February, seven years ago
MY ALARM GOES off next to me, just as it has been for the last thirteen minutes. I don’t have the energy to untangle my arms from my sheets and turn the thing off.
Today is what I like to call a Hail Mary day. Because nothing short of a miracle can make me get out of this bed.
Most days I’m good. Most days I can pretend I’m like everyone else. But then there are the days when I can’t, days when my past catches up to me.
Days like today. I’m too depressed to get out of bed. I’m being dragged under by all those bad memories.
The doorknob turning. The smell of spirits thick on my stepfather’s breath. All that blood when I finally killed him …
One of my floormates bangs on the door. “Callie, turn off your freaking alarm before you wake up the whole school,” she yells, then walks away.
Somehow I manage to turn the alarm off before burying my face in my pillow.
Not five minutes later, I hear the lock to my room click. I begin to sit up when suddenly, the door blows open, and in steps the Bargainer. If anyone’s out in the hallway, they don’t notice his entrance.
“Get up,” he growls.
I’m still a few steps behind him. My mind’s having a hard time comprehending that the Bargainer is here in my room at this hour. Technically it’s still dark out, so it’s still the time that he reigns.
But a morning visit? That’s a first.
He strides the rest of the way to my side, and just from his expression alone I can tell that he means business.
He pulls my blankets off of me, a comforting hand touching my back. “Up.”
How did he know that me sleeping in thirteen minutes more than usual wasn’t just plain laziness, it was a relapse?
He deals in secrets.
I groan and bury my head back in my pillow. I’m too tired for this.
“You want me to keep showing up every night? You need to take care of yourself.”
And then he had to go and say that.
“That’s emotional manipulation,” I mumble into my pillow. I crave his continued visits more than pretty much anything else in my life at the moment.
“Deal with it.”
I turn my face to the side and grimace at him. “You’re mean.” He also looks hot enough to catch fire in a Metallica shirt that hugs his muscles and a pair of black jeans, his white blond hair tied back from his face.
He folds his arms over his chest, cocking his head to the side. “You’re just now figuring this out, cherub?”
No, I had him pegged from day one, but since meeting him, he’s softened up to me.
“Now,” he continues, “up.”
To emphasize his point, my bed begins to tilt, one side levitating. I start to slide off the mattress.
I curse, clutching the edges of it so that I don’t roll right off. “Alright, alright! I’m getting up!” I slide the rest of the way to the floor, glaring at him as I pad across the room.
Des folds his arms, glaring right back at me. The man is remorseless.
I open my drawers and begin removing clothing items. I move slowly, my eyelids still droopy, my body still tired and sore.
“This is never going to happen again, understand?” he says. “You’re not going to stop living your life because some days are harder than others.”
I look over my shoulder at him like he’s crazy. “It’s not like I want this!” For my mind to suck me back into the worst parts of my past. To feel dirty and tainted and unlovable.
Even my annoyance is a pitiful thing right now. I don’t have the energy it takes to truly get worked up over this.
“You feel like this again, you get help, or you call me and I’ll get you help, but from now on, you’re going to do something about it, alright?” Des says. His eyes are hard; I’m not going to get any sympathy from him.
“You don’t understand—”
“I don’t?” He raises his eyebrows. “Tell me, cherub, what do I know?”
He’s baiting me. It’s so obvious. I don’t dare go on because how much do I really know about the Bargainer? And how much does he really know about me?
So instead, I glare at him again.
“Yes,” he says, “That’s what I want to see. Your anger, your fight.” His tone softens. “I’m not asking you to never feel sad, Callie, I’m asking you to fight. Always fight. You can do that, can’t you?”
I suck in a deep breath. “I don’t know,” I say honestly.
His entire demeanor gentles with that confession. “Can you try?”
I bite my lower lip, then reluctantly nod. If that’s what it takes to keep him coming back, I can try.
He gives me a smile. “Good. Now get dressed. I’ll get us breakfast before you have to go to class.”
Des spends the rest of our odd morning together doing everything in his power to make me laugh. And it works.
I don’t know how he does it, but the Bargainer beats back my mood. As far as Hail Mary days ago, apparently Des is just miracle I need.
Present
WHEN I BLINK my eyes open, I stare up at an unfamiliar room. I look around at the deep blue walls, my brow creasing.
“You’re awake.”
I startle at the Bargainer’s smooth voice. He sits in a chair next to the bed, his steepled hands pressed to his lips. On the bedside table next to him sits an empty tumbler.
“Where am I?” I ask.
“We’re in my room—back on earth,” Des says. His arms drop away from me.
His room. The one he hadn’t been willing to show me before now. My eyes sweep over my surroundings, over the framed photo of Douglas Café, and another of Peel Castle. Across the room, a golden orrery sits on a circular table, the metal and marble planets in our solar system hanging suspended around the golden sun in the middle.
There’s nothing about his bedroom that seems worth hiding from me.
And then, amongst my musings, my trip to the Otherworld all comes back to me.
