I hunch over, breathing heavy, my hair plastered to my face.
“More!” Karnon shouts.
I’m tearing apart from the inside out. My skin no longer fits my body. It’s much too small. I heave over and over, barely able to endure the pain I’m in.
“More!”
My screams become increasingly more agonized as his power batters against the inside of my flesh.
“MORE!”
All at once my screams cut off and the magic erupts.
My skin splits down either side of my spine, and I hear the sound of wet popping and snapping.
And then … I feel it. Two sticky, wet protrusions push out from my ripped flesh, unfolding down my back.
Then finally, finally, the magic abates.
I collapse in on myself, shivering, shaking.
Blood, everywhere.
“Yes! My beautiful bird, you are set free!” Karnon says gleefully.
I can’t move. No energy left. As I lay there, I catch sight of my hands. Where once were nails, now I have sharp, black claws. And my forearms … delicate, semi-transparent scales cover them, glittering gold where blood splatter doesn’t cover them.
I can barely make sense of the sight.
But then I glimpse something over my shoulder. Something dark, something bloody … And there’s a weird weight against my back …
The siren within me is whispering, the worlds curling themselves around me,
I am powerful.
I am vengeance.
I am unleashed.
Karnon’s steps approach me.
He grabs those dark, bloody things behind me, stretching them up and out. I feel my muscles stretch as I extend my arms.
But my arms are right in front of me …
I catch another glimpse of those dark things. And then I understand.
Wings.
I grew wings.
Chapter 29
At the sight of them I heave again. This must be a bad dream.
Claws and scales and wings. I’m now more beast than woman.
“How do you like them?” Karnon asks, his words taunting.
I roll my forehead against the bloody, marble floor.
Can’t bear the sight.
Far behind me, someone pounds on the doors that lead in, the wood shuddering against the force of the strikes. If I had any more energy, I would’ve jumped at the noise.
Instead I just lay here.
The doors continue to bang. And bang.
Karnon drops my wings, and with a wet smack they flop to my sides. His footfalls retreat.
BOOM!
The metal doors blow open, wood splintering every which way. The massive double doors hit the throne room’s floor, their impact shaking the walls of the room.
I sense him before I hear his agonized bellow.
Des.
He found me. A weak thread of happiness pushes through my exhaustion.
Shadows curl around me like smoke. I stare tiredly at them.
“So your mate found you after all,” Karnon says. “Took him long enough.”
The air shifts, and a moment later Des is crouched at my side.
I feel his hand glide over the sensitive flesh of my wings.
“I’m so sorry, cherub,” he whispers, his voice breaking. “For everything. He will pay.”
I begin to shake.
“Tell me, how do you like your mate now?” Karnon says mockingly. “She’s improved, no?”
I catch another glimpse of myself—my golden dusting of scales, my sharpened fingernails … my wings.
Suddenly, I can’t look at Des.
I’m monstrous. Not a woman, not anymore.
Des’s hands leave me. He stands, and the atmosphere of the room feels suddenly ominous. I turn my head just in time to see the Bargainer approaching Karnon.
“You know it’s breaking the most sacred law of hospitality to attack a king within his own castle,” Karnon says, backing up.
The Bargainer doesn’t bother responding. He is the embodiment of wrath. I can see it building beneath his skin, burning in his eyes. A bottomless abyss of it.
It reminds me of Karnon’s cold gaze …
But my mate is so calm. All of that fury is contained within him as he moves, and it only serves to make him appear all the more menacing.
“I never imagined you’d go for a slave. But weak attracts weak …” Karnon taunts, trying to get a rise out of Des even as he begins to back away.
The reaction never comes. The Bargainer continues stalking after Karnon with the same steady, coiled rage as before, his face set in uncompromising lines.
“Though I did enjoy her moans …”
And still, Des doesn’t react.
Karnon growls, clearly growing impatient. Suddenly, and without warning, he swipes his hand through the air. I feel the magic brush by me, and too late I let out a thin cry, remembering those guards Karnon disemboweled days ago.
Des doesn’t even try to block the attack. I see cloth and skin split in four jagged claw marks across his stomach, and his blood begins to spill.
“No,” I croak out weakly, beginning to drag myself across the floor.
The Bargainer’s face is still a mask of anger. And as I watch, I see his wounds begin to stitch themselves up. I feel his magic building and building; it thickens the air as it fills the room.
Des is all darkness. It gathers around him, dimming the room. Bit by bit, the shadows snuff out the lights. His face is as sinister as I’ve ever seen it. Even Karnon looks a little unsure at this point, taking a stumbling step backwards.
The shadows sweep over the room, blanketing me and everything else until the room is black as pitch.
“You think I cannot see in the dark?” the Fauna King says.
It’s quiet.
Then—
“I am the dark.”
