An Excerpt from Demon in Exile Book 8

Storm Sister, Book 8 of the Demon in Exile Series, is slated for release in March 2022.

Excerpt: The Lost Princess

Skarim had dropped dead. His pipe slipped from his mouth as his body slapped into the Dungarr mud. Watching him fall face down had been the high point of my life. The clan elder wouldn’t be coming anywhere near me ever again. In the end, none of my family would either. The image of the elder’s tattoos sprang to mind every time I walked into the the Brass Monkey. It should have stopped me from ever coming back, but it didn’t.

Hidden beneath a Bridgeton merchant’s warehouse, the smoker’s den was growing in popularity by the day, and sleepy minds were careless when it came to guarding their secrets. My watchers were tasked with keeping an eye on the place and letting me know as soon as anyone of significance arrived. There was a good chance that I might already be there, sitting at the bar counter, sipping my tea, and reminiscing with the ghosts of the Dungarr Basin.

Having seen the life-ending outcomes of the addicted, I didn’t partake directly, but I’m sure my body absorbed some of the leaf smoke and felt lighter for it. The tea helped too, and my mug, carved from a tangled coastal oak, gave me something to study while I waited.

Cork Balan, my second, had given me the mug as a precaution, noting that it was far safer to use it than whatever a bartender set in front of me. Cork was one of the larger men I’d ever met, and his mass was amplified by his resolve. I’d once seen the results of his determination to ferret out a mole in the Bridgeton clan. My mug was far prettier, fitting neatly in my shoulder pack beside the false watcher’s gouged out eyes.

Teeg never looked at me directly, nothing more than a quick glance at my ring while he scanned the patrons seated around the room. “Can I pour you another, Miss?”

He called me ‘Miss,’ and I liked him for it. He was far older than most of the men that I dealt with on a daily basis, a grandfather perhaps in another life, and he offered manners where most offered transactions, threats, or the exchange of bodily fluids, and no, I wasn’t a whore. Not even close. Sure, it helped that I flashed certain body parts at times, but that’s where Cork’s surplus eyeballs came in handy. Accidentally dropping one on the bar counter before I ordered kept my mug full and the other patron’s hands to themselves.

We didn’t own the laid-back establishment, but we’d quickly come to an agreement with the owner about who would be managing the place. In the few months since, the profits for both sides had been impressive in terms of both coin and information, offering two key ingredients for the conjuring of power in the undercities of Colivar.

Gold could buy weapons and the hands to wield them, but it couldn’t buy security or loyalty. Information could guide one in where to best invest the gold, the weapons, or the hands, but would grow stale overnight or be sold to more than one party, tainting its worth or changing its substance. While gold and information were ceaselessly mined, the Gray Houses of Colivar ran on resolve and the wits needed to use it every moment of every day. Power was an illusion, and illusion was power. That was my secret, and as much as I guarded it and used it, it couldn’t warm the fingers of a ghost or fill the hunger I carried inside.