Air hisses in between my teeth, and my gaze snaps back to the Bargainer. “Those children.”
Des grabs his empty tumbler and heads to a wet bar on the opposite end of the room, pouring himself a drink. He throws it back quickly, hissing at the burn of alcohol.
He looks at his glass. “I understand why you crave the stuff,” he says.
Carefully he sets the glass back down, leaning against the bar.
“Gods,” he runs a hand down his face. “I’ve never wanted to throttle children so badly as I did when I saw them grab ahold of you. Their fangs came out; they’d been ready to drink you.”
I put a hand to my throat. They were going to drink from me? All I remember are strange, nightmarish images I saw when they touched me
I swallow at the thought of those images. Were these the prophecies that Gaelia had mentioned?
I slide out of his bed. “Des, they showed me things,” I say.
I rub the skin where they touched me, noticing the beginnings of several bruises. “I saw cages of women, a throne, a forest, and a man with antlers.”
“A man with antlers,” the Bargainer repeats, his face grim. “Does that help?” I ask.
“Unfortunately, cherub,” he says, “it does.”
He will find you.
He always finds the ones he wants. He’s already begun the hunt.
He’ll make you his, just like our mothers.
I sit inside Des’s guestroom, my eyes absently staring out the window at the dark night.
What have I done? I thought I’d been helping Des—and Gaelia—by interviewing those kids. A part of me had been proud of the fact that they’d talked to me when the Bargainer had been so sure they wouldn’t.
But now … like Gaelia, I felt deep in my bones that the children’s’ words hadn’t been empty. That, irrational though it might be, I’d just caught the attention of whatever thing Des has been hunting.
Only now it’s hunting me.
I draw in a deep, stuttering breath.
I need to leave this place—this house—with all of its connections to the Otherworld. Hell, there’s a portal a few doors down from my room. It doesn’t matter if the creature lives in another realm; so long as it knows how to manipulate ley lines, it would only take an instant for it to come crawling to earth.
I begin changing into the now dry—if salt encrusted—clothes I wore here, and swipe up the few items that I came with.
I can feel the same paranoia that claimed the royal nursemaid now crawling up my spine.
I’m hooking in my earring when I hear the door to my room open and feel an ominous presence at my back.
“You’re leaving.”
A thrill races down my arms at that silky smooth voice. I turn to the Bargainer. “I’m not staying here.”
“Your ex will find you if you go back to your place.” His arms are folded. Displeased.
“Who says I’m going back?” I totally am. “Where else would you go?”
“I have friends.” Okay, I have a friend. One. Temper. And she’s probably furious with me at the moment for going AWOL on her.
“You’re not going back to their places.” It’s not a command, just a statement of fact.
“So what if I go home?” I would much rather face off Eli, who cares about me, who’s hurt and angry, who I can control if need be, than stay here and chance meeting an enemy that not even Des understands.
The air stirs, and suddenly, the Bargainer is at my side, his lips pressed against my ear. “If you go home, I’ll likely have to steal you back from your ex, and that will displease me greatly.”
I turn to look at him. “At the moment, Des, your feelings aren’t my biggest concern.”
The Bargainer stares at me for a beat. “You’re scared of staying here,” he says, reading me. He tilts his head, his eyes narrowing. “You think I’d let anything happen to you in my house?” I swear the man grows bigger, his presence overwhelming.
Judging by the look in his eye, I’ve offended the King of the Night. Whatever.
I tear my gaze away and head towards the door.
A second later, the Bargainer materializes in the doorway, blocking my exit. His hands grip the top of the doorframe. Unwillingly, my eyes move to those toned arms of his.
“What if I told you that you couldn’t go?” he says, his voice hypnotic. “That I wanted you to stay and use up some more of my beads?”
I don’t actually think he would try to keep me here. He’s wanted nothing to do with me for so long that I can’t really imagine our relationship any other way.
“I wouldn’t believe you,” I say. “Now please, move.”
Des is staring at me strangely. He releases the doorframe and prowls forward. “Truth or dare?”
I back up, suddenly nervous at the look in his eyes. “Des …”
“Dare,” he breathes.
In the next instant, he’s on me, his hands roughly cupping my cheeks. His mouth crashes into mine, his lips demanding.
Des is kissing me, and God is it savage.
I kiss him back without thinking, swept up into the taste of him and the feel of him holding me.
I’m supposed to be leaving, reclaiming my house and my life, but nope. It’s not going to happen, not while Des is demonstrating all the ways my taste in men was spot on when I was a teenager.
I’m backing up, and one of the Bargainer’s hands has dropped to my thigh, exposed by the high slits of my dress. His fingers move up and down the skin, up and down.
My back bumps into the wall. Des cages me in, holding me hostage with his body. My lips part, and Des’s tongue sweeps inside my mouth, claiming mine.
