Wicked as She Wants Read Free

“This is not possible.”
    He cocked his head at me, squinting as he looked me up and down. I was accustomed to seeing awe, fear, and polite admiration in a Bludman’s eyes. I had never had a human look so brazenly into my face, seeming to reach down into my soul and question what was found there. But this man did just that. And the answering expression on his face showed an unwelcome sympathy. I flinched under his scrutiny.
    “You do look like the broadsheets, although the drawings showed you a little younger. If you’ve been drained and hidden in that suitcase for years, I guess it could be you. If you really are the Princess Ahnastasia, your sister is also missing, and your brother is sickly.” He looked down to fiddle with the vial of blood, and my eyes followed. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but your parents are dead. They were executed a few months ago in a coup by a gypsy sorceress named Ravenna, and she’s a heartbeataway from complete control of Freesia. Tell me, princess, what do you remember?”
    “I don’t . . . I can’t . . .” I faltered and closed my eyes. They were too dry to produce tears. “I need more blood,” I whispered. “Please.”
    With another look of pity, he uncorked the vial he held. I allowed him to lift me into a sitting position and gulped the blood as politely as possible, so stricken with grief that it was like swallowing past a stone. After I’d emptied the vial and licked the lip of the glass clean, I muttered, “More.”
    He obliged, producing yet another vial from his shirt pocket. I had enough strength by then to slap his hand away and hold the vial myself, but I let him keep his arm behind my back, supporting me. My talons were atrociously long, the pinkie fingers beginning to twist into unfashionable corkscrews. At least my mother would never see me this way. I grimaced as I set the vial on the floor. The blood loss, the heartbreak—it was too much to bear.
    “That’s all the blood I can find.” He pocketed the empty vials and dusted off his hands as if he didn’t like touching them. “The delivery isn’t due until this afternoon, I’m afraid. No one comes to the Seven Scars before lunch except me and Tom Pain. Isn’t that so, Tommy?”
    And then I smelled the strangest thing. An animal. A fellow predator but an unfamiliar and somehow non-threatening one. A rumbling noise started up, and an odd creature padded out from the shadows. It was heavy and black and furry, with one great, green eye that regarded me philosophically. The other eye was scarred over, an ugly slash against the creature’s face. I had never seen anything like it.
    “What is that monster?”
    “It’s not a monster. It’s a cat.”
    As he reached to stroke the rumbling creature, I realized that I was sitting up on my own. I finally had enough strength to support myself again. The man focused on the animal, and I scooted unobtrusively toward the broken vial of blood, dragging my fingers through the red puddle and licking them clean with a new desperation.
    “What, they don’t have cats in Freesia?” he asked. “I thought cats were everywhere. Old Tommy has lived at the Seven Scars pub for much longer than any cat has a right to live. They say cats have nine lives, and he’s on his tenth.”
    The man scratched the cat-thing under the chin, and the cat closed his eye in bliss and rubbed his head all over the man in an entirely unrepentant way that still managed to exude superiority. I began to like the cat. The man, on the other hand . . .
    “I’ve answered your question,” I said, my haughtiness returning with my strength. “Now you will answer mine. Who are you? And what are you? You smell wrong.”
    “I’m Casper Sterling,” It was unsettling, the way his eyes held mine. I refused to blink as I waited for the answers he owed me. “I’m the greatest musician in London, maybe in the entire world of Sang. And I’m mostly drunk.”
    “That’s not what’s