Black Briar Read Online Free PDF

shoulders, the curve of white skin behind her ear—he was eating her with his eyes.
     
    Predator in waiting.
     
    She narrowed her eyes. This plot—don’t get it twisted, fucker.
     
    Dusk purple and slime green magic crackled around her in double helix jets of spectral dust and glitter. “Why did you go through so much trouble, Nova? Why go through Enid ? I doubt it was just for”—her slitted eyes flickered to his crotch—“Whatever it was, don’t do it again. Next time, go to a hospital.”
     
    With that, she ripped a fresh prescription Post-It off the pad and snapped her medical bag shut. “Have the table sent to The Briar when you’re done.”
     
    Nova studied her work, turning his arm in the moonlight. “The Hag offered a pact. It was accepted. You’re not privy to the details, because it is none of your business. Isn’t that your favorite thing to say?”
     
    Had he been anyone else, she would’ve gouged his fucking eyes out with a rusty spoon, but fuck him—she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. As a matter of fact, fuck the bench. Fuck her tools.
     
    Fuck this gargoyle.
     
    She snatched up her cloak and her puppy off his lap and stomped about three steps before he fisted the billowing plum folds, and halted her in her tracks.
     
    “No, not tonight. Tonight, you stay.”
     
    “The hell I do!” She fisted her cloak and yanked. “Keep your medieval misogyny, I will say when and where the fuck I go.”
     
    On minute, she was shaking a puppy at him, utterly outraged. The next, he was there. Right there. So close. Every inch of their bodies were molded from chest to thigh, and his arms closed around her. Heat.
     
    His body was roiling with heat, but his skin was so cold. Smoke wafting off molten steel in water. Her knees knocked as his long, slender fingers tangled in her weary wheat waves. He crushed her mouth beneath his, kissing her like he knew exactly what he was doing, because he did.
     
    Tongue plying ruthlessly. Sharp teeth nibbling gently.
     
    It was like being held in the heavens. Everything but the stars faded away. Everything but him.
     
    He still tasted like green tea, lime citrus, and chocolate—the expensive, bitter kind. Beneath all that lingered the benediction of a gargoyle. Stone and chalk. Copper and metal. The tip of her tongue tingled and he ate his way deeper. And deeper…
     
    He pressed a soft kiss on her bottom lip, and then, caught her startled gasp in hot and deep onslaught. She was melting. Her bones were liquefying. Her fingers tangled in his hair, black tendrils were black briar winding around her palm. Nova…
     
    God, when she was with him, all he did was remind her how tired she was. All he did was threaten the sanctity of the conclusion that one simply could not have it all. But Sybille knew better.
     
    There were people who were blessed with good fortune. And then there were the rest of God’s miserable children. Forgotten. Abused. Bad things happened to good people on the island of misfit toys.
     
    Jerking back she rebuked the kiss and shoved him away, lips wet and trembling. Not…” she panted, fingers fanning across his pectoral like that alone would hold the night at bay. “Not anymore. Never again.”
     
    He slipped his large hand down her arm, palm smooth, the feel of a snake’s underbelly, and molded his fingers around her wrist, applying pressure, as if that would mold fingerprints into her skin. “Do you remember the first time we met?”
     
    Did she remember? Ha. Of course, she did.
     
    The second chinked and cobbled bridge leading out of New Gotham stretched a narrow channel overlooking the corner of Crachit and Marley. Dead moss from the ledge had clung to the bottom of her bare feet, a pair of scuffed and dirty white Converse high-tops hanging idly at her side. She pinched a coin between her teeth for the ferryman and her hands were shaking. Heartbeat throbbing in her throat, she could almost taste it over the