabitha shot a swift glance at the ring, her eyes narrowing, I guess wondering why I was stealing this ring in particular. Leaving the scissors on the bedding beside Laurena's bare arm, she twisted sideways and bent over to pick up a backpack by her feet and rummaged around in its depth, pulling out a small vial. Freeing the stopper, she went to administer the potion to Laurena.

I guess, right then, the magnitude of what she'd done struck Tabitha. Her eyes grew impossibly wide, glassy and distant as she stared at Laurena's scalped head. She drew in a deep, rattling breath, taking in the messy short tufts. Laurena looked like Addie's Barbie Doll after she'd taken to it one bored Sunday afternoon, hacking away at her doll's hair and reducing it to a bald state.

Tabitha began trembling. Her breath came faster and faster as if she was in the throes of a panic attack. She was shaking with nerves so badly, the vial danced between her trembling fingers. She suddenly jolted into movement. I was reaching for her, about to tell her I'd do it for her when she tipped the glamour potion into Laurena's open mouth.

But—

The liquid splashed over Laurena's bottom lip—

Down her chin and neck, soaking the sheets beneath her.

Pretty much all of the potion missed Laurena's mouth entirely, but for a few drops. There wasn't enough glamour potion pooled in her mouth to fool her into thinking she had all her hair. I watched Laurena shift her head slightly, and her throat worked as she swallowed in unconscious reflex.

"Oh my gods," Tabitha whisper-wailed, trembling all over. "Oh my,"— a pause—"gods." Her terrified wide eyes snapped up and locked with mine. "What am I going to do?"