Rhapsodic (The Bargainer Book 1)

  This is what the warriors endured when they wore these?

  A guard pokes his head in. “Your Majest—”

  “Out!” Karnon cries.

  The door slams shut not even a moment later.

  To me he mumbles, “They’re getting too daring, those guards, coming and going without knocking. Must make an example of one of them—and soon.” He’s completely unaware that as he talks, his palms are smoking.

  Karnon rises back up, those antlers of his towering over us. His eyes are bright and unfocused, his pupils dilated.

  He cups my face, and immediately I tense, his burning palms heating my skin.

  “Frightened little bird, you have nothing to fear from me.” He begins to stroke my skin. “All I want is to calm you. Pet you.”

  Ugh. Mad king indeed.

  His hands run down my arms. Halfway down he stops and turns them over. “What is this bare flesh?” he says. “Where are your markings?”

  Um, what?

  His hands move to my neck, and he probes the skin there. “And your gills!” he says, horrified. “Where are they?”

  I give him a cautious look. Today Karnon seems kinder but definitely crazier than the last time we met.

  He spins me around and sucks in a breath. “Your wings! Who clipped you?”

  He turns me around, and once again I get a close up of those wild eyes and the fangs that his lips can never quite hide. His claw tips dig into my flesh.

  I realize after a moment that he expects me to answer.

  I blink a few times, dazed by all the manhandling. “No one clipped my wings. I never had any to begin with.” You crazy bastard.

  “None to begin with?” He moves behind me, making me tense up again, and he presses his hands flat against my back. “No, no.” He shakes his head vehemently. “Dormant.” He strokes my skin, and I’m beginning to get the willies. “Oh, but they must bud.”

  I don’t follow any of this. I don’t speak psycho.

  “Beautiful bird. Tragic bird. My bird. You are not like the others. They smell of trees and sunbaked earth. Some feel cold like the winter freeze. No beasts among them—save for my sacrifices. Must be made, must be made.”

  If I tried to run right now, how far would I get?

  His hands move down my back, to my waist, and I decide that I don’t really care what my odds are of escape.

  I turn around, letting the siren out.

  His eyes glitter as he takes in my shimmering skin. “Breathtaking creature. Caged, flightless thing. You are a rare—”

  I slam my knee into his crotch.

  He makes a small, choked sound, his body folding in as he clutches himself.

  His mistake to see me as harmless.

  I bolt for the door.

  I hear a snarl behind me. A moment later, he materializes in front of me, blocking the door. His eyes flash, a menacing growl rumbles in his throat. “If you run, I will chase you, and I will break you, pretty bird.”

  “Stay away from me,” I say. My voice becoming ethereal.

  The Fauna King’s eyes flicker, and I sense I’m no longer staring at Karnon.

  Those eyes … I’m looking down an abyss, and the monster that lies at the bottom of it.

  They are the same eyes I stared into yesterday.

  He runs his hands through his hair, taming his wild mane. This man’s not bestial, not like Karnon. He’s cultivated. His eyes are focused, shrewd.

  Interest sparks in his gaze. “Beautiful slave. We meet again.”

  This … is not the same person I was speaking to a moment ago. I’m used to having two aspects of myself, so I know the signs fairly well.

  The way Karnon is now studying me, his expression piqued—and hungry—makes me worried. The Karnon I met earlier was crazy, unpredictable, feral, but he didn’t seem evil. Not like he does now.

  I begin to back up. In response, the fae king prowls forward. This man is brutal, violent, unforgiving. He’s the kind of man who takes and takes and takes.

  He closes the distance between us, wrapping his hand around my wrist. Karnon’s palm moves over my bracelet. “What is this?” He fingers the beads. “You are not to wear anything but what I give you.” As he speaks, his fingers curl around the bracelet. He yanks hard on it, and I let out a small sound as the beads dig into me. But it doesn’t break.

  Frowning, he tries again. Again, my charmed jewelry holds fast. I’d enjoy his frustration if my arm wasn’t getting flayed in the process.

  “What is this magic?” he growls, peering closer at the beads. All at once he jerks his head back. “The Bastard of Arestys,” he snarls, releasing my hand. “Guards!”

  They enter the room.

  “Why was I not informed that she wears Desmond’s magic?”

  They look at each other, obviously confused. As if they would know. These guards are obviously just muscle.

  “Your M-Majesty,” one of them stutters, “we weren’t aware—”

  Karnon takes a menacing step forward. “Not aware?” he says. “Are you blind?”

  He waits for response.

  The guards shake their heads.

  As the three speak, I begin to edge towards the door. My heart pounds faster and faster. This might be my one opportunity to escape.

  “You brought foreign magic in here,” Karnon says. “It can be traced.”

  Traced?

  “Your Majesty, we had no involvement—”

  But the Fauna King is done listening.

  Karnon roars, slashing a clawed hand through the air. Several feet away the guards scream as each of their stomachs rip open in four long, jagged lines. Claw marks. Karnon did that with his magic.

  Almost immediately blood and innards spill out from their guts.

  Not wasting another second, I bolt for the door.

