Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Maeve asked with her hand on Luna’s bag.

Of course, she didn’t want to do this. Luna might be an enormous fan of the gemstones that she stole, but she didn’t like putting people through the wringer of knowing they’d been robbed.

She’d always feel guilty for their late nights staring out the windows and doors, wondering how someone had gotten in. She hated to cause anyone to feel unsafe in the one place where they should be able to relax. Stealing from people had gotten very easy as far as the skills required to do so, but she hated that it always ended in fear and ruin for someone she didn’t know.

Sure, an earl wouldn’t miss her taking a very expensive diamond and a few other things from his home. Her own family needed to eat, and they needed to fix up this castle so that all three of the sisters could live here.

Right now, it was only Maeve with her newly acquired vampire lover within these walls. Maeve didn’t talk about her and Martin’s relationship, but Luna hadn’t seen her glow like this in a while.

And of course she wanted to live here with her sister. She wanted a safe place to rest her head so people like Crowley couldn’t get their claws into her shoulders. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like that would be the case for a while yet. Not unless she found funds for the vampire duke to fix this place up.

That’s what she’d do. Not only for herself, but for her sisters as well. They all did better when they were together. A team. A unit.

Just like the good old days.

“I’ll be fine,” she replied, stuffing the last bit of clothing into her pack. “It’s not the first time I’ve stolen from anyone, and this isn’t a more tough target than any of the other times. He’s an earl. He won’t even notice that I’ve snuck into his house until I’m all the way back here and then I’ll get rid of everything I stole. You know how it all works.”

“I do.” Maeve stepped in front of her, forcing Luna to pause.

Her sister was a lot smaller than she was, but no means weaker. Maeve had strong features, her blonde hair coiled back from her angular face. She had a darkness in her eyes these days, too. A darkness that always seemed to grow stronger when she was too close to her very mortal sisters.

Becoming a vampire did that to a person, Luna supposed. There would always be a hunger deep inside Maeve that Luna would never understand. Not unless she joined her sister in immortality and that sounded awful.

“Luna,” Maeve muttered. “You don’t have to do this for us, you know. I want you to stay safe and this isn’t the only job that will get us what we need. And I mean that, all of us. If this is more dangerous than usual, then you shouldn’t do it.”

As if she had any choice in the matter.

Luna hadn’t told them the whole truth or about the Crestfall Diamond. After all, Maeve would hear Crowley’s name and go white with fear. And then she’d want to hunt the man down, which wouldn’t be good for any of them. A new vampire exposed on the streets of London covered in the blood of a very well known “business man”? Luna didn’t want to even entertain the thought.

She’d told them she already owed someone that diamond, and she wouldn’t tell anyone who it was or why she owed it. That was safer. Even if Martin had looked at her with suspicion the moment she shrugged off the question.

Shrugging, she patted Maeve’s shoulders with both of her hands that looked so massive holding onto her sister. “I’m going to be fine. If I didn’t want to do this, then I wouldn’t do it. We need money for the castle. And I know you’re enjoying your honeymooning with your new man, but I’d like to have a better roof over my head than an attic I’ve wiggled my way into for the night.”

Maeve chuckled, and that was all the time Luna could spare. If she stayed too much longer, the truth would roll off her tongue and then where would they be?

So she left.

She took all her things, made sure that her dark outfit would hide her in the shadows. No buckles. No metal. Nothing that would even glint if candlelight caught on her form. All of that had to be hidden so she could at the very least steal from this man.

Dead Man’s Crossing wasn’t too far from Martin’s castle. About an hour’s ride, and then she left the horse in the bushes. The beast would find its own way home, or some lucky farmer would snag it. Martin didn’t care too much about the beasts, anyway. He didn’t go riding. And if he didn’t have any horses, that was more of a reason to never leave his castle.

She crouched low in the bushes and snuck across the road in case anyone was watching out the windows. The manor shouldn’t be this stunning in the dark. It should be a hulking, shadowy figure in the distance, like all the other buildings around it. But it wasn’t.

The manor gleamed like a beacon of light in the darkness. The white marble exterior had recently been cleaned, shining with only the rays of the moon touching its sides. Each window remained pristine and clear, without a single fingerprint or smudge. Luna thought it was ridiculous that someone must spend a majority of their time wiping glass for a living. Too many candles were still lit, although she saw a section of the manor that was cast in shadows.

That was her entrance. It was the only feasible option for her to sneak into those walls.

Luna had learned a long time ago how important it was to stay in the shadows. She’d stepped into candlelight only once before and stared into the horrified gaze of a maid who had screamed bloody murder. She’d spent the rest of the evening running across rooftops trying to get away from the Watch that had been called because the city had a thieving problem.

The cops weren’t usually so involved in making sure that thieving stopped. But lately there had been one too many complaints.

Now, the question became how to get into the house. The darkened corner didn’t appear to be three stories like the rest of the building. Instead, the shadows climbed up to the third floor, which suggested it was a single room that was three stories high. Perhaps a ballroom? She’d heard manors like this had larger rooms for the gathering of friends and whatnot.

Luna had been in enough old houses like this. One might think she’d be able to guess the layout, considering they all appeared to have been built by the same man, and yet, she still did not know where to go when she walked into homes like this.

It might have been the same architect designing each of these large homes, but he liked to flip the blueprints around. Luna knew not to trust her own judgement and instead, to focus on what clues were given to her around the house itself.

