Wynn tilted her head away from his lingering touch. He might have been handsome and wealthy, but he’d always revolted her.
“You didn’t kidnap me to rehash our past, did you?”
His gaze lowered to her lips. “I wish, but sadly this is a business arrangement.”
A chill pierced Wynn’s heart. That was exactly what she feared. If she was just dealing with Pheral she could find a way to pay him off. The fairy was always for sale. Or better yet, she could use her skipping stones to escape.
But if he was doing this for someone else, then she was in trouble.
“Business with who?” she demanded.
“The mysterious creature who offered an impressive reward for anyone capable of capturing you. It’s taken a full year for you to finally wander into one of my traps. Where the hell have you been?”
Wynn ignored the question. She was more interested in the fact that whoever was searching for her must be in England. Did that mean she’d encountered the dragon magic while she was here? Maybe Azh was right. Maybe she had to go back to the beginning.
And where was that aggravating dragon? Was he looking for her?
With a shake of her head, she dismissed the pang of yearning to have Azh burst into the dungeon and sweep her away. She’d been taking care of herself for a long time. She didn’t need anyone to ride to the rescue.
Not even a gorgeous, sexy dragon.
She glowered at her captor. “There’s a reward out for me?”
“There’s always a reward out for you, love,” he reminded her. “But this one paid substantially more than usual.”
“Who’s offering it?”
“Malis.”
“Malis?” Wynn searched through her memories only to come up empty. “Should I recognize the name?”
“I didn’t,” Pheral confessed. “I never heard of him. Not until I found this hanging in my favorite gentlemen’s club.” The fairy reached into the pocket of his slacks to pull out a folded piece of paper. With a flick of his wrist, he had it snapped open to reveal a charcoal sketch of her along with a reward that was large enough to make her queasy.
Studying the sketch, Wynn frowned. It was a better-than-average likeness of her, but not from today. Over the decades she hadn’t aged, but her face had matured and thinned while her hair had lightened from a mousy brown to a lighter shade of gold. It was her eyes, however, that had changed the most dramatically. They’d gone from a pale blue to a strange shade of lavender.
“What makes you think this is me?” she asked.
“I remember watching you beg on the street corner when you first arrived in London. I knew even then there was something different about you. I was right.”
Ew. She didn’t like the thought this creep had been keeping an eye on her when she was so young. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one.
“Fine. What did I do to this Malis?”
“I don’t know, but whatever it was must have been bad.” Pheral tossed aside the Wanted poster, a mocking smile playing around his lips. “You don’t offer that sort of reward unless you’re truly pissed.”
No shit. A shiver raced through Wynn.
“It’s a lot,” she agreed, “but I can match it.”
Pheral rolled his eyes. “Right.”
“It’s true. I can also add in a bonus if you return me to London tonight.”
He pursed his lips, pretending to consider her offer. “Tempting, and not just because of the bonus. I don’t like the thought of you being tortured and killed, Wynn. You were always causing some sort of delightful chaos. I’ve never seen my fellow demons so flustered as when they were trying to figure out who had stolen some rare artifact or scrambling to get invited to one of the underground auctions when those same artifacts went up for sale. It’s sad but true that the city is boring when you’re not around.”
She held his gaze even as she concentrated on the strands of magic inside her. She located the only strand that might help her. A pale-yellow magic that would create tiny fractures in the stone wall behind her. It was her best hope of tugging the manacles free.
“Then let me go,” she said.