  I never make it out.

  Karnon grabs me from behind, his claws slicing into my skin as he spins me around. “We’re not done,” He whispers into my ear. He grasps my jaw, squeezing it to the point of pain. And then he breathes into me once more.

  Chapter 27

  I’m dying, my body rotting from the inside out.

  I think a day or two has gone by since my last visit with Karnon, but I can’t be sure. All I know is that my life consists of shivering, sickening, and sleeping.

  The guard I’ve dubbed Lion Tail walks by my cell every so often, banging on the iron bars with his gloved hands, taunting me. I weakly manage to flip him off, but I have no idea whether flashing someone the bird is even offensive in the Otherworld. All I know is that Lion Tail didn’t freak out at the sight like I hoped he might.

  “Hey, Callypso—” Aetherial calls out.

  My head rolls weakly towards her voice.

  “Siren!”

  “Yeah?” I croak weakly.

  “Drag your bed over here,” she says.

  “I don’t know if I can,” I mumble.

  “You can, I know it.” She doesn’t even sound sorry, her voice commanding. Weak, but commanding.

  Ugh, fae warriors are way too tough.

  It takes an embarrassingly long time to move my pallet, but eventually I do just that.

  “How are you holding up, siren? Still have enough movement in your limbs?”

  “You had me drag my bed over here and now you ask me that?”

  She gives a wheezy laugh. “I’m making polite talk. Don’t question it.”

  My lips curve up slightly.

  The two of us fall silent again, and my mind drifts.

  “The shackles …” I finally say. “I didn’t realize how painful they must be.”

  “I’ve endured worse.”

  Geez.

  After a
moment, she adds, “We wrap cloth around the cuffs—the barrier stops most of the pain.”

  But not all of it.

  As I listen to her, I realize her voice is slurred, her speech much slower, like she picks her words carefully.

  Losing the ability to move her mouth.

  “Are you alright, Aetherial?”

  She doesn’t speak for a long time.

  Finally, she says, “Everything’s going. Even my mind feels foggy.”

  From the little I know of her, I can tell Aetherial is too proud a creature to say that she’s not all right.

  She sighs. “You know, the worst thing about this is that my wife’s going to have to see me like this.”

  I don’t bother to comment. What would Des do when—if—I came back to him in a coffin?

  “She’s going to take in that creepy little monster I’ll inevitably birth. I know she will, that sweet, foolish woman.”

  “You’ve also seen them?” I ask.

  “I was bit by one of those creatures.”

  I cringe, remembering that Des had told me those children had been close to biting me as well.

  Des. Just the thought of him guts me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to see him again, hold him again, talk to him again.

  “You’re married?” I ask, changing the subject and forcing my mind from the one thing that will make me go soft. Because there is no softness in this place. And if I want to hold out for as long as possible, I have to be the hardass I’ve learned to become in Des’s absence.

  I hear Aetherial exhale wearily. “Yeah,” she says. After a moment, she adds, “We got married in the Night Kingdom. Technically, our marriage isn’t recognized in the Day Kingdom—relations with humans aren’t the only thing taboo here. But technically, I don’t really give a shit.”

  I smile at that.

  “By the way, Callypso—” she says.

  “Callie,” I correct.

  “Callie,” she repeats, “Just an update: I haven’t seen a human in the prison—other than you, of course.”

  My heart plummets. I’ve been here days, and I’m getting weaker with each one. I’m losing my window of opportunity.

  I stare down at my bracelet, twisting it around my wrist. Not all hope is lost. If I understood Karnon correctly, Des might be able to track my magic.

  But if he could, wouldn’t he have shown up already?

  “Callie?” Aetherial interrupts my thoughts.

  “Yeah?”

  “No one gets magically impregnated here.”

  Her meaning doesn’t register at first, but when it does …

  My eyes close at that. At what she’s not saying. Strong Aetherial immobilized, powerless to stop what happened to her.

  “It was Karnon?”

  “The devil himself,” she affirms.

  I don’t have words. It’s happened to me before, it might very well happen to me again, and somewhere between it all, you’d think I’d have something to say, but I don’t. Not for brave Aetherial.

  She clears her throat the best she can. “Just thought you should know.”

  I swallow. “Thank you for warning me,” I whisper, my voice hoarse.

  But I’m not sure I’m better off knowing what happened to her, what awaits me.

  Sometimes knowing is just another kind of hell.

  It’s not working.

  Whatever venom Karnon’s trying to feed me isn’t taking.

  I huddle in the corner of my cage, my body covered with a sheen of sweat. My entire body shakes violently. From my best guess, it’s been nearly a week since I arrived. I’ve gone through two more of the Fauna King’s ministrations, and each time my body rejects his poisoned magic, he gets more and more frustrated.

  He hasn’t touched me yet. Perhaps the monster doesn’t like victims who fight back. Though I doubt at this point I’d present much of a challenge to Karnon; I’m too weak to do much on my own. Despite my sorry state, I’m not being dragged under by his magic, not like the other women here.

