Bewitched & Betrayed Read Online Free Page A

man on it, securely strapped him down, and started down the hall toward the stairs. I started to follow. Mychael’s hand on my arm stopped me.
    “Professor,” he said to Sid. “Please accompany my men. I’ll escort Miss Benares out another way.”
    Sid nodded solemnly. “It’s not exactly a proper place for a lady to be seen leaving.”
    “No, it’s not.”
    Once Sid and the Guardians were on the stairs, Mychael took my hand and started toward the wall the naked guy had pinned Sid against.
    “Uh, Mychael. That’s a wall.”
    A corner of his lips curled in a crooked grin as he ran his free hand behind a wall lamp. There was a click, and a section of the wall opened.
    I laughed once and shook my head. “Damn, there was another way out.” I looked up at his sea blue eyes sparkling in the lamplight. “And you knew about this how?”
    He winked at me. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been here.”
    “You don’t say. And you know your way around, too.”
    We stepped into the darkness. Mychael spoke a soft word, and lamps flickered to life, lighting the way down a narrow staircase.
    “I know the floor plan of every bordello on this island,” he told me. “It’s part of my job.”
    “And which job would that be?”
    “Prostitution is legal here, as is gambling.” His smile vanished. “But there are other things that are highly illegal. Many of those acts are committed in places such as these, sometimes with the knowledge of the proprietor, most of the time without.”
    Mychael’s hand tightened on mine to assist me down the steep stairs, and a familiar surge of energy radiated from that point of contact throughout the rest of my body. I knew from past experience that Mychael was feeling the same shiver of raw sensation. We shared a bond all our own that had nothing to do with the Saghred. We didn’t know what it was; we just knew it was getting stronger. But we had bigger problems to deal with. Sarad Nukpana and evil specters first; deliciously tingly and mysterious magical bonds later.
    At the bottom of the stairs was a simple wooden door that provided us with a discreet exit to a side street next to a perfectly respectable bakery.
    As we neared the main boulevard, Mychael reluctantly released my hand.
     
     
    Phaelan grinned and his eyes sparkled as he watched the Guard ians load the stretcher in the coach. “I was right; the old guy wanted to get laid.”
    I sighed and shook my head.
    Captain Phaelan Benares was my cousin by relation, and a seafaring businessman by trade. The Benares family had extensive interests in shipping and finance. That was how the family saw it. Law enforcement in every major port and city in the seven kingdoms called Phaelan a pirate, and our family a criminal dynasty. I walked the fine line of being a member of the Benares family, but not being in the family business. My family didn’t understand why; law enforcement didn’t believe me.
    Phaelan had been the one to come to the conclusion that if a man had spent the past couple thousand years trapped inside a soul-sucking rock, the first thing he’d want to do wouldn’t have anything to do with world domination. He suggested checking Mid’s brothels and asking the working girls about their clients. Did they have any new ones? Were any regulars asking for something a little irregular? Naturally, Phaelan and some of his crew volunteered for duty.
    “Yes, you were right,” I told him. “You don’t have to be so happy about it.”
    “Why shouldn’t I be? I’m a man proud to do his civic duty.”
    “By finding a sorcerer in a cathouse.”
    “By endangering myself for the greater public good.”
    “By talking to every working girl in the city?”
    “And flushing out any new perverts in town. Someone had to do it, and Mychael couldn’t spare the men to do the legwork.” Phaelan indicated the coach that was pulling away. “And it looks like it went well.”
    I snorted. “Oh yeah, it was a piece of cake.”
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