She snuck up to the edge of the wall and peered into the window. Nothing. Just darkness.

That was a good sign. She could sneak in here and then follow the sound of the gemstones. She still couldn’t hear them yet, so she assumed they were still out of her reach. But if she went through this entire house, risking her neck for Crowley, and didn’t hear the screaming of that diamond? She’d kill the man herself.

Luna eased her fingers along the seam of the windows, trying to see if she could pull them open. But they were locked tight, and she wasn’t all that sure she was far enough away from people to break them. The sound of shattering glass had a way of carrying throughout an entire house, even one as large as this.

Huffing out a frustrated breath, she tried to look into the house for clues. The cloud over the moon passed, and beams of light illuminated the center of the floor.

A glass ceiling?

How interesting.

She hadn’t seen one of those in a very long time, but that meant the ceiling might open up. Some of the newer manors did that for the summers when the sun would turn the room into a greenhouse. If she could get up to the roof, then she might drop in from the top.

Luna scooted along the edge of the building to a trellis with beautiful vines dripping from the top. They’d know this was how she’d gotten in. The poor vines would be pulled up by the root with her movements. But that didn’t matter. No one was walking around right now, and no one would see her damage until tomorrow. Perfect, really.

She put her boot into the worn wood and hesitated while it groaned. She so frequently didn’t like her size, but this was one of the worst moments when she didn’t. Either of her sisters could have skittered up this trellis without a single groan emitting from the wood. But Luna? Luna had to worry she’d shatter the honeycomb pattern and tumble to her death.

With each painstaking step, she made her way up the side of the building. The vines creaked and snapped, but they held. It took her far too long to get to the top, though, and by the time she put her gloved hand on the glass ceiling, lights flickered on in the giant ballroom below.

Damn it.

She was plastered to the side of the building like some giant dark spider on the ceiling, and if anyone looked up, they would see her. It would take so little for her entire game to be up.

Nothing she could do now. Luna was already halfway onto the ceiling and going back down the trellis would give away where she was. She had to remain frozen against the glass and hope like hell that the person entering the room didn’t look up.

The man who walked into her line of sight held a candle in his hands, though he didn’t have to. The entire manor was hooked up to those new light bulbs, and they flickered with gas. The light made seeing every valuable thing so easy. It was like this earl screamed into the void that he wanted to be robbed. Please come into his home.

Unsurprisingly, he was well dressed and handsome. A combination that could only mean he was the earl who owned the place, but he didn’t look like any noble she’d ever seen before.

Luna mashed her face against the glass, likely leaving a horrible oil slick when she lifted it. But she wanted to see him. There was something strange about him. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Maybe it was his broad shoulders and overly meaty frame. He looked like a man who worked for a living, not like a man who sat at a desk all day. His clothing barely fit, the shoulders too tight across his back, the thighs stretched over powerful legs.

Though she couldn’t see his face, she could only assume it was just as handsome as the rest of him. Dark curls coiled tightly against his skull. He didn’t care about the modern definition of attraction or he’d never have worn those curls touching the tops of his ears like that. The faintest hint of red shone as the light danced across the curly strands.

Her fingers curled into fists. She shouldn’t be so attracted to a man like this. Luna was the very last person he’d have ever picked to be his wife or even show an interest in. Men didn’t want mistresses the size of tree trunks who were more suited to hard labor than they were darning socks.

Or whatever rich women did these days.

Still, she held her breath when he moved into the center of the room and set the candle down on the checkerboard floor. He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. Like he was preparing for a fight, but that couldn’t be accurate either. Why would he be getting ready for a fight?

She’d been on the streets for too long if she was automatically assuming all body language had ill intent.

The glass creaked. It wasn’t a crack, not really, but he heard it. He didn’t quite freeze below her, but he stilled. Almost as though he were listening for the sound again.

He couldn’t have heard the faint creak. Could he?

Damn it, she was asking to get caught. If she didn’t somehow get herself in a better position, he’d look up and then he’d call the guard on her. Again. And she really didn’t want to spend the night running away from the coppers when she could steal a magnificent diamond.

Taking a deep breath, she wiggled herself over the glass. At least the ceiling didn’t creak or crack this time. She used the very tips of her toes to ease her way over and then heaved a relieved sigh.

The trellis had none of her weight now, and it seemed like she hadn’t broken it. Now, she just had to wait for the Earl to finish whatever he was doing and not look down at him anymore. He was clearly a distraction she couldn’t have around.

Luna craned her neck to search for the hatch she was looking for. Lo-and-behold, there it was. A row of windows, taller than the others, angled up so they could be opened up for fresh air. Perfect.

If she wiggled her way over there, she’d be in the perfect position to drop into the ballroom. Luna started wiggling, but felt her eyes drawn down to the Earl one more time.

He was ridiculously handsome. Even from three stories up.

Was he...

Her eyes widened, and she leaned close to the glass again. The Earl reached behind him and pulled his shirt over his head. He was undressing?

In her distraction at the sight of so much muscle, she put too much weight on the single pane of glass. With a horrifying crack, the entire glass panel shattered underneath her weight.

Luna blindly reached out and caught herself on the framing of the ceiling. But the glass shards there dug into her hands, and though she slowed her fall, and gave herself only two stories to prevent injury, she still plummeted into the ballroom with all the grace of a bull.