The Emperor of Evening Stars (The Bargainer Book 3)

  “Who are you?” he whispers.

  I stare down at him for a long moment, then I make a decision. My business card forms in my palm, and I flick it at him.

  Might as well let the authorities know I was here, doing all their dirty work for them.

  I step over Whitechapel’s toes, which decorate the floor like wedding rice.

  And then I’m gone.

  Chapter 18

  Under a Peruvian Sky

  March, 7 years ago

  The Peruvian night sky glitters down on us as Callie and I order dinner at an outdoor café. I’m supposed to be procuring a couple pounds of cursed gold from one of my clients here, and Callie’s supposed to be tucked away in her dorm like a good little siren, but neither of us much likes doing what we’re supposed to.

  We only have a couple hours to enjoy ourselves before I need to take her back to Peel Academy. You can call me her fairy-fucking-godmother.

  “So, when are we going to do that deal?” Callie asks.

  The deal I’m blowing off, she means.

  I lean back in my seat, one booted foot crossed over my knee as I assess her. She’s a little too eager to get involved in the seedy side of my life. “All in good time, cherub.”

  Callie nods, her eyes drifting across the street; they brighten with interest. I follow her gaze, then nearly groan.

  A tourist trap of a shop sits across from us, selling all sorts of brightly colored T-shirts with llamas and Peru emblazoned onto them. Stacks of blankets made from Alpaca wool sit outside the shop, right next to a series of carved gourds. A rickety stand of keychains and another of postcards border the shop like sentinels.

  And Callie is all for it.

  Her interest is interrupted by the waitress, who sets down a plate of pollo a la brasa and another of anticuchos in front of us. A moment later our drinks come, the amber liquid glistening under the streetlights.

  Callie tears her gaze away from the store to take our meals in. She looks a bit reluctant.

  I might’ve ordered for the both of us.

  “When have I ever steered you wrong?” I say. I was the one who suggested she get the pollo a la brasa and the chicha. As far as new and unusual food goes, this is tame.

  She guffaws. “Do you seriously want me to answer that?”

  In response, I pick up my drink, flashing her a shadow of a smile.

  Her skin flashes in response, her siren eager to surface, and then her face heats. It’s all so positively delectable.

  How very much I enjoy tempting her darker side. And how very much I like witnessing her desire for me, even when I can’t and won’t act on it.

  To cover up her own embarrassment, she picks up her drink and takes a large swallow of it.

  A second later she nearly chokes on it.

  “Alcohol?” she wheezes.

  “Really, cherub, you shouldn’t be surprised by this.” It’s not the first time I’ve given her spirits.

  What can I say, I’m no angel.

  “What is it?” she asks, taking another tentative sip.

  “Chicha.”

  She huffs. “And what is ‘chicha’?”

  I take a kabob from the plate in front of me, pulling off a bit of meat. “Horse piss.”

  The girl actually pales.

  This human! If I could, I would go back in time and slap my younger self for lamenting this fate. Being with her is the most fun I’ve ever had.

  “It’s Peruvian beer,” I say, my voice conciliatory, “and it’s decidedly not made from horse piss.”

  Callie fingers her glass. “What is it made out of?”

  “Fermented corn.”

  “Huh.” Callie takes another sip. Then another.

  That’s my girl.

  “And the food?” She asks, her attention turning to her plate.

  “Not made from horse piss either.”

  She looks heavenward. Gods I relish exasperating her! She should know by now that I take particular pleasure in not answering her questions.

  “That’s not what I mea—”

  Using my magic, I make her fork scoop up some of the chicken from one of the plates, then levitate it towards her mouth.

  “Des!” She looks around us, afraid someone will see a fork successfully fighting the laws of gravity.

  Her naiveté is another endearing feature of hers. I wouldn’t pull a stunt like this without shielding my magic from unwanted eyes.

  The prongs of the fork bump her lips, and a bit of the chicken falls off of the utensil, landing on her white shirt.

