It’s not easy when you’re a runaway princess and the kingdom’s most notorious thief has indentured you.
Beatrix Fontaine ran from her stepmother for a very good reason – if the Queen Regent discovered Beatrix is a powerful healing witch, the kingdom would hunt her.
So it’s best to run first, correct? That was the theory, but when the inexperienced Beatrix runs into the very experienced, handsome, and calculating thief, Darian Gram, things get tricky. Darian’s a runaway himself – from the law, at least. Oh, and from family and friends – anyone foolish enough to have ever lent him a cent. With enemies that could fill one of those newfangled steam dirigibles, his best chance has always been on his own.
But when a certain doe-eyed powerful witch wanders across his path, he can’t help but indenture her. Taking what he wants comes naturally to Darian. But so does trouble. When they find themselves, ironically, on the kingdom’s flagship dirigible packed with enemies and spies, they must unfortunately work together. It’s that or die.
And Darian can’t die. Beatrix’s contracted never to let him. Worse, all too soon, he steals her heart, and thieves like Mr. Gram never let you go once you’re theirs.
“Darian, no,” I screamed. I threw myself to the side, but by that time, it was too late. The bullet, fired from the magic gun, tore across Darian’s shoulder. It spun him around. But the bullet kept going.
Just as I lurched toward Darian and tried to catch him, the shot, as fast as a man’s fist, slammed into the side of the wall. It tore a hole through it, revealing the dirigible to the wilds of the sky beyond.
“Beatrix,” Darian managed to scream my name and somehow found strength in his good arm. He fixed his shaking fingers around my wrist, holding me to the spot with his strong body as air escaped through the wall.
It tugged at my skirts, drawing them high around my knees. Before it could drag me away, Darian grunted, leveraging what little strength and magic he had left to hold me tightly. But weren’t we forgetting something?
The assassin surely hadn’t forgotten us. The man, still dressed in black from head to foot with only the thinnest slit of his cold gray eyes visible, lifted his gun again. I heard the magnetic click, click of his boots locking onto the patterned grating beneath us. As air continued to discharge through the hole beyond, all it could do was tug at his clothes. It couldn’t drag him into the sweet oblivion of the endless sky.
I glanced at it once.
Perhaps it would be easier than what lay ahead?
Darian still uselessly held my arm, but I glanced down at his injury and couldn’t tear my gaze off it. A large chunk, the size of a slab of steak, had been ripped right out of his bicep. I could see broken shards of glimmering bone adorned with torn-up flesh and splattered blood. His jacket had been half ripped off his torso, and his cheeks paled right before me, turning from their once healthy ruddy hue to the color of fresh milk.
“Darian—” I tried.
“It’s all right. Leave me.”
Leave him? Leave the man who’d kidnapped me, indentured me, dragged me onto this new-fashioned steam dirigible, and torn my old life into tatters?
Never.
With a grunt, he turned his rapidly dwindling gaze onto the assassin. The man still stood there, as proud as a statue, his golden magical gun glimmering in his hand. I couldn’t see him smiling under his thick black mask, but I knew he did. He laughed, too, just this sharp wheeze of a move. Then he lifted his gun.
Darian said nothing. He looked at me once. Then he launched forward.
And the assassin fired one last time.
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