Des’s power detonates, blasting through the room, whipping my hair back.
Had I thought that Karnon’s was staggering? It’s nothing—nothing—next to the fury and sheer strength of the magic that moves through me. Warm liquid sprays against me, splattering against my hair, my face. I taste the coppery tang of it on my lips.
Blood.
Whose?
With a deafening shriek, the walls and ceiling explode outwards, bits of marble and plaster scattering to the four winds, the building essentially vaporized.
And then it’s over.
The darkness recedes, and when it does, the first thing I see under the dim twilight sky is … meat. Meat—and bits of bone smeared across the room.
That’s all that’s left of Karnon.
Kneeling behind him is Des, who doesn’t have a fleck of blood on his clothes, nor a strand of white blond hair out of place. Other than the torn, bloodied edges of his clothes, he looks utterly untouched.
I glance around us. This must’ve once been a grand castle, but now all I can see of it is its foundation and bits of furniture that weren’t completely obliterated in the explosion.
Beyond the castle walls, the dark evergreen trees that surround it are utterly untouched.
Des did all this. I shiver at the sight of all of it.
The Bargainer raises his head, his eyes locking with mine. “The King of Fauna is no more.”
Des comes up to me, his hands sliding under my body as he lifts me up.
I let out a small, pained noise. Everything aches, my scalp, my teeth, my bones, my toes—my heart.
Especially that last one.
“It’s alright, cherub, it’s alright.”
I make a choked sound and turn my head towards his chest.
It’s not alrig
ht at all. I can feel the tips of my wings dragging along the ground. A faint dusting of scales cover my arms, and I have claws.
Monstrous. Just as monstrous as my captors. And now I’ll always carry the reminder.
The only thing that tempers my revulsion is my will. I’m struggling to stay conscious.
Des keeps casting worried glances down at me. “Stay with me, love.”
I force my eyes to remain open.
“Good girl,” he says, stroking my hair back. “We’re going home.” His expression is filled with such agony.
It’s painful for him to even look at me.
Perhaps it was better when he was simply out of my life. Then it was a single blow I managed to live with. Seeing him look at me this way over and over again—each moment is a dagger to the gut. In response to my anxiety, my wings tense, ready to lift.
“Be calm, love,” Des says.
Slowly, I force myself to relax my back, my wings going limp again.
He bends his knees, tensing. A moment later, we shoot into the sky.
I stare at the stars, the beautiful, desolate stars, my body at the end of its rope. My eyelids close.
“Callie …”
But not even Des’s voice brings me back from the darkness.
Chapter 30
I wake to the sensation of a hand petting my back.
I wearily blink my eyes open. I don’t immediately recognize my surroundings. Not until I notice the bronze wall scones and a Moroccan archway.
Des’s room. I lay splayed out on my stomach in the middle of his bed, nestled amongst all his sheets.
Why am I on my stomach? I never sleep on my stomach.
“Cherub, you’re awake.” The Bargainer’s smooth voice raises goosebumps across my skin.
I begin to smile, still confused, when I remember.
The prison, Karnon, my metamorphosis.
My metamorphosis.
I reach behind my back. When my fingers brush against feathers, I let out a choked cry.
It wasn’t a dream.
“They’re … beautiful,” Des says. His hand moves over them. Under his touch, they move, my feathers making a whisper-soft noise as they rub against each other.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Don’t,” I say, my voice hoarse.
I don’t want to hear about how pretty they are. They were forced on me by a madman. By a psychopath who would’ve laughed had the transformation killed me. The same monster who raped thousands of women.
I was ready to die. I was even ready to live in a state of suspended animation.
I wasn’t ready for this.
And I know it’s not the worst fate, but it feels that way. Because now I look like all those fauna fae. My captors. My tormentors. It was one thing to endure the punishments. Another to look at myself and see them.
“Don’t what?” Des says. “Don’t touch you? Compliment you?”
“All of it,” I say, opening my eyes. I’m horrifying to look at.
My arms shake as I begin to push myself up into a sitting position. I catch sight of those dusky gold scales that run up my forearms like plated armor.
I have an itch to pluck them from my skin, one by one.
As soon as I begin to sit up, I feel pressure at my back. My unwieldy wings are too long, the bones too delicate.
I can’t sit up in bed.
I feel a frustrated tear leak out as I flop back on my stomach.
So weak.
A moment later Des scoops me up. My wings tangle behind me, the tips dragging along the ground. The feathers are pitch black, but under the light, they have an iridescent sheen.
They are pretty, and I hate them all the more for it.
As he carries me, my fae king looks at me like he’s the one drowning.
He catches me staring. “We will get through this,” he swears, “just like we did the last time. We’ve done this once before. We can do it again.”
“I don’t know if I can.” My voice breaks.
