Rhapsodic (The Bargainer Book 1)

  Des lets out a husky laugh. “Cherub, there are benefits to being the Night King’s mate.”

  My skin begins to glow all over again. Normally, my siren is left wanting. Always wanting. But the King of Night knows exactly how to satisfy her.

  How to satisfy me.

  I move against him as his lips skim over my skin.

  “Can’t get close enough to you, love,” he murmurs. “You leave me wanting, even when I’m buried inside you.”

  I know the feeling. Already there’s this urgency that buzzes along my skin, to touch him, to taste him, to breathe him into me and never let him go.

  And under all that is pure unadulterated awe.

  Des loves me. Des spent seven years trying to get back to me.

  Des has no idea what it means to be my mate.

  I push him onto his back. His arms lock around my waist, and I end up straddled on top of him, my hair cascading down my back.

  He reaches out and takes a handful of it, staring at it like he’s never seen hair before.

  I lean forward, my hands running over his chest and down his arms. “Sweet little fairy,” I purr, my voice melodic.

  Des raises a cocky eyebrow at that. He doesn’t even need to say anything for us both to know that sweet and little are the last things his is.

  “I’m going to give you all your wickedest desires,” I whisper, the siren thick in my voice.

  I begin trailing kisses down his chest, moving lower, lower. “One … at … a … time.”

  He sucks in a breath when he realizes what I intend.

  Lowering myself between his legs, my mouth closes around him.

  His entire body tenses.

  “Gods,” he curses.

  His hands delve into my hair, tangling it.

  I move up and down, up and down, working him with my lips and tongue, my hands moving over every pleasure point until I have him bucking against me.

  His breathing hitches, becoming ragged and uneven.

  He’s not going to last long. The thought makes me smile wickedly against him.

  All at once, he pushes me away. When my eyes meet his, I see rampant hunger in his own.

  “You do play dirty, siren,” he says, rolling me onto my stomach.

  Lifting my hips up, he rubs the head of his cock over my entrance. Up and down, up and down.

  Gathering my hair into a fist, he leans forward, tilting my ear towards him. “You didn’t think the King of the Night would just be gentle, did you?” he says, his voice husky.

  His hand moves between my legs.

  He pinches my clit, and I let out a moan.

  Des nips the shell of my ear. “Mmm, I like that sound.”

  “Des …” I lean my forehead against my pillow, panting.

  Suddenly he’s pushing himself into me. I can feel my inner walls giving way, making room for him.

  And now I let out another moan as he fills me.

  Once he’s deep inside me, he doesn’t move.

  “Cherub … never could I have imagined it would feel so good …”

  It’s been like this, every single time. Like the electric, restless chemistry between the two of us is finally, finally sated.

  Then he does move, thrusting in and out of me with gathering force. He holds me against him, my hair still caught up in his fist. I’m trapped in his arms, arching back into him.

  Our bodies begin to make wet, slick noises as we sweat. Darkness gathers around us, and my glowing skin is the only illumination in the room.

  Des releases my hair all at once, only to tweak my nipples a moment later.

  That’s all it takes.

  My orgasm shatters through me, going on and on and on. Somewhere in the middle of it, I hear Des shout, and then he’s coming too, his cock driving in and out of me.

  The two of us collapse together in a boneless heap.

  From heartache to this. Life could not possibly get better.

  The next morning, when I begin to wake, I stretch, my body sore in all the right places. Des’s arm tightens around my mid-section.

  I’m smiling before I even open my eyes. When I do, I first catch sight of the Bargainer’s white blonde hair. I skim a hand through it, enjoying touching him, exploring him, even when he’s not awake.

  His wickedly curving lips are slightly parted. Like this, he looks like an angel. He’d absolutely loathe the compliment, but it’s true. Everything about him is perfect.

  When he doesn’t wake and I begin to feel like a creeper for staring at him, I slide out of his bed.

  I swing by my bedroom to throw on some clothes, and then I pad over to the kitchen. The stupidest things make me smile, like the way the sunlight shines in through the windows, or the sight of yesterday’s bag of macaroons.

  I brew a cup of coffee and make my way to the back of the Bargainer’s house. A grand set of French doors open to a palatial backyard. A garden full of flowering vines and exotic shrubs line it. A gurgling fountain sits right in the middle of the garden, aquatic plants growing from it.

  Where the garden ends, land gives way to cliffs. Beyond the cliffs, a blue expanse of ocean spreads out for miles and miles. Today is a clear enough day that I can see the California coast.

  I think back to all those days I’d sat on the edge of my property and stared out at Catalina Island. I’d never imagined that across that water Des was right here, possibly staring back …

  Forced to stay away from me because I made a foolish bargain seven years ago. And yet he was always just within sight.

  It’s all over now.

  He’s my soulmate.

  I don’t understand how it’s possible. Here on earth, supernaturals know whether or not they have soulmates, much the same way I know I’m a siren. When we’re teenagers, our powers Awaken, including mating bonds.