His hand moves to my breast, and I arch into him, my breath leaving me. “Gods, Callie,” he rasps, “the wait … nearly unendurable …”
Des’s wings materialize, spreading out and closing over the wall around me. While I kiss him, I begin to run my fingertips over them.
He groans, leaning into my touch. “Feels too good.”
He slips a hand beneath my shirt, and palms a breast, making really hot noises into my mouth as he acquaints himself with it.
My knees go weak at his touch, and he slips a leg between them, holding me up.
My skin begins to glow. I want to cry, this feels so right. Every one of his touches has felt right since the moment we met.
“Truth or dare?” he whispers. Do I even care at this point?
“Truth,” I murmur against his lips, refusing to give into my baser impulses. He pulls away from the kiss long enough to glance down at my swollen lips, a hungry look in his eye. “What did you miss the most about me while I
was gone?” he asks.
I have to breathe several times to collect myself. His question is like cold water dousing a flame.
His magic encircles me, forcing the answer out. “Everything. I missed literally everything about you while you were gone.”
Des stares at me, his chest rising and falling as he catches his breath. His hand slips out from beneath my shirt, and his knuckles stroke my cheek. “You don’t know what your words do to me.”
“I wish I did.” All this giving on my end, all of this taking on his. This isn’t what healthy relationships are made of.
He runs his fingers down my arms. “Stay, and I will tell you.”
What I would give for that! To know exactly how he feels for me. I almost fall for it, just as I have everything else about this man. I’m about to start nodding when I remember.
Des is a fairy, a trickster. He collects secrets for a living, he doesn’t give them up. And he’s never been open to me in the past. He’s not going to start tonight.
I made a promise to myself after Des left my life, a promise to be independent. To not allow men like him to destroy my world. And now the very man who forced me to make that promise wants to burrow his way under my skin and into my heart once more.
I’d be the worst sort of person if I broke that promise at the first sign of temptation.
I run my hands through my hair. What am I doing? Really, what am I doing? I search the ground, as though it holds the answers. Then, letting my hands fall to my sides, I push past him.
It’s been a long fucking day. I want my comfy PJs, a bowl of cereal, and some trashy TV I can fall asleep to.
In front of me, the door to the guestroom slams shut.
… But apparently what I want isn’t going to be all that easy to get. I turn, exasperated, only to yelp.
The Bargainer crowds me, looking like he’s about to rain retribution down on my ass.
“Don’t go,” he says. Even though he looks mad, his words are soft. That in and of itself makes me hesitate.
So close to giving in.
“Why, Des?” My eyes move over his face. I can still taste him on my lips. “Why do you want me to stay so badly?”
A muscle in his jaw feathers. There are a hundred plausible lies he can feed me, but he doesn’t voice a single one.
I wait. And wait.
His answer never comes.
I sigh and turn around, heading to the door. The air thickens, the static electricity of it raising the hairs on my arm. That’s my biggest cue that Des is displeased. I’m practically suffocating on his power.
When I glance back again, his wings are out. They keep flaring and retracting.
Not displeased, I correct, out of control. He’s about to lose his shit.
Half of me thinks he won’t let me go. And a large, twisted part of me wouldn’t entirely mind that.
Instead, the heaviness in the air dissipates, and his wings fold tight to his back.
“Fine, cherub. I’ll take you home.”
ONCE WE TOUCH down in my backyard, Des checks the perimeter of my house, then my rooms, a manic look in his eye.
I’m still too shocked by my surroundings to do much more than stare. I forgot I had a grown werewolf trapped on my property. My place is in tatters.
As the Bargainer moves through my house, his magic mends the worst of the damage. Shredded walls are fixed, my smashed table snaps back into place, the splintered wood fitting itself back together like a jigsaw puzzle. Shattered windows seal themselves back together.
Des comes into the living room, looking agitated, his towering frame full of pent up energy. “Everything’s clear,” he reports, running a hand through his hair. “There were two Politia officers parked down the street, but I sent them off. You should be safe for another day.”
A day is all I need to hunt down Eli’s furry ass and then rip him a new one.
“Thank you,” I say, motioning vaguely around me towards the damage he fixed, and you know, scaring off the supernatural po-po, who’d cart me off to
jail the first chance they got. It’s still surreal to think I’m currently on the Wanted List.
The Bargainer hesitates, fighting to hold his tongue. I know he doesn’t want me to be here.
“Stay safe, cherub,” he finally says. “I’ll be back tomorrow evening.” He crosses the room, heading to the door out to my backyard, not sparing me another glance.
That shouldn’t hurt, none of this should hurt. But it all does. I don’t want him to go. My heart wants to give into him even if my mind knows better.
Halfway to the door, he pauses. Swearing under his breath, he turns and stalks back to me. He wraps a hand around my waist and takes my lips savagely.
I gasp into his mouth as he grinds into me. The kiss is over as soon as it’s begun.
He releases me roughly. “If you want to see me for any reason before tomorrow, you know how to get ahold of me.” He backs up. “I’ll be waiting.”
And then he’s gone.