Des sets me on my feet in front of a full length mirror in his chambers. “Tell me what you see,” he says.
I frown, first at him, then—reluctantly—at my reflection. I don’t even want to look. I don’t want to see if I’m more monster than human. But when I do look, I see my face, and it is utterly unchanged. Forgetting Des is standing by me, I touch my cheek. I thought that maybe … that maybe I wouldn’t recognize myself in the mirror. That I’d truly be a beast. But I’m not.
My eyes move to my hand. For a long moment I stare at the sharp claws, and then my gaze moves to my fingers. Those are still human. In fact, if I filed my claws down, other than my nails’ black color, they would look like regular hands.
My forearms have a delicate sheen of scales, which glitter under the light. They begin at my wrist and end before my elbow, and a few rows of them ring my upper arm before fading back into my normal flesh. They don’t continue up my neck or chest or face. I lift the skirt of my dress to look at my legs. Those too are free of scales. They look how they’ve always looked. And my feet are still human feet—no claws adorn my toes.
And when my gaze moves back to my reflection, I still have the same proportions. I’m the same woman I’ve always been, just with a few additions. And while those few additions—claws, scales, and wings—are painful to look at, I’m not the monster I thought I might be.
In fact, if anything, I look a little fae.
“What do you see?” Des asks again.
I swallow. “I see Callie.”
“As do I.” He dips his mouth close to my ear. “Cherub, people like us are not victims. We’re someone’s nightmare.”
I’m not a victim.
I’m not a victim.
How had I forgotten this? Because, somewhere along the way, I had forgotten. And it nearly broke me.
I’m not a victim.
Here in the Otherworld, I lost my most powerful weapon—my glamour. But I gained claws and wings.
My eyes move to Des. “Teach me again how to be someone’s nightmare.”
I needed to feel dangerous, powerful, traits I lost somewhere along the way.
A hint of his wicked smile appears, and cloaked in his shadows, it’s menacing. “With pleasure, mate.”
I stand inside one of the Night Kingdom’s reappropriated warehouses, staring at the multitude of sleeping female warriors. Thousands of them.
Killing Karnon should’ve released all these women from whatever dark magic held them under.
But it hasn’t.
And now there are so many more sleeping women, uncovered from the subterranean rooms far below Karnon’s castle.
The partially empty warehouse is suddenly teeming with coffins. And the women in all the new ones are pregnant. No one knows when—or if—they’ll give birth.
The other kingdoms have also received their share of sleeping warriors recovered from the bowels of Karnon’s prison, warriors belonging to the Kingdoms of Day, Flora, and—strangest of all—Fauna. Karnon had been abusing his kingdom’s female soldiers.
I can barely wrap my mind around it.
There’s still the matter of the male warriors, the men who are still missing. And then there are the female captives, like Aetherial, who are recovering from their ordeal. Captives who have all complained of a darkness that still lingers within them.
Nothing’s solved.
I touch my hand to one of the coffin lids, my claw tips clicking against the glass. “Wake up,” I whisper, glamour slipping into my voice.
If the sleeping women hear, they don’t obey.
I even wait for the sound of wraith-like voices to rise around me, just as they had before.
But all is silent. All is still.
Smoke and shadows wrap around my arms. A moment later, they coalesce into hands.
“Cherub,” Des whispers into my ear, squeezing my arms gently.
At his voice, my wings stir, brushing themselves against his chest.
I shouldn’t be surprised that he found me. He’s the Bargainer, Lord of Secrets, Master of Shadows, and King of the Night.
He touches my jaw, turning my face.
I close my eyes and swallow. It feels good to have the Bargainer touch me like this, despite the fact that Karnon did the same thing, day after day. Because with Des, it’s different. It always has been. It always will be.
“I woke and you were gone,” he says.
I understand what he doesn’t say. That he feared he lost me all over again.
“I had to see them.” The words are barely audible.
I had to see the women that were less fortunate than me. The ones who were unable, even after Karnon’s death, to escape his clutches.
My eyes scan the room, my chest tight at the sight. Had I not been human, I could’ve been among them, my body laid out amongst all the others. My lungs not breathing, my heart not beating, my body not alive.
But not dead either.
Suspended somewhere between the two. Waiting.
He’s coming for you.
Goosebumps break out across my skin.
“It’s not over,” I whisper. I can feel it in my bones. We’d simply fired the first shot.
“Let our enemies come,” Des says, his silky voice lethal. “They have a reckoning waiting at the end of my blade—and my siren’s vengeance to deal with.”
I turn to face Des, his white blond hair swept back beneath his crown. His tattoos and war cuffs are hidden under his fitted fae attire, but even without them showing, he is so obviously a dangerous thing, with his glittering eyes and hulking wings, which have been out almost constantly since the night he killed Karnon.