Read Online A Wicked Thing by Rhiannon Thomas - Free Book Online Page B

don’t?”
    â€œI don’t know. It seems a lot to ask one person who’s been asleep for a hundred years.” It was easier, somehow, to put her feelings into words when she could be anonymous, a nameless mouse instead of a lost princess. Not easy, but easier. “Do you think people really believe it? That everything will be better now she’s back?”
    Tristan frowned at her. “I think some of them do,” he said. “The rest of them just want to believe.” Their shoulders brushed. “People have to have something to hope for, don’t they? Doesn’t really matter what. It’s better to believe in magic than think that we’ll all be hungry and poor for the rest of our lives.”
    â€œAnd you? What do you believe?”
    â€œMe?” He ran his fingers down the handle of his tankard, considering. “I realized a long time ago that no one’s ever going to help anybody. You can’t just sit around and wish. But perhaps we should talk about something else. Nell’ll have my head if she thinks I’m talking trouble. And trust me. You don’t want to make Nell mad.”
    â€œWho’s Nell?”
    â€œOwner of this great establishment,” he said. “She’s not a bad sort. Gave me a job when I needed it, even though I’m not exactly work material. But she likes to play it safe.”
    â€œAnd you don’t?”
    â€œSafe is boring, Mouse. It’s for old folk with businesses to run, not people like me and you.”
    â€œLike me and you?” She smiled. “You barely know me.”
    â€œI know enough to know I want to know you. Does that count?”
    â€œI’m not sure it does.”
    â€œWell, you’re new in town,” he said. “You could decide to be anybody! So I’ll go with the hope you’ll decide to be like me.”
    â€œI’ll consider it,” she said. She gripped her own tankard with both hands, pulling it closer to her chest. “How did you know I was new here?”
    â€œI would remember if I’d seen you before.”
    She tilted her head to look at him. Blonde strands fell over her eyes. “And you’ve met everyone in this city, have you?”
    â€œEveryone worth knowing,” he said. He nudged her hand. A shiver ran across the points where their skin touched.
    â€œTristan Attwater!” A rather large woman with a mop of graying brown hair marched toward them. “I don’t pay you to flirt, you know.”
    â€œYou don’t pay me at all, Nell,” Tristan said. “But it’s all part of the service.”
    â€œWell, customers are waiting.”
    He gave Aurora another smile and a shake of his head. “Duty calls. But it was nice chatting to you, little Mouse.”
    â€œYou too.” She smiled back at him, and a warm ache tugged in her stomach. “Tristan.”
    Then he was gone, and Aurora turned to the stage, letting the trembling music fill all the emptiness that formed whenevershe sat still too long. She rolled the few words she had exchanged with Tristan through her mind, trying to decode the tone of his voice, the warm smile, the way he seemed to see right through her skin. Occasionally, her eyes wandered over to him as he served and cleaned and talked, seeming perfectly content with everything he did. Once, he caught her watching, and he shot her a grin.
    She had no idea how much time had passed, minutes and hours of music and stolen snatches of chatter, before Nettle left the stage and the crowd began to thin. “Thank you,” Aurora said as she passed the long-empty tankard across the bar to Tristan. She felt oddly peaceful, like all of her pain and stress belonged to some other girl.
    â€œNettle will be here tomorrow too, you know,” Tristan said with a slight tilt of his head. “So—see you soon?”
    She shouldn’t. She knew she shouldn’t. It wasn’t safe, it