  She wrestles the fork away from her mouth. “Oh my God, fine, I’ll try it already. Stop hustling me.”

  I kick my heels up on the table, eating a bit of my kabob as she tries the dish.

  An hour later, our plates are clean, and Callie has polished off two glasses of chicha when we finally leave the restaurant. Her cheeks have a rosy hue to them.

  Shit. She’s a lightweight.

  Definitely taking her home before I meet my client. Between her lowered inhibitions, the relentless siren that’s been making her skin flicker like a strobe light, and my own protectiveness, mixing business and pleasure right now might be a very bad thing.

  She stumbles into me as we leave the restaurant, giggling a little as she tries to right herself.

  “Whoops!” she says, her skin flaring to life for the twelve thousandth time.

  Her eyes alight upon the tourist shop across the street.

  Fuck me.

  She gasps dramatically. “I want to get you something.” She’s eyeing the tacky shelf of mugs that sit inside the shop.

  “Please don’t.”

  “C’mon, Des,” she says, grabbing my hand. “I promise you’re going to like it.”

  “Do you even know what a promise is?” I ask her ten minutes later, when she heads to the cashier with my “gift.” I frown at the lime green shirt tucked under Callie’s arm; it has a cartoon llama on it and Cusco written beneath.

  Buzzed Callie has poor taste in souvenirs.

  Salvation, however, comes in the form of an actual llama. I don’t know what the hell the owner is thinking, bringing the beast through the streets of Cusco, but even mated, I’m considering kissing him.

  Callie’s eyes widen at the sight of the beast, and the shirt slips out from under her arm, falling, forgotten, to the floor. “It’s … a llama.”

  Sometimes, I just can’t handle this girl.

  She heads out onto the street, abandoning her quest to find me the perfect souvenir. My normally reserved mate approaches the man and his llama, cooing at the creature.

  Ah, be still my heart.

  I follow behind her, and in Spanish I ask the man, “Do you mind if my friend pets your llama?”

  It’s a useless question. Callie is already nose deep in the beast’s neck fur.

  I slip the man a few bills anyway, and he seems happy enough to let the beautiful teenage girl accost his animal.

  “Des, I think llamas might be my new favorite animal,” she says.

  “I thought tarsiers were.” She declared it after the two of us saw the creature on a nature documentary.

  Because it has such big eyes, she explained, like that made any sort of sense.

  “Nope, definitely llamas.” She continues petting the creature, completely oblivious that I only have eyes for her.

  Her hair slides haphazardly over her shoulder, and godsdamn, this girl is gorgeous. She has no idea.

  Here I am, the Kingdom of Night’s most notorious bachelor, trying for the first time in my life to put a little effort into a woman—all without her being aware of my true feelings.

  Oh, and that woman happens to be a teenager.

  I’m officially a one-man shitshow.

  I back away from Callie while she’s distracted, grabbing a carved gourd and buying it for her.

  For the thousandth time I vow to myself that this is it. No more contact with Callie until she’s an adult.

  I already
know it’s a vow I won’t keep. The moment this little siren calls out to me or the moment I start to miss her a little too much, I’ll be back to get my next fix.

  It’s times like these that I’m not sure I know what a promise is either.

  Chapter 19

  The Final Wish

  May, 7 years ago

  Tonight, magic is thick in the air around Peel Academy. It coats my mouth, and if it had a flavor, I would call it young excitement.

  Ah, nothing like being on the cusp of youth. Mine was shit, but I have a healthy respect for the age.

  Down Callie’s hall, girls are squealing, and you could kill a man with the amount of perfume that saturates the air.

  “Holy fuck,” I say, materializing in Callie’s room. “It’s a warzone out in your hallway.”

  I stride over to her window, peering outside. Across the campus students I see moves about tuxes and evening gowns, all of them heading towards Peel Castle.

  “What’s going on tonight?” I ask.

