by Eva Chase
The window looked out over the back courtyard, dark now other than a few pools of light from the security lamps. I’d arranged a suite at the end of the hall on the second floor. The broad limestone sill outside would serve Bash just fine when he needed to drop in.
I turned away from the view, and all my satisfaction drained away.
A translucent white figure wavered in the glow of the bedside light. It formed a lumpy but vaguely humanoid shape beneath overlapping strips of ragged white fabric—at least, they looked like fabric. Sometimes I wondered if they weren’t swaths of dead skin.
The only part the strips didn’t totally cover was the area that should have been a face. There, amid the folds of cloth, a haze of mist stared back at me, so deep that if I looked at it for long, I’d feel I were staring clear across the continent into a realm where no human had ever ventured.
A chill raced over my skin, but I meandered across the room to the mirror over the desk as if I had no qualms about my visitor. “Hello, Bog,” I said. “What brings you here?”
Bog wasn’t really the thing’s name. The shrouded folk had their own language that human ears couldn’t properly decipher. Bog sounded somewhat right, and it gave me a tiny shred of amusement to call the monster after something repellant, if I had to address it at all.
I could still see it at the side of the mirror while I unpinned my hair. As the red waves spilled down over my narrow shoulders, the folds around Bog’s face quivered.
“You are playing games,” it said in a voice as dry as desert-bleached bone and as distant as the mist it came from. “I thought you might need reminding of our agreement.”
A pinching sensation emanated from the spot on the back of my neck just below my hairline where the magic of our contract had marked me.
“Oh, I’m hardly going to forget that,” I said. “I have a month longer. Why shouldn’t I play during the time I have left?”
“Why play here, bloodling? You are no ‘investigator’.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think I’ve investigated plenty in my time.”
“If that is what pleases you. Perhaps I will find something of interest in it too.”
The shrouded one’s tone stayed perfectly even, like mine had. We were playing a game right now—the game where I pretended I didn’t plan to do everything in my power to escape the deal I’d made, and it pretended not to suspect me of that scheming. But those last words had been a warning.
I shrugged and picked up my brush. “You can spend your time however you want.”
The mist stirred. I could almost have said I caught a glint of a smirk.
“Think more about how you wish to spend yours, bloodling. You received your ten years. In thirty days, your life is mine.”
I smiled back at it through the mirror despite the tremor that ran through my chest. We’ll see about that.
Want to read more of Jemma’s story? It’s free with Kindle Unlimited! Grab A Study in Seduction here.
About the Author
Eva Chase lives in Canada with her family. She loves stories both swoony and supernatural, and strong women and the men who appreciate them. Along with the Looking-Glass Curse trilogy, she is the author of the Their Dark Valkyrie series, the Witch’s Consorts series, the Dragon Shifter’s Mates series, the Demons of Fame Romance series, the Legends Reborn trilogy, and the Alpha Project Psychic Romance series.
Connect with Eva online:
www.evachase.com
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