Dark Dealings Read Online Free PDF Page A

him.
    It had to be false. But the niggle of it, the promise of illicit twists of power feeding into her empty soul, thickened her blood. If they caught her...then everything they’d always said about her would prove true. She was a thief to her core. But they wouldn’t catch her.
    Her thoughts rolled around. First, she had to trail after more apprentices on Reist’s watch list. She’d slip the book back into the library while she was about it. On a more innocuous shelf than her own. The mages were focusing on the Convocation that night, and their powers would be a feast trailing after them.
    She’d grab the chance to test her theory. The teken was burning a fierce red on her palm. She had no choice.

Chapter Three
    Reist was kissing Fallon.
    Ava’s gut tightened. Loitering around the corridors and alcoves that fed into the Moon Chambers was a mistake, but she’d followed the golden twists and turns of magic cast off by the higher mages. Almost as if someone had put a ring through her nose and tugged her along.
    And now she had her first view of them together. Properly together. One she couldn’t avoid.
    She pressed her hand to her mouth. Hard. The fury of the thief burned within her, the one that wanted to test him, to see if she could pull in his power, make it her own and then open her mouth and devour him.
    She wanted to sink her teeth into the innate strength of his sculpted body, but her desire soured as she watched them, heard them.
    His fingers pushed through Fallon’s hair and teased it back from her neck. He smiled, that slow, easy smile, the same one that he’d given to Ava on the first day in the Institute. The one she’d always thought had been just for her. He buried his face against Fallon’s skin, against the curve of her shoulder. There was a...reverence to his every stroke, every openmouthed kiss, and something in Ava died.
    He slid easy hands down Fallon’s back to cup her backside. The woman laughed and said something that had him pulling back and transforming that easy smile into a grin. A wicked curve that changed his face. And Reist had never looked at her that way. With want...and lust.
    Pain and regret twisted in Ava’s gut. Stupid plan. She shouldn’t have been near the upper chambers, the privilege of the higher mages. But it was the one night of the month when their tightly bound magic flowed. Why, she was never allowed to know. Another mage secret. They wouldn’t miss a tiny snip from their power.
    Reist’s new bed toy kept him distracted even over something as serious as a Convocation. Bitch. Bastard. Both of them. She closed her eyes and willed down the fierce rush of bitter anger, the heat that made her nails dig hard into her palms.
    Ava stepped into the shadow of an alcove. Its darkness wrapped around her, hiding her. She melted back into the stone, unseen, unheard. The skill that made her the perfect messenger and the eyes and ears for the new Highest Mage.
    She let her head rest against the coolness of the smooth stone lining the little alcove. How Reist acted with Fallon drove a knife into her gut. She couldn’t fight it. She’d known he was never...maybe the word was faithful... to her, but she hadn’t expected him to be enjoying his time with Fallon quite so much.
    Reist was all about ambition. Only ancient, imperial wards stopped his further rise, of becoming emperor in Cadmus the Sixteenth’s stead. What did that woman in his bed give him? An insult to Heyerdar? The two senior men of the court had shared mutual antagonism long before Reist had been gifted with the exalted position of Highest Mage.
    She had to stare at them again. She didn’t want to, but the pull was inexorable. The pair courted imbalance. Magic was finding the perfect harmony, perfection in opposites. Reist had to know that. Had to feel it in his soul like she did. Higher mages did not fuck within their caste. Yet there he was, in full view of everyone and for the past month, taking Fallon to his