  Everyone glitters just a bit brighter under the stars tonight. It’s my favorite kind of magic, the kind that is purely organic. No spells needed. If I were back in my own kingdom, it would saturate the night, increasing my own power. As it is, I feel it stir inside me. Human magic and fae magic are not terribly compatible, but there’s enough of it in the air that it affects my own power.

  “May Day Ball,” Callie says.

  There’s something in her voice that has me turning to her. She sits at her computer chair in boxers and a frayed T-shirt, half her hair in a topknot.

  “Why aren’t you getting ready?” I ask.

  “I’m not going.” She pulls her legs up to her chest.

  “You’re not going?”

  She’s trying hard to keep her face neutral. “No one’s asked me.”

  I want to laugh. I never asked her to bargain with me, or spend her evenings with me, or weasel her way into my life and heart, but she still did all those things.

  “Since when do you wait for permission?” I ask. “And also, how is that possible?”

  I mean, teenage guys think with their eyes and their dicks, and Callie is beautiful the same way the sun is bright. She burns with such exquisite intensity it sometimes hurts to look at her.

  “How is what possible?” she stares at her knees.

  “That no one’s asked you.”

  She lifts a shoulder. “I thought it was your job to understand people’s motives.”

  I fold my arms. I want to slap myself upside the head. For all my understanding of people’s motives, it’s taken me until now to realize what I’ve missed.

  Despite Callie’s uniqueness, she’s still a teenage girl. She wants to be carted to some dance and swept off her feet. She wants one godsdamn day to show all her peers that she is so much more than they assumed.

  She wants us to be real, if only for a night.

  I can give her that.

  “What?” she asks, seeing me staring.

  This is a bad idea. A high school dance means rubbing elbows with lots and lots of teenagers. It means exposure. But I want her to be happy. Always happy.

  “Do you want to go to the May Day Ball?” I ask.

  “I don’t see how that matters.”

  That’s what she says, but now that I’m looking for it, there’s a whole slew of subtext there. She wants to go, even though she doesn’t think she’s a normal girl who has normal dreams.

  “It does matter,” I say. “Now, do you?”

  Her lips part, but she can’t say that this is exactly what she wants.

  My sweet siren.

  I close the distance between us and kneel. My wings ache with the need to reveal themselves. Each day it gets harder to keep them hidden, and tonight is the worst night yet.

  Going to blow my cover.

  Right now it doesn’t matter. Callie’s eyes are huge, and I love this. I take her hand in mine.

  I begin to smile. “Would you, Callypso Lillis, take me to the May Day Ball?”

  May, 7 years ago

  I procure a gown for Callie, since she has nothing, and then I leave her for a little over an hour so she can get ready. Knowing what I do about women, it’s not nearly enough time for primping, but that’s all the time she has if we want to get to the dance at a reasonable hour.

  When I return, I knock on her door. From here on out, I’m playing it as any normal date would.

  In the hallway, some of the girls startle when they see me standing outside Callie’s door, my hands in my pocket. Their eyes move over me, then between me and the room I’m lingering outside of. I’ve visited Callie often enough to know these tittering idiots aren’t friends with her.

  The door in front of me swings open, and all thoughts of Callie’s floormates vanish.

  Holy shit.

  Callie’s loose hair falls in waves down her back and her haunting eyes seem to be backlit. I’ve never been jealous of a dress before, but right about now I am. Her gown caresses every one of her curves.

  I made a mistake, a grave, terrible mistake. In that gown, Callie doesn’t look like a teenager, she looks like my queen.

  The urge to claim her rises in me. She’s yours. Now and always.

  Give her the wine. Cross over. Show her exactly what it means to be your mate.

  I squash the thoughts as soon as they roll through my head.

  This evening might kill me.

  Callie’s gaze dips and she fidgets with her dress, looking both pleased and embarrassed to be wearing it. “You didn’t have to do this, you know.”

  “Cherub, have you ever known me to do things I don’t want to?”

  “How about my first wish?” she says.

  Blood-soaked kitchen, blood-stained girl, dead monster at her feet.

  I give her the side eye. “That doesn’t count.”

