Wicked as She Wants Read Free Page B

sit up and smacked my forehead on something hard.
    “The eaves are rather low,” he said bitterly as I floundered. “I can’t afford better. This ain’t the Ice Palace.”
    My eyes adjusted to the dimness as I managed to roll onto an elbow. He was across the small room—more of a closet, really—sitting on a stool as he pulled on a pair of shiny knee-high boots with silver toe caps. I wanted to say something snide, but he was too interesting. The scruffy, careless, drunken wastrel I’d encountered earlier had metamorphosed into a sleekly handsome creature just this side of a dandy. Tight suede breeches, a flouncy shirt with feathery layers of lace, and a gem-encrusted coat winked in the twilight. His hair shimmered over his shoulders in glossy waves. He reminded me of my mother’s favorite pet Pinky dressed up for a parade, although there was something vaguely threatening about him. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, his posture or his scent or his wolfish grin, but something dangerous lurked under the surface of Casper Sterling.
    “It’s time for me to perform.” He stood, checking his image in a hanging mirror. “You need to stay right where you are. I looked up some old broadsheets, and anyone less drunk would recognize you in a heartbeat. So start thinking about what you can do to change that, starting with your hair.”
    My bare hand went to the long white-blond curls rippling over the side of the bed. Ye gods, had he taken the pins out while I’d slept? I was scandalized, to think of those long fingers buried in my hair. And he actually expected me to change my favorite feature? I couldn’t alter the ice-blue eyes of my Muscovy heritage, so my hair was the only logical choice. Then I realized the implications of what he had said.
    “Why should I disguise myself?” I pulled my shoulders back and stuck out my chin despite an unladylikeposition. “I am the princess. I will soon be Tsarina. Once the authorities are made aware of my whereabouts, I will be returned to the Ice Palace. You may even be rewarded for your trouble.”
    Before we drain you and eat your heart on toast, I added silently.
    “This isn’t Freesia. And Freesia isn’t what it was four years ago. There’s civil unrest there, talk of revolt against the landed Bludmen’s harsh rule. The price on your head is high, and if you actually made it back home alive, Ravenna would have you killed. If the people still want you, they don’t know it. They’re completely in her power. Mesmerized or bullied or fed only propaganda. Perhaps all of the above.”
    “You’re lying.” Each word dripped icicles.
    “Why would I lie? This is London, and I’m a has-been playing tunes for coppers in a third-rate Blud bar. I’m a dancing monkey. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have turned you in to the Coppers while you were asleep and taken the reward.” He tied his cravat and flashed his dimpled grin. “It’s up to a thousand silvers, you know. They think you’re dead. But someone’s not willing to bet on it.”
    On the outside, my nostrils flared. On the inside, I was breaking apart, cracks invading me like a glacier about to plummet into the fathomless deep. If he wasn’t lying, my parents were gone, and the beautiful palace where I’d led a charmed life was more than a thousand miles away and no longer safe. The sea, the mountains, the wilds of the tundra standing in my way were rendered insignificant only by the understanding that someone wanted me dead. And they had very nearly gotten their way.
    “I’ve got to get back.” I had to discover what Ravenna held over my country and my last remaining sibling. If itwas as bad as he had described, it was my duty to them and my birthright.
    “I’d worry about standing up first. Looks like you were drained to the cusp of death. What’s the last thing you remember?”
    He leaned forward into a golden ray of sunset shining through a window so small it resembled a porthole. The bloodshot