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

mixed a strange concoction from bottles and powders and coated my hair with dull brown. Without a word and with an ease that suggested prior dealings with Bludmen, she clipped and filed my talons to the exactly proper length. When she finally washed the muck from my hair, I looked like a drowned bludlemming.
    I was accustomed to being primped and dressed, and honestly, I wouldn’t have known how to do half of it. I was more than content to let myself be manipulated as I meditated on my various plans. Heads on platters. Or spikes. Travel by coach or elegant airship, velvet couches, a parasol at my side. Sinking my teeth into Ravenna’s throat and being welcomed back into the embrace of my country. Raising monuments to my parents and moving into the royal chamber.
    I patted the robe’s pocket, feeling the weight of my jeweled necklace there. I still had riches. It would be a piece of bludcake.
    Reve helped me step into the bulky undergarments favored in London, frilly petticoats that would make my skirt stand out round as a bell.
    “Now for your dress,” she said, and I inspected the rich fabrics and trims draped everywhere.
    My smile crumbled when she held out the dullest thing in the room.
    “A sack?” I asked, acid in my voice.
    “Oh, la, little princess. What you see here are costumes for performers. The dancers, the acrobats, the whores. They all come to me for the brightest, the lowest-cut,the most daring. But you must do your best not to stand out. You must escape notice. Eyes must travel over you and never remember that you existed. That scarlet satin would drop wagging jaws, and then you would find yourself in another suitcase.”
    I poked the dull brown thing draped over her arms. Then I wiped my fingers off on my robe.
    “Tell yourself it is a costume. Call the color bronze or palomino. And don’t give up yet—there is more to do.”
    With daggers of distaste in my eyes, I let her dump me into the dress. The rough, canvas-like fabric grated against my wrists and neck. I’d never dressed as a Pinky, never had my throat covered up to my chin, and I wanted to gag with the intimacy of the garment.
    “This next bit is special,” Reve said, interrupting my sulk. She held something heavy and leathery out to me, and I sneered at it.
    “A saddle?”
    “There are no stirrups, chérie. ”
    She winked and lifted my arms to buckle the thing around me. It was a leather corset. And it had to weigh at least twenty pounds.
    “Are you trying to torture me?”
    “I’m trying to keep you alive, silly goose. A leather corset reinforced with steel bones and extra-thick panels. It works both ways—not only will it keep you from being accidentally stabbed or arrow-shot, but it will make you look like the most frightened Pinky that ever walked the earth. No Bludwoman in her right mind would wear such a thing, no?”
    I could barely move in it, and when she had finished tightening the straps, I could barely breathe. As I pantedand glared, Reve glanced at a cuckoo clock and sucked at her lip.
    “We are running out of time. Quit pouting and act useful.”
    She helped me back into my ragged boots and laced them for me, since I couldn’t bend over. I put on the gloves she gave me and clenched my hands, feeling muffled and dull. I had never put on used clothes before, never had any fabric touch my body that had been touched by uncovered human hands, much less worn by the filthy wretches. It was like wearing trash. Ugly trash. I imagined what my proud mother would think if she saw me like this. Probably retch into a painted ewer at the sight of her favorite daughter drained, dressed in rags, and nearly bald.
    But no. The dead don’t retch.
    “Come and see, chérie .” Reve tugged me toward a looking glass.
    “I don’t think I want to.”
    But she didn’t give me a choice, and the Bludwoman in the mirror was a complete stranger. From her huge ice-blue eyes to her hollow cheeks and dirt-colored hair, she was a mystery. The