I looked. Couldn’t help it.
He didn’t say a word—didn’t have to. It was all there, written on his face. Eyes darker than pitch. Left corner of his lips tilted toward the ceiling. Fingers finding purchase on the edge of my jaw.
He’d won.
Jasper appeared at his shoulder in a swirl of his fancy cloak. “C-Captain Rawlings, sir. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Marco pulled a cigarette box from his pocket. “Well that was the whole point, wasn’t it?”
Jasper coughed. “The—the point?”
Eyes drifting shut, I swallowed the clumpy hysteria. Ofcourseit was.
“Did you really think, after going to all the trouble to find her, Captain Rawlings would allow you to cheat him? Should have known better, Jasper.”
“It—it was an honest mistake—”
“Then why are we all here? Waiting for you to do exactly what you did?” Marco laughed, idly sparking his lighter. On and off, on and off. “You got greedy, slaver. Just like he knew you would. All it took was a lie about where we’d be waiting to collect the goods and you leapt at the chance to fuck him over.”
“I-I—n-no—”
“Come now, Marco,” the captain said, grinning, though he had yet to take his eyes off my face. “I couldn’t possibly have planned such a complicated conspiracy. That would be… what’s the word?”
Jasper stumbled back, clutching the image of the serpent. “I-impossible…”
Cupping his hands around a flame, Marco lit his smoke. “Nothing’s impossible for an Elite, slaver. You should know that by now.”
I almost smiled. There weremanythings impossible to the Elites. Just notthisElite.
Jasper’s cheeks flushed a deep red, eyes bulging as they darted between the two, but he couldn’t force a single coherent word past his lips.
“Captain, you remember what happened to the last one who tried to double-cross you?”
“Something to do with bleeding out in an alley, though I’m a little hazy on the details.”
“Hazy on the”—Marco squawked, indignant—“Come on, sir. That was some of my best work!”
Jasper blanched.
“Now, if it’s not too much trouble,” the captain said, brushing the matted hair back from my face, “perhaps you could explain why you’ve got my merchandise listed as ‘entertainment demon’ in this dreary shit-hole?”
“It’s… uh… a clerical error, sir.” The slaver cleared his throat. “A simple accident. My deepest apologies. You see, my partner is new to all of this, and the bloody idiot addedallof our stock to the registry, instead of just—”
“Hmm.”
“O-Once an item has been registered with the auction house,” Jasper continued, blotting the sweat trickling down the side of his face, “there’s—there’s really nothing I can do.”
“Well,” the captain said, inky eyes shining with something too dark for evenmeto name. “I’ll simply have to be patient and make my bid like the others.”
“Are you registered with the house, m-my lord?”
The captain smirked but didn’t bother to answer the question.
“Very, ah, very good, sir. If you could take your seat, we’ll get the auction under way.”
For a moment, the captain continued to watch me, tracing the edge of my bottom lip with his thumb. “Very well,” he said when I jerked away, with—of all things—a fractured whimper. “You may begin your little show. Oh, and Jasper?”
“S-Sir?”