  “Why?” she asks, and there’s so much weight on that one word.

  Because I never actually minded.

  I cock my head. “Is it just me, or are you particularly persistent with the questions tonight?”

  She gives me a playful shove, smiling wryly. After a moment, her features sober, and Callie’s heart is in her eyes. She looks at me like I’m her own personal salvation. Sweet thing, hasn’t she figured out by now that though I rule the heavens, I’m hell wrapped in a man?

  I give her my arm, and the two of us leave her room. We head out of the girl’s dorms and across the grassy lawn that separates Peel Academy’s living quarters from the castle proper.

  Around us, couples mill about, the boys looking mostly stiff and uncomfortable in their suits and the girls preening in their brightly colored gowns.

  Amongst them, my mate is in a league of her own. She’s ethereal and untouchable, and it makes my knees weak just staring at her. I’m not alone. For all of Callie’s insecurities, she’s collecting stares faster than she has beads.

  My wings itch to reveal themselves. Even these meager adolescents are enough to set off my possessive instinct.

  Those who aren’t assessing Callie are eyeing me. There’s a reason I’ve taken pains to mask myself when I’ve visited my siren. The Politia will be up my ass—and anyone connected to me—in days the moment they realize I’m here. I’ve been on their Most Wanted List for years. The second they catch wind that I waltzed around Peel Academy, they’re all going to blow their loads. Capturing me would be career-making.

  And that would mean that they’d all come down on Callie, the girl I took to the dance. The same girl who harbors an acute fear of the supernatural authorities.

  Can’t happen. I won’t let it.

  So, without letting my mate know, my magic creates the most subtle of illusions. My ears round, and my fae features soften to something more mortal. To everyone but Callie, I’m Des in human form.

  Tonight, she gets a normal evening. One where her date isn’t a wanted criminal, one where she’s not some outcast. Tonight we’re as we should be, two flames in the darkness, and all th
ese people are the moths that bask in our light.

  Tonight the world is as it should be. Tomorrow life will go back to the fucked up charade it usually is.

  May, 7 years ago

  The dance is all fine and dandy for about two point five seconds. Then Callie’s peers descend on her like flies to a carcass. Fake friends, fake enthusiasm, fake smiles. If I wanted deception, I’d waltz my way into one of the fae palaces. And if Callie wanted to spend her evening talking to these people, she’d have come here with them.

  “Clarice, this is Desmond,” Callie says, introducing me to yet another classmate. Is this the fifth one, or the sixth? For a girl who has no friends, she has an awful lot of acquaintances …

  Clarice is looking at me the way the last several girls have been, the same way that Somnia’s noblewomen always have. Like they wish to conquer and be conquered by me.

  It’s annoying coming from fae women; it’s beneath my notice coming from human girls that aren’t my mate.

  “Des, this is—”

  Social hour, I’ve decided, is over.

  I take Callie’s hand without preamble, pulling her away from her “friends,” who think they can get some sort of contact high on our relationship by getting close enough to us.

  Our relationship. My back tingles where my wing roots are. Shit, it’s frightening how easily I could get used to that phrase.

  “Where are we going?” Callie asks, trailing behind me.

  “Dance floor.” There I can hold Callie close and pretend for a night that we are everything that I’ve denied myself.

  Couples part when they take the two of us in. Even here amongst budding supernaturals, we’re a species apart.

  Callie catches up to my side. “That was insanity back there,” she says, referring to the students who decided at the eleventh hour that she might actually be worth getting to know.

  Screw this place.

  “That was hellacious,” I say, “and I’m used to events like this.” Fairies are duplicitous bastards, one moment ingratiating themselves to you, the next trying to ruin your life. These kids would give even them a run for their money. “Thank fuck I never went to high school.”

  I step onto the dance floor, the twinkling candlelight dappling us. This is my kingdom—sweat and dancing, alcohol and adrenaline-spiked decisions. Even though I don’t rule over humans, the magic thickening the air zings along my skin, drawing my most feral side closer and closer to the surface.