Read Online Hood's Obsession by Marie Hall - Free Book Online Page A

entertaining any thoughts involving anyone outside of her species was a bad idea?
    But the reminders were growing thin, and her weariness at pretending that what he thought of her was beginning to matter made the complication that was her life a daily source of irritation.
    Squaring her shoulders, she turned to him.
    His gaze traveled from head to toe before finally lingering on her face. She could read nothing behind his eyes. She wished she had enough magic to change him, too, but her magic did not extend beyond herself.
    Lifting a brow, she said in a voice that rattled like dry, dusty bones, “Perhaps you could rub a little dirt on yourself and—”
    “I’m fine. Thank you. But there isn’t much that can hide who I am.” His tone was cordial—in fact it was extremely polite—so why then did it make her want to growl at him?
    She almost told him that with his dark skin and burning, ruby-colored eyes, their ability to remain inconspicuous would be for naught. There was no one in all the lands of Kingdom that looked quite like a demone. Superstitions in this part of the country ran rife. Because Lilith already knew of the demone, she’d known exactly what he was. But there were few in these parts who would believe him to be a demon. A monster capable of all manner of vile, devilish things, and that could be a problem for them.
    But he was already walking through the door.
    He was right, though. Even rubbing a little dirt on his face couldn’t hide his true nature. Giles would stick out like a sore thumb no matter what they did. Shaking her head with resignation, Lilith followed him inside the rounded, wooden entrance to Kingdom’s most notorious and infamous pub, the Skull and Crossbones brewery and eatery.
    A mouse dashed across her sandaled foot. Frowning, she watched the white-haired animal scamper off. A nagging brew of something being not quite right chewed at her gut as she tentatively pushed the door open.
    Lively music blasted her ears the moment she stepped through. Panpipes and flutes and a bodhran all mixed to make a melodious and cacophonous wash of sound.
    Serving wenches giggled, ale flowed, and revelers sang an off-key melody.
    But the moment the eyes spotted Giles, all the noise stopped. Just…ended. And every set of eyes turned in their direction.
    Nibbling on a corner of her lip, realizing it would be up to her to put the inhabitants at ease, she tiptoed to Giles’s side and rubbed her arm up and down his sleeve. “This man belongs to me,” she muttered in a voice that sounded as weary and scratchy as the body she now appeared to have.
    It helped that she’d chosen a crone as her guise; it would be nothing for those inside to assume she was a witch who’d called the demon to her side.
    Maybe it was her imagination, but it did seem as though a few of the eyes seemed less hostile after she’d said it. The best she could hope for would be that they would assume she was in control of the monster and they’d be left in peace.
    A couple of the eyes began to slowly turn aside, but a few of the more cutthroat-looking patrons didn’t seem to care that she’d just claimed a demon as her own.
    Seated toward the back of the pub were two large, bald-headed, green-skinned orcs. Their golden teeth flashed as they whispered a heated exchange back and forth.
    orcs could spell trouble. They were notorious bandits, looters interested only in gold or other precious metals. But she’d taken care to not wear anything that could attract their ilk, and Giles himself wore only the clothes on his back. The orcs shouldn’t be a problem for them.
    Seated beside the orcs were a gaggle of thick-chested dwarves with long, bushy beards and leathers of soft umber and forest-green tones. The gaggle of thirteen men was devouring a whole roasted pig, laughing and drinking, very few of them paying any attention to Giles or Lilith.
    Stone dwarves were notorious in Kingdom as being cannibals, but these appeared to be their