  A horrible sort of malaise is settling into my bones. It feels like the magic will either do Karnon’s bidding, or I will cease to exist. And so far, it’s not doing Karnon’s bidding.

  I’d assumed that all fae magic worked on humans. After all, the Bargainer could use his magic on me. But perhaps my assumptions were wrong. Perhaps there are some limits to fae magic. Perhaps being a human right about now is a good thing.

  Although, it’s hard to call the state I’m in a good thing. I lay listlessly on the pallet, my dress hanging loosely on me. Now the guards simply carry me to Karnon’s chambers without a fight. There’s no more small talk.

  If I’m greeted with the evil version of Karnon, he gets right to work. If I’m met with the kinder, crazier version of Karnon, he rocks me against him, murmuring nonsense about wings and gills, claws and scales.

  “Aetherial?” I call out.

  Silence. It’s been like that for the last several days.

  I begin talking to her anyway, just in case she can still hear me, telling her anything that crosses my mind. But not once do I mention the one thing that weighs most heavily on my mind—

  I’m going to die here.

  Chapter 28

  Day who-the-fuck-knows and visit number six with Karnon, the guy who’s beginning to star in all of my nightmares.

  When we arrive, the guards drop me unceremoniously on the ground before retreating.

  Groaning a little, I push myself onto my forearms, reaching for my blindfold. Lately the guards have stopped binding my wrists and ankles. What’s the point? I’m too weak to escape.

  I pull off the cloth around my eyes, blinking against the brightness of the room. I freeze when I take in my surroundings.

  The first thing I notice is that I’m not in Karnon’s bedroom. Here, dead leaves are scattered across the floor, and spindly, dead vines cover most of the walls and much of the ceiling. They’re even wrapped around the great antler chandelier ending far above me. This derelict room looks like it’s been left to the elements.

  A wild room for a wild, mad king.

  My gaze falls to a raised dais at the far side of the room. The massive chair perched in the center of it is a chair made entirely of bones. And sitting on it is Karnon.

  He assesses me from his throne. “Precious bird,” he says, “you are dying.”

  He stands, and that simple action alone sends a shiver down my spine.

  Today won’t be like the other visits.

  His footsteps echo as he descends down the stairs in front of him, leaves crunching beneath his boots.

  I get a good look at his eyes, and it’s my stepfather all over again. The half-mad lust that looks more animal than man. The trigger-short temper that can veer to anger at the slightest provocation.

  He stops less than a foot away from me. It’s just the two of us in this room; whatever guards or aides or officials are normally stationed here are now gone.

  Karnon kneels next to me. I try to scramble away, but my limbs are heavy and sluggish. I want to shriek in frustration. I’d vowed long ago to never again be a victim. And here I am, powerless beneath the will of a mad king.

  He begins petting my hair. “What a pretty, pretty bird. A shame you cannot fly, trapped as you are in this cage of a body.”

  He cups my face. “You are dying because the animal in you is being smothered.”

  Riight, that’s why.

  “I’m dying because you’re poisoning me,” I say.

  He stares back at me, his gaze distant, and I can already tell my words didn’t register with him. He begins petting my hair again. “How can a creature survive when she doesn’t have gills to breathe or wings to fly?”

  When I don’t answer, he
gives me a look like my silence is making his point for him. His touch moves from my hair down my back.

  I try to bat away his hands, my limbs sluggish. It does no good.

  “Sweet creature,” he says, stroking my back, “fret not.” He leans in close to my ear. “Today I will set you free.”

  I turn to look at him, my gaze locking with those slitted pupils of his. We stare each other for several seconds, his hands laying heavily on my back. His body begins to tremble, and then, all at once, he releases all of his magic right into me.

  His magic is like a sledgehammer to my back, driving down into my skin, into my bones with the force of a freight train. The shockwave from it ripples out around us, shaking the very walls of his throne room.

  Then comes the pain, pain more vast and acute than anything I’ve ever felt. My siren rises in response.

  I open my mouth, my eyes rolling back, and I scream and scream as agony unlike anything I’ve ever felt rips through me. My body feels like it’s unmaking itself, my bones breaking, my muscles ripping, my skin flaying itself.

  It’s unending and unfathomable, the force of it pinning me to the ground. I’m helpless beneath Karnon’s grip on my back, a grip that I can’t possibly shake at this point.

  The Fauna King laughs himself hoarse as a sound like thunder rumbles in the distance. “My beautiful bird sings best when she hurts.”

  He presses down hard against my skin. “Siren,” he shouts, “come forth!”

  Another wave of power slams into me.

  My screams hit a new decibel, the sound harmonizing with itself.

  My spine and ribs feel like they’re cracking, shattering. I’m no longer made of muscle and bone. It’s all been pulverized under Karnon’s magic.

  “Yes!” the madman cries. “More!”

  My body seems to buckle as another wave of energy floods through me. My skin is burning, burning. And my back!

  My back is on fire! It must be; that’s where the worst of the pain is.

  Karnon releases me, but the agonizing power he’s shoving into me doesn’t ebb. If anything, it’s getting worse. Because it’s changing course; rather than burrowing into me, it’s now trying to force itself out.