Wicked as She Wants by Delilah S. Dawson Read Free Book Online

rude. I forced myself to look down.
    “Forgive me, madam. I’ve been out of the world for a long time and have forgotten myself.”
    It was the most polite I’d been in London, mainly because I could sense some common feeling in the proud carriage of this odd lady. If she wasn’t royalty where she came from, she was something close.
    “I understand what it is like to be alone among ze barbarians,” she answered with a coy smile. “And I offer my condolences on the loss of your hair. I remember from ze broadsheets that it was quite beautiful.”
    My hand went to the heinous hat. I removed it anddropped it right on Tommy Pain’s head. He shook it off and glared at me with his bright green eye. I almost smiled.
    “I am Madamoiselle Beaureve, but here they call me Reve. If you will allow, I will help you to bathe and dress in a disguise, so that you may travel unimpeded. The price, as you know, is your hair. Do you accept this arrangement?”
    Keen handed her the bag, and Reve opened it with a look of awe. Her skin shivered in feathery patterns of violet and indigo.
    “It is very fine. It will be a joy to work with such beautiful hair.”
    “What will you do with it?” I asked.
    “Truly, you don’t want to know, princess.”
    “There’s some sick bastards in this town,” Keen muttered under her breath. Judging by her bitterness, maybe she was older than she looked.
    “It seems I have no choice but to accept.”
    My eyes met Casper’s. I couldn’t read what I saw there, a stormy mixture of determination and surrender, like a man being sucked into darkness and welcoming the maelstrom. He closed his eyes as if in pain and slipped out the door without a word.
    Reve pooled my golden curls reverently on a work-table with a farewell pat. I told myself that my hair would grow back, that it would one day regain and surpass its former beauty, but I wasn’t sure if I believed it.
    The daimon walked around me, her long tail waving as she plucked my sleeves and felt the stuff of my skirt and tilted my head up with a hot-skinned magenta finger under my chin.
    “This will be fun,” she murmured.
    She bowed me through another door. I was soon alone, soaking in a copper tub, the water from the steam pipes nearly boiling my skin. Once I got over my inbred fear of water and accepted that there wasn’t a grain of salt in the sweet-smelling bubbles, I was able to finally relax. I hadn’t realized how dusty and tightly wound I had been. The bathtub, clearly selected for Reve, dwarfed my petite form, and I stretched in ecstasy. In the workshop, the daimon would be plucking out the gold thread and burning my old dress, or maybe cutting it into ragged skirts for the less-picky whores. So it was done, then. I was ready to begin the next chapter of my life.
    The water was soon cloudy with the filth of years, and it was delicious to scrub my short hair and feel the water running down my scalp. By the time I exited the steam-filled bathroom wrapped in a skimpy cotton robe, I was almost looking forward to life on the road. I’d never undertaken a journey before, and even if my main companion was an unpleasant ruffian like Casper, at least I wasn’t half-drained in a valise.
    Reve was waiting for me in the workroom, surrounded by heaps of fabric and ribbons.
    “Oh la, chérie . You are ready? Good. We begin.” She led me to a tall chair, and I sat, mesmerized by my image in the mirror.
    She fluffed my damp hair with her fingers, which were now green. It curled loosely around my head in a pretty cloud of lightest blond, and I sighed.
    “I know, I know . Sangland is a bland place, and you are accustomed to standing out. Brown dye will seem cruel to you, but it’s the only way to avoid detection.”
    “Artifice,” I said. “I don’t like it.”
    She laughed, her voice like water over rocks. “You are Freesian royalty. You drank artifice with your mother’s milk and blud. This is just a little paint.”
    With quick fingers, she