Read Wicked as They Come for Free Online

they, too, craved flesh. The grass rustled. Someone began playing a flute near the caravan, and the eerie trill danced through the air between us.
    “It doesn’t matter which part is the dream or who isdreaming whom. My heart is my own, and I’m not looking to share it,” I said finally.
    I felt as if I was standing on a precipice, and I had to take a stand. I had sworn that no man was going to tell me what to do ever again, even if he was just telling me to love him in return.
    “Whatever you think I may eventually feel for you, for right now, you’re going to have to back off.”
    “I don’t like following orders,” he said quietly.
    “Neither do I,” I said.

5
     
    The flute song rose and fell between us, breaking the tension into ripples. I watched him shred the little web of grass he had woven. It fluttered away in the breeze.
    “It would appear we’ve reached an impasse,” he said.
    “So what now?”
    He tossed the last bit of grass to the ground and inspected his green-stained gloves, then shook himself like a dog. When he met my eyes again, the charged power of his gaze was gone, replaced by a mask of bright, manic energy. He leaped to his feet and did a strange little jig, then held out his hand with a flourish. A bouquet of flowers appeared there. When I reached to take it, it disappeared, and a little cloud of confetti burst from his sleeve and settled over me.
    I clapped slowly and sarcastically but couldn’t help grinning at him.
    “We go to Criminy’s Clockwork Caravan,” he said. “We’ll find some clothes for you, feed you, introduce you around. The crew’s about half Bludmen, half Pinky, so you’ll feel at home. And there’s a very strict order of things, in the caravan.”
    He smiled crookedly and held out his arm. “Your blood is safe with us.”
    I didn’t feel safe, neither in body nor in heart. Why was I drawn to this odd, inhuman man? I had felt his tug when I opened the locket, but I had thought it was fancy and romance, the impossible longing for something noble and beautiful from long ago. I thought it was the same sort of harmless yearning I felt for Mr. Darcy. But here, near him, smelling him, I recognized the feeling for what it was. Attraction. And passion. And maybe fear—the exciting kind.
    He was right, though. I had nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to. I found myself committing to the world of Sang, whether as a dream or as an alternative dimension. Maybe I had a head injury and was lying on my bathroom floor in a puddle of blood, dreaming strange dreams as Nana left message after frantic message on my voice mail.
    That thought made me shiver, and he turned to look at me.
    “All right, love? You look as if a goose has walked over your grave.”
    I tried to play it off as a joke. “You have geese here? Or are they bludgeese?”
    “Birds drinking blood?” He chuckled. “Do they have teeth where you come from? Because here, it’s just ruddy little beaks. I suppose they could peck you to death, if you held still long enough.”
    We had reached the caravan again, and I braced myself for further bewilderment. Everything seemed slightly off-kilter, and I was walking into an unfamiliar place full of strangers and people who wanted to drink my blood. Still, nothing moved except for tendrils of smoke on the breeze, and it was eerie. I could see the same monkey in the same fez, sitting perfectly still on the caboose. I was amazed that any animal could sit still that long.
    “What’s with the monkey?” I asked. “He must be really well trained.”
    “Well trained? Love, you’re a riot,” he said, laughing again. I was powerfully drawn to that laugh, and I barely even knew the man. Or inhuman monster. Or apex predator. Whatever he claimed to be.
    “Pemberly, wake!” he called.
    A flash of green light surged over the monkey’s open eyes, and they blinked several times. It leaped into the air and did a little jig on its back legs, its tail forming a perfect