  And nothing of the sort was Awakened in me.

  But perhaps … perhaps it works differently in the Otherworld. Perhaps soulmates aren’t predestined there as they are here. Or perhaps the bond manifests differently.

  All questions I need to ask Des when he wakes.

  I sit down at a patio table near the edge of the property and sip my coffee.

  I glance down at my bracelet. It appears unchanged from yesterday, but as I count the beads, three whole rows are missing. I don’t think Des even knowingly removed them.

  His magic did.

  I notice, however, that last night didn’t remove the entire bracelet. Clearly, the Bargainer’s magic doesn’t believe that one night of revelations and proclamations of love (and a shit ton of sex) is enough to seal the deal.

  It seems Des’s magic is as capricious as my siren is naughty.

  I close my eyes and breathe in the briny air, listening to the crash and the sea.

  “Callypso Lillis, I’ve been looking for you.”

  I freeze at the sound of my full name and the strange, masculine voice at my back.

  I turn in my chair and squint, staring at the sun. It dims, and in its place is a man of staggering beauty. His hair looks like spun gold and his eyes are the cerulean blue of the sky.

  Some sort of supernatural. Nothing but magic makes a human look like that.

  A moment later my brain catches up with me.

  Why is a stranger on Des’s property—in his backyard no less? And how does he know my name?

  Everything about the situation feels wrong, wrong, wrong, but I’m too shocked at the moment to react.

  My siren, however, isn’t.

  Luminescent light ripples across my skin as she surfaces.

  I stand abruptly. “How did you get back here?” I demand, my voice ethereal.

  That’s all I can say. Not, Get the fuck off this pro
perty. Not, I’m going to call the cops. Not, DES!

  He steps closer. “I told you, I’ve been looking for you.”

  He answers my question, but I don’t think the siren compelled him to do so. He doesn’t look like a glamoured man. He’s not clamoring to get closer to me, waiting for my next command.

  Which means …

  Fairy.

  Shit. The only other Otherworld creature I know looking for me is the Thief of Souls.

  Is this … him?

  He saunters forward. “You are surprisingly difficult to get alone,” he says.

  I back up, bumping into the table behind me.

  He’s going to grab me.

  I act on instinct, grabbing my cup of coffee from the table and throwing it at him. He lifts his hand in the air, and the mug and the liquid arcing out of it freeze in midair.

  He extends his hand palm out, and ever so gently the cup floats onto it, the coffee funneling back into the mug.

  I open my mouth. “DE—!”

  His eyes narrow on my lips, and my voice cuts off, my shout now silent.

  I clutch my throat. “What have you … ?” I might as well be mouthing the words, my vocal cords are no longer producing any sound.

  “Your colleague, Ms. Darling, said you were busy, but it doesn’t look like you’re busy.”

  The client who’s been pestering me.

  I continue backing up, my eyes darting to the house.

  He smiles, and it’s like he invented the act of smiling, it’s so blindingly bright. “He’s not going to save you.”

  The man disappears. A moment later his arms lock around me as he grabs me from behind.

  I go hellcat on him, kicking out, my hands scratching at anything I can reach. I scream and scream, uncaring that my voice has been muted.

  “Enough,” he breathes.

  Magic slams into me, and the world goes dark.

  Chapter 25

  My eyes flutter open, and I rub my head, my mind groggy. Above me is a roughhewn rock ceiling. Sitting up, I glance down my body. I’m no longer wearing my outfit from this morning. Instead I’m sheathed in a wispy copper colored dress, the edges of it embroidered into intricate, shimmery patterns.

  Don’t remember changing …

  I shiver. I’m cold. Really, really cold.

  I look around. Three rock walls surround me. And the fourth …

  The fourth is a wall of iron bars.

  Imprisoned. But where? Why?

  I roll off the pallet I woke on. In the corner of the room, there’s what I would indulgently call a toilet. More like a bowl set into the ground.

  Scratched onto the wall nearest me are tally marks. Dozens and dozens of them. None are slashed through, and I can’t decide if that’s because the last prisoner intentionally tallied the days this way… or if several separate prisoners began tallying and never made it past four.

  I notice the bastard that took me is nowhere to be seen. Was he the Thief of Souls, or someone else entirely? He never even attempted to explain himself or his motives.

  I make my way to the front of my cell, ignoring the sour taste at the back of my throat—the taste of residual magic. My eyes are fixated on the sight across from me.

  A cavern of prison cells are cut into the shale. Row after row, level after level. They extend as far as I can see in all directions—up, down, left, right.

  Inside each is a woman dressed similarly to me.

  Goosebumps break out along my skin.

  It looks just like my vision.

  Are these the missing women?

  If so, then I’m totally fucked. Des hasn’t figured the mystery out and it’s been ongoing for nearly a decade. I’m not holding my breath that that’ll change simply because I’m here.

