The Wish Granter (Ravenspire #2)(36)

“Llorenyae.” Ari sat straighter. “I wonder why he doesn’t live there anymore. Something must have happened if he won’t even do business with them. Maybe it’s something Thad can use against him.”

The street curved, wrapping around the hill. The homes and shops that were clustered together inside the city limits spread out here, and there wasn’t any torchlight to be seen.

Sebastian’s voice was quiet. “The king isn’t the first person to try desperate measures to get out of paying Teague. Somehow, Teague always wins.”

“Not this time,” Ari said grimly. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this, and I’m going to find a way to stop him from coming after my brother.”

“If you poke a snake with a stick, it will bite you, Your—Princess Arianna.”

“Then I’ll have to be very careful.” Especially since Cleo would pay the price if Ari got caught.

Sebastian made a humming noise in his throat, and twitched the reins against the horse’s back to make him move faster as the wagon crested the hill. A rock-strewn pasture met the left side of the road, and a large block of a building was on the right about two hundred paces ahead. There were torches lit beside the building’s door and all along its perimeter, and Ari caught movement along its roof.

“Where are we?” she whispered.

“One of Teague’s warehouses. Stolen goods, drugs, and sometimes people he’s taken as slaves to be sold in Balavata are kept here.” Sebastian’s voice was barely audible. “Few know where it is. It could make sense for Daan to have gone here after visiting the palace. If his body is found nearby, it will deflect suspicion from you and your brother because you’d have no idea how to find this place.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask how he knew where to find it when a shadow detached itself from the wall of the building and became the figure of a man, sword out, walking briskly toward the road as if to intercept them.

Ari’s palms grew slick. The last thing they needed was an armed man finding Teague’s dead collector in the wagon bed. “What do we do?” she breathed.

“Act normal,” Sebastian whispered. “We’re just two ordinary people driving home after a day of selling goods in the markets.”

Ari scooted closer to Sebastian. His body was coiled with tension, his jaw locked tight. He looked like a fighter about to launch himself into a fray.

Which, to be fair, was probably his version of acting normal, but to an onlooker was going to be a glaring clue that something wasn’t right. They had to do more than act normal. They had to hide their faces so that when Daan’s body was found, no one could give an accurate description of the couple who’d passed by in a wagon.

She had to fix this before they reached the man with the sword.

She could pretend to be sick and draw all the man’s attention to herself. It wouldn’t take much to put on a convincing show. But then she and Sebastian would be far more memorable than they wanted to be.

She could pretend they were arguing, which would explain the tension that radiated off Sebastian, but that would give the man a chance to memorize what their voices sounded like. Plus, she doubted Sebastian’s ability to argue. He’d probably sit there like a rock while she caused a (far too memorable) scene.

That left option number three. Her stomach pitched at the thought of it, but this time instead of feeling nauseous, she felt like the time she’d (accidentally on purpose) drunk fizzy wine at the winter ball while hiding in the servants’ hall watching the guests dance. Which was a foolish way to feel because this was an act.

“Follow my lead,” she whispered as she leaned into Sebastian’s space.

He jerked the reins, and the horse shied.

“We have to act normal, but you look like you’re about to start a fight, and I probably look like the princess wrapped in a stable blanket.” She breathed the words as her thigh pressed against his, and her head tipped toward his shoulder. “We need to hide our faces and make him believe there’s nothing to see here.”

“What are you doing?” There was a note of panic in his voice.

Not exactly how Ari had thought her first kiss would go, but she couldn’t think of another way to handle the situation.

“Kissing you,” she said. “Please play along. We’re going to be discovered in a minute.”

The wagon was eighty paces from the man. Ari angled her entire body toward Sebastian and tipped her head back. His eyes glinted dark and mysterious in the starlight.

All right, fine, they weren’t mysterious. They were full of panic and dismay, but mysterious sounded much better for a first kiss.

She couldn’t force him to do this. Not even when it seemed like the only option. She waited and hoped he’d see that hiding their faces and appearing to be just another couple returning home after a long day of work was the best way to deflect any suspicion.

He wasn’t going to do it. His body was rigid, his breathing rapid. She’d asked for too much. The man with the sword was going to see that something was wrong and was going to stop them and find the dead man, and then Sebastian would get into a fight, and Ari was going to probably have to hit the man with a rock, and then they were going to have two dead bodies to bury and—

He covered her lips with his, and every racing thought in her head dissolved into bubbly, skin-tingling surprise.