Dark Descent: The Arondight Codex - Book One by R Nicole (best books to read all time TXT) 📗

one side of the city to the other on a wild goose chase, unable to shake the feeling I was being pranked to the extreme. If it wasn’t for the magical arsehole detector in my hand, I might have given up ages ago.

I was following the heat signature of a troll doll, I thought to myself. This is not normal. But I’d kept going anyway.

Bad Boy had killed the same guy twice for crying out loud. He could have skewered me just as many times, though I wasn’t sure how that’d work, but he didn’t. He’d seemed curious that I was even talking to him until he’d turned full arsehole. Still, it was probably best I approach the guy in a public place if I could. The things I did for answers.

The troll was scalding my hand by the time I realised I was standing outside a pub. Clutching the hair so I didn’t burn myself, I sighed. Hopefully this was the end of the line. I stood on the footpath as traffic whizzed back and forth behind me, and stared up at the name, The Hung, Drawn, and Quartered. That wasn’t a bad omen or anything.

From the outside it looked like any other pub in the city district of London. Red brick façade, old window panes with cottage flowers growing in planter boxes on the sills, black and gold signs, a chalkboard easel with lunch and dinner specials—every pie individually hand-crafted with the finest short crust pastry!—and benches outside. It was far too cold for anyone to be standing out here with their pints, so I was alone on the footpath. Inside, I could hear the hubbub of punters enjoying a late run on a Tuesday night.

I peered in the window, scoping the lay of the land. The place looked very stately with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, marble columns, and intricate gold-framed paintings of old people. Old people meaning historical figures I didn’t have any inkling as to who they were or why they were famous.

The troll doll warmed in my hand as my gaze fell onto a man sitting in the corner by the open fireplace. His back was to the room and he was nursing a pint of beer, his shoulders slumped and his head down. He was wearing a leather biker jacket, and his hair was all messy like he hadn’t bothered to style it after getting out of bed. It looked good on him, which was just insult to injury. Perfect people always looked perfect, even when they’d just been rolling in a mountain of shit.

Thrusting myself over the mass of plants, I pressed my nose up against the window and scowled. Yeah, it was him all right—sexy, brooding, and an arsehole sticker plastered on his forehead. Remembering that morning when I’d unconsciously masturbated on a bar of soap, my cheeks flushed. It wasn’t about him, I thought to myself. It was a psychological need for relief.

A group of men sitting just inside stared at me and laughed. Pulling back, I tossed my hair over my shoulder and stalked towards the door. Now or never, Scarlett.

Warmth hit me in the face as I entered the pub, and I wasted no time weaving between the tables, making a direct beeline for Bad Boy himself. The closer I got, the more certain I was that I was about to meet my untimely end. I was doing the whole run headfirst into danger thing again.

Standing beside him, I slammed the troll doll onto the table.

“What did you do to me?” I demanded.

The man tensed, his gaze fixing on the plastic toy. Up close, he smelled like liquorice, citrus, and something metallic.

“How did you find me?” he asked after a moment. His fingers tightened around his glass, the tips turning white.

“The troll doll.”

“Clever.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say?” I was boiling over like a volcano. Any second now, I was going to blow my top and things would get messy. Real messy. “You messed with me, didn’t you? At first I thought you might’ve slipped me a roofie, but I don’t drink, not usually and especially not when I’m working. Then I toyed with the idea that you pricked me with a needle.”

The man snorted like I was performing some stand-up comedy routine and angled in his chair so he could stare at me.

“But then I started remembering things,” I murmured, leaning closer, doing my best ‘bad cop’ impression, “lots of things.”

“Sit down,” he commanded, his eyes narrowing.

“No.” I was going to sit anyway, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking I’d ask how high when he’d just barked at me to jump.

“Have a seat, Purples,” he said, gesturing to the padded bench opposite him. “I’m not going to bite.”

“Just stab,” I shot back, not missing a beat.

“Surly and sassy.” His lips quirked into a sly grin. “Looks like I’ve caught a live one.”

Gritting my teeth, I slid onto the bench. “Who are you, and what did you do to me?”

The man picked up the troll doll and wound his finger around the tuft of purple hair. “It looks like you, don’t you think?”

“Stop avoiding the question,” I snapped.

“The question?” he retorted. “It was more like a two-in-one. I’ve only got enough change for one of those answers, Purples.”

I scoffed, “I’m impossible? I’ve got nothing on you.”

The man leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. Turning the troll doll around so it faced me, he tapped his finger lightly against the side of its little plastic face. “Look here.”

I didn’t know if it was just a reflex, but I glanced down.

“See that?” he asked.

“See wh—” I almost choked on my spit as the hair began to writhe, then flicker as the acrylic tuft turned into flame. It glowed a deep royal purple at its core and turned positively electric around the edges.

The man let out a humph, then closed his hand around the flame. When he let go, the troll doll was