Chapter 632 | I Always Pay My Debts

Chapter 632: 632 | I Always Pay My Debts

The purr came out low and breathy, stretched out on every vowel. It sounded rehearsed, and I would have bet my entire System Point balance that she had practiced it in a bathroom mirror.

"You’re robbing the same guy twice in one week. That’s just bad operational security."

"He restocked." She stood up in one smooth motion and dusted off her knees, and the canvas bag clinked against her hip. "I’m just returning the favor for the neighborhood."

"The neighborhood is going to have a hard time thanking you from a holding cell."

"Nobody ever catches me, sweetheart. You just got lucky on a skylight."

"You yelled at me to catch you three times."

Her cheeks went pink under the goggles, and the purr slipped a full octave higher before she dragged it back down.

"That was a strategic request. Very sophisticated, very advanced technique."

She was edging toward the door while she talked, one boot sliding across the floorboards. She was so focused on looking casual that she forgot she was supposed to be looking casual, and her hip bumped the filing cabinet. The cabinet clanged loudly enough to compete with the alarm.

I leaned against the doorframe and folded my arms. The door was the only way out of this office unless she planned to go through a wall, and judging by her upper body strength, she did not.

"Lamia, I need you to put the bag down so we can have a nice conversation."

"I think I’ll just slip past you instead. That’s kind of my whole thing, golden boy."

She moved.

It was fast, faster than anyone without a mobility Aspect had any right to be, because her boots stopped touching the floor in any meaningful sense. She skated across the boards toward the gap between me and the door, her body tilted low and one arm out for balance. The air smelled of strawberries as she came at me.

I let Spectral Reach out of my palms before she covered half the distance. Two amber arms poured out of my hands in warm light and filled the doorway, and the little office turned gold from floor to ceiling.

The first construct reached for her wrist and slid right off her skin, because grabbing Lamia’s skin was apparently about as useful as grabbing a greased eel in a bathtub. I had learned that lesson on Monday with my own hand, and I was a little offended that I had to learn it again with a magic one.

So I went for the parts of her that had friction.

The second construct hooked its fingers through her corset belt and pulled her up short, and the first one shifted down and pinned her left boot by the safety pins. Her momentum carried her body forward while her belt and boot stayed put, and she swung around in a half circle until her back hit the wall beside the filing cabinet.

I kept the pressure on her gentle and steady, enough to hold her there without crushing anything. The amber hands stayed spread across her belt and her ankle, glowing against the black neoprene.

"Oh my god, okay, okay, this is not part of the plan at all."

The purr was gone completely, and her real voice came out fast and high and a little squeaky. She grabbed at the construct on her belt with both hands, and her palms skated across the amber light without any grip at all.

"Your hand is slippery, why is your weird ghost hand slippery?"

"My hand is fine. Your hands are the slippery ones, and that’s on you."

She wriggled against the wall, twisting her hips to try and slide out of the belt. The belt held, because it was faux leather and a lot of cheap brass rivets, and none of those had a frictionless field. All the twisting did was pull the plunging neckline of her suit sideways across her chest. It had already been working with very little fabric, and now it was working with considerably less.

I kept my eyes on her goggles. I have a girlfriend who can detonate a building, and I value my organs.

She went still when she noticed my eyes staying up. Then she looked down at herself and made a strangled noise and yanked the neckline back into place with both hands.

? Ecchi Logic Event Logged: Constrained Wardrobe Shift. ?

? Temptation Gauge: Lamia: 11%. ?

? Note: The heroine registered the host’s restraint. That counts for more than the host thinks. ?

I dismissed the notification before it could make any more comments about my moral character, and Lamia’s chest rose and fell against the wall while she caught her breath. A few strands of black hair had stuck to her forehead under the goggle strap. Her fangs bit into her lower lip hard enough that I worried about the lip.

She looked at the amber arm wrapped around her belt, then at the one holding her boot, and then she followed the light back to my palms and up to my face. Her green eyes narrowed behind the lenses.

She stopped struggling, and when she spoke again, the purr was gone and so was the squeak. Her voice came out flat and low and very honest.

"You’re not arresting me."

"I’m provisional, which means I can’t arrest anyone." I nodded toward the front of the store, where the alarm was still screaming its head off. "But Dralun can, and he’s about two minutes out."

That landed harder than I expected. Her shoulders tightened against the wall, and something moved behind her goggles that had nothing to do with getting caught.

I figured she knew the dragon well. I also figured she had no interest in watching his face when he found her standing in a back office with Leonard Kask’s jewelry in a canvas bag.

Out on the street, I could hear the woman in the bathrobe shouting something to a neighbor over the alarm. Somewhere east of us, a car door slammed.

Lamia stared at me for a long moment. Then she tilted her chin up, and the smile came back, but smaller and sharper this time, and it showed one fang.

"Then let me go, and I’ll owe you one."

"That only works if you actually plan on paying it back."

"I always pay my debts, golden boy." She wiggled her fingers at the amber hand clamped on her belt. "Ask anybody on Halverson, they’ll tell you."

"I asked Dralun on Monday, and he said you’ve been robbing his block since middle school."

"That’s slander, I didn’t start until high school." Her chin climbed another inch against the wall. "I was a late bloomer, thank you very much."