Rhysto reached down and drew one of his smaller blades, solid black with copper wire wrapped around the handle. That hand went behind her back while the other slid under the top of Loretta's corset again.
"Once an appetite for that sort of thing gets started," he said, "seems folks will go to any ends necessary to get what they're after. And that, my dear Loretta, is what brings me to you." He was looking into her eyes, but she felt the knife moving along the curve of her shoulders, touching light as a feather. "Much as it would pain you to admit it, you and I have more in common than not. Both of us will do what it takes to survive. Am I right?"
Loretta stared into his cold black eyes until she felt that knife, somehow cold instead of warmed by his flesh, pushing a bit harder against th
