He was doing this to create a character.I knew that.But my heart raced and my cheeks grew hotter. The token’s magic, the vow marks beneath, pressed against his chest under my wrist, thumping a strange place inside me. It might be distinctly impossible for this man to kiss badly.
Parts of this role were not difficult to participate in at all.
When I looked up, a waitress stood across the table from us. She wore an outfit similar to my own, her figure straining the bodice. She was smiling, but the lines around her eyes were hard. “Drinks? Grub?”
“Two blackfire stouts, and whatever you recommend to accompany it, darling.” Noble’s gaze was heavy-lidded beneath dark lashes. Wow.
The waitress raised a brow, but her eyes softened, as if he were just the type of character that made her compliant. “Right away, love.” She gave him a wink and barely spared me a glance.
He leaned back in his chair and splayed his arm across the back of mine. The hot glance he shot me made my skin heat and my toes curl, even knowing it was for show.
“I’m going to be the dock worker who is trying to hike up the tavern wench’s dress. After we have a drink or two, who knows what position you’ll find yourself in outside in the alley.”
I could only imagine.
He shifted, so that we were pressed all along one side, his head lowered toward mine. Was he going to do that again?Exposed, uncomfortable, and the slightest bit excited, I was horrified to hear hoots and calls.
“What are you doing now?” I pressed my hiss against his neck. “Didn’t we just establish ourselves?”
“I’m making us socially invisible to the rest of the pub, except to those who get off on this kind of thing.”
“What?”
His hand stroked the back of my neck, turning my head just slightly. “If a chance to ask questions presents, we have to be here—you can’t use magic to disappear. So we will become invisible like that.” Through the shifting bodies, a man and a woman writhed against a wall, their mouths fused, their hands in motion. No one was paying them any attention.
“We are not doing that!”
He had the audacity to laugh, a warm, rich sound vibrating against my breasts.
Our waitress returned with our drinks, sloshing them onto the table with another wink at Noble. He winked back, the back of one finger dragging through the spill as he grabbed the mug in one hand and flipped her a gold piece with the other—his chest pressing against mine. A small charm burst in the air around the gold as he blew her a kiss. “Be so good as to bring another quickly, love.”
She grabbed the spelled gold and laughed, then spun back to work.
Three points of conversation bloomed around us—words mixing together in a cacophonous flurry. My hands rose to cover my ears at the abruptness, but Noble’s lips were suddenly on my throat, pushing everything else out.
The delirious moments allowed my scattering brain to connect what had just occurred. He had set a listening enchantment into motion somehow. The spilled brew puddle?The waitress? A connection between the tables? All three elements connected together?
Eavesdropping enchantments were notoriously difficult to hide and use. The city’s net made anything but close-range spells impossible.
Noble’s lips sucked a bruise into my neck, scattering my thoughts further, then he released me and slammed his drink back. This close, I could see the siphoning enchantment held impossibly between his lips.
Who was this man?
I lifted my mug, needing something to do. The dark brew hit my tongue like tar, like drift pollution in a drink. Possibly the foulest taste ever encountered. I forced myself to take another small sip, wishing I had wiped on some sort of numbing powder first.
Conversations rushed impossibly into my ears once more.
Noble hiked me against him so that my breasts nearly overflowed on his chest. A spell flowed from his lips between mine.
The taste of the brew neutralized immediately, and I sighed against him. He stiffened, then kissed me almost bruisingly hard before letting go.
The listening enchantment required splitting my attention three ways. The mind-drugging kisses should have made it harder, but my breasts started to feel heavy, my lower body started to ache, and absurdly, it became easier to parse magic.
“I knew it,” he murmured against my lips as I relayed another tidbit that seemed interesting.
Knew what? But that was a question for later. His strategy was working. We had passed initial inspection. We whispered observations back and forth as we sipped, watched, and devoured—drunk on information and magic.
The hierarchy in the pub unfolded quickly. The main cluster at the bar was our target—and an audience, their most desired commodity. Mages clustered around two central figures—the leaders of the local watch, with their green hats—while men at their sides held control of the crowd. Patrons vied for the leaders’ attention.