  Where is Des? What must he think?

  “Hello?” I call out.

  No one answers.

  In the distance I hear quiet murmuring, and the soft click of shoes along the walkways outside the cells, which must belong to prison guards. I grimace. If that’s the case, then there are at least a handful of people who know what happened to the warrior women who disappeared from the Otherworld. And they’re facilitating it.

  Other than those few sounds, the cell blocks are eerily silent.

  This is the place where hope comes to die.

  And then, a thought strikes me, one that gives me courage.

  “Bargainer,” I rush to say, “I’d like to make a deal.”

  I wait for the air to shimmer and Des’s large body to take up space in my cell.

  A second passes. Then another. And another.

  The cell remains exactly how I found it.

  “Bargainer, I’d like to make a deal,” I repeat.

  He’s always come in the past. Always. And after last night, I know that he will come for me now that our seven years are up.

  Again I wait.

  Nothing happens. My room remains empty. Horribly empty.

  And now I have to accept that Des can’t get to me, either because he’s been incapacitated—an idea I reject with every fiber of my being—or something is preventing him.

  Something like magic.

  Something so powerful a fae king cannot get immediately around it. That’s what I now have to contend with. And if I want to make it out of here alive, I’ll need to figure out a way to get past it.

  Captivity is … boring.

  Frightening, but boring. It consists largely of me sitting in my cell, wondering what exactly is going to happen to me and how I managed to land myself into an Otherworld prison. One that is secretly capturing fae females for some nefarious purpose.

  My thoughts are only interrupted every hour or so, when a set of guards makes their circuit past my cell. The first time I saw them, I’d startled at the sight. Each one looks like a blend of animal and man. Some have snouts instead of noses, others haunches instead of legs, and some, whiskers, claws, and fangs.

  To a human like me the sight is … off-putting. But then again, the guards are also currently my enemies, so I’m a bit biased.

  The only time the guards stray from their hourly patrol is when, like now, two of them cart a fae woman by the armpits back to her cell.

  I press my face to the bars, taking in her slumped shoulders, her bowed head, and her lank hair, which hangs loosely in front of her face. Her bare feet drag along the ground behind her. I watch until they move past my line of sight, their footsteps echoing in the cavernous room.

  My eyes drift to the other prisoners. Most either sit or lay unmoving inside their cells. I don’t think they’re dead, but they don’t look all that lively either.

  Not dead but not alive.

  And is that going to happen to me too?

  I’m no fae warrior. I’m what fairies derogatively call a slave. A human. To be fair, I’m a supernatural one, but at the end of the day I’m still human. I have no value here as a prisoner.

  So why was I taken?

  The answer is right there in front of me.

  Because you mean something to the King of the Night.

  Somehow his enemies learned this, and they captured me to get to him.

  I stare down at my wisp of a dress. Not even going to think about the fact that I didn’t put this on. My situation has enough horror in it as is.

  An evening of bliss, followed by this. I got to enjoy the perks of being the Night King’s mate for a whopping day.

  And now this.

  Here it is, the fall after the high. And in my world there’s always a fall. I knew it was too good to think that I would just get a man like Des after all this time. He was always meant to be someone just out of my reach.

  Two sets of footsteps head in my direc
tion, interrupting my thoughts. Another rotation for the prison guard.

  Only, this time, they halt in front of my prison.

  The iron shackles clang between my ankles and my wrists as the guards on either side of me lead me away from my prison cell. My nose itches as the blindfold one of the guards tied around my head now tickles my nose.

  Overkill much?

  I don’t even get to be flattered by it either. It’s probably standard procedure for the incarcerated warriors.

  It could be worse. If I were a fae, the iron cuffs wouldn’t simply be rubbing away skin; it would be sizzling my flesh and draining me of my energy.

  Gradually, the quiet murmurs die away and the air begins to smell fresher, though it’s still musty, heavy with the scent of … animals.

  It takes another five minutes before I’m deposited in a room. The air here feels heavy, ominous.

  Bad things happen here.

  Bad things are going to happen to me.

  I try not to panic. I spent years making sure I’d never again be a victim, and it was all for naught. My glamour doesn’t work on any of these beings, and without it, I’m simply a human woman up against powerful fairies.

  The guards release me, their footsteps retreating behind me. A moment later, the door opens, then closes softly, and I’m alone again, shackled and blindfolded in this room that feels evil.

  My awareness stretches out. I can hear someone breathing.

  Fuck, not alone after all. My panic spikes.

  “Desmond Flynn’s one weakness.” The deep, vibrating voice fills the room, and I can feel the creature’s power in his words. “And I have her.”

  My heart’s pounding, and as my fear rises, so does my siren.

  I hear the sound of heavy footfalls crossing the room towards me. It takes most of my willpower not to stumble backwards.

  “I would not have imagined the great King of Chaos to choose a slave for himself.” The man stops right in front of me.