Wicked as She Wants Read Online Free PDF Page A

alive for more than a thousand miles, and depose one of the most powerful despots in the entire world, then I can sit around and play the harpsichord in the snow whenever you crook your little claw. But I’ll still be an inferior, won’t I? Your pet slave.” He chuckled and leaned back against the wall, crossing his bare feet. “It’s what they call a fool’s bargain.”
    “You strike me as a fool.”
    “What, because I’m here, crouched in the attic and playing piano for blue-collar bloodsuckers who can’t tell Beethoven from Brahms? Because I spend most of my time drunk and wishing for something stronger than drink? Or because I took pity on what I thought was a starving child but was actually a murderous little ice bitch with plans of world domination?”
    As he panted with anger and hunched over, stalking toward me in the scant space between us, I saw in him the echoes of a Bludman’s inner beast and wondered, in truth, what he was. But I smiled at his little tirade.
    “You’re a fool because you underestimate me.” I ran a thumb over the edge of the mirror shard hidden behind my skirt, swiped from the ground when his back was turned.
    Then I pounced for his neck.
    It didn’t take much strength or weight to knock him over—he must have been drunker than he seemed. His arm jerked up just in time to stop my slash for his jugular, and I hissed and aimed for his bare shoulder. The mirror shard plunged into his skin, and as he shrieked and struggled, I yanked out the tip and pressed my mouth to the wound.
    Finally. Real blood. Straight from the animal, as it should be. Vials could never equal this rush, this eye-rolling pleasure.
    Except.
    I pulled back and stared at the blood dribbling from the wound. It wasn’t right.
    In that second of curiosity, as Casper clutched at his shoulder and swore in words I’d never heard before, something heavy landed on my back with a screech. Claws dug into the tender flesh above my corset, and teeth nipped against my neck. I growled in response and scrabbled at the heavy, furry shape with my talons. With one last, insulted hiss, Tommy Pain leaped off me and shot back under the bed, where he growled menacingly from the shadows.
    I decided that I had mixed feelings about cats.
    Casper erupted under me, dumping me onto the dusty floorboards in a heap. He lurched away to where the mirror used to be, then swore some more as he tried to find another way to assess the damage I’d done. I licked my lips meditatively, still wondering what the bitter taste might be. My already ruined dress now resembled a garbage sack, and creamy straggles of dusty hair tangled over my shoulders, sticky with blood and old wine. And I was still raging with hunger. His blood wasn’t perfect, but it would have served its purpose if I hadn’t stopped to deliberate.
    Had I been a lesser being, I would have felt very sorry for myself. I might have endeavored to cry again. As it was, I held out a hand toward Casper and said, “You may consider us equal. Your blood in exchange for having restrained me. Shall we be friends?”
    I didn’t mean it. Not the equal part, not the friends part. I’d seen a human singing to some pigeons once, luring one close enough to twist its neck. I could sing like that, too.
    He looked at my hand as if it still held the scrap of mirror. Luckily, his blood had already clotted, so it wasn’t hard to control myself. I’d gotten a couple of good mouth-fuls, and it was enough. But I wanted him to help me up. I wanted him to start thinking of himself as my servant. So I smiled. And I waited.
    Casper stood over me so long that my arm started to shake. I had thus far managed to ignore my body’s constant groans and aches since my emergence from the valise. But even fresh blood couldn’t fix four years of starvation, stillness, and atrophy, not even on a Bludwoman’s body.
    “Hmm?” I added hopefully.
    He dug into his pocket and dropped another vial into my hand instead. My