The Emperor of Evening Stars (The Bargainer Book 3)

  I hope Eli enjoyed Callie while he had her. Now that she and I have paid our tithe, I have no plans to let her go again.

  Less than a year ago

  By the time Callie arrives at her house, I’ve thoroughly made myself at home. I raided her kitchen, smirking when I came across a secret stash of sweets—because who the hell is she hiding her sweets from?—and frowning when I came across her secret stash of half-drunk spirits. Those I know she must hide from herself, only taking them out when she’s too weak or beaten down to resist.

  After throwing together a meal for myself, I flipped through her Netflix account. By all appearances she still likes book-to-movie adaptations, and she also watches a good dose of comedy shows.

  Now I recline on her bed, gazing at the moon, which rises over the Pacific. The sight stirs some old yearning in me, something both nostalgic and dully painful. Maybe it’s the sight of that moon so close to the water—so close and yet still out of reach. It reminds me of Nyxos and Fierion, the gods of night and day; the star-crossed lovers always seeking one another, always kept apart.

  But the thrill of being back in her life is too heady for me to get sad at the rising moon. I bathe in the shadows that slip through Callie’s windows, closing my eyes while I wait.

  Eventually, I hear the front door creak open, then the soft sound of footfalls. It takes my mate entirely too long to make her way back to her bedroom, where I lounge on her mattress.

  It’s taking all of my concentration to keep my wings and my eagerness in check.

  Callie steps into the doorway, her body cast in shadows.

  Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.

  Can’t be real.

  Not that dark hair that falls in waves down her body, not that face, which was created to break men’s hearts and bend their wills. My gaze moves to her flesh, encased in only the wispiest lingerie.

  She’s a vision made to haunt me.

  Before I can help it, my wings manifest beneath me, flaring open. I’m the teenager and she’s the unattainable woman.

  How ironic the Fates are.

  My wings are out only for the briefest of moments, but the movement startles her. I hear her swift intake of air, and then a moment later, she flicks on the bedroom lights.

  Fuck me good, nothing has ever looked so godsdamned appealing as Callie in lingerie. She looked mesmerizing in the shadows; she’s a vision in the soft light of her room.

  All signs of the girl she once was are now gone. Teenage Callie has been replaced by this creature, with her womanly curves and devastating face.

  Time to scheme, Desmond. It’s going to take more than sheer ardor to conquer my mate’s heart.

  Callie stares at me, shocked. No, not shocked—thunderstruck. I catch a peak of unsure, teenage Callie in the look.

  There’s my girl.

  I flick my gaze over her. “You’ve upgraded your lingerie since I last saw you.”

  Going to dream about this later.

  There’s a long pause; Callie appears to be collecting herself.

  “Hello, Desmond Flynn,” she finally says, deliberately using my full name. She might as well have reached between my legs and squeezed my balls.

  A slow grin parts my lips. Feisty thing. “I didn’t realize you wanted to spill secrets tonight, Callypso Lillis.”

  My eyes return to her flesh. I can’t keep myself from looking at her, all of her.

  Take. Claim. Keep.

  She cuts across her bedroom, grabbing a robe from her closet.

  “What do you want, Des?” she asks from where she ties the robe. Her voice is somehow annoyed, bored, and exasperated all at once. There’s a name for this.

  Apathy.

  For one split second the sky feels like it’s crashing down around me.

  She’s moved on entirely.

  But then I notice how her hands tremble.

  Relief washes through me.

  She’s shaken by this too. My luck hasn’t entirely run out then.

  Like a predator, I pounce on her vulnerability.

  I materialize behind her in an instant, bending to her ear. “Demanding as always, I see.” I smile a little when she yelps in surprise, turning to face me. “Odd character flaw of yours, considering how much you owe me.”

  My magic slips into my voice, promising her all those forbidden things that her insatiable siren craves.

  I will give each and every one of them to you siren, night after night, so long as you’re mine.

  Those deep, fathomless eyes of hers search my face. I forgot what it felt like to be seen by them. Seven years has made them sadder, lonelier, but no less piercing.

  She believes I abandoned her. Clear as starlight I read it on her face.

  In that instant, I come as close as I ever have to freely giving up information. Only centuries of restraint hold my tongue. Telling Callie the truth doesn’t buy me love. She’s had years to resent me; a few short sentences aren’t going to just fix that.

  I’m going to have to make her fall in love with me, all over again.

  I take her hand and push up the sleeve of her robe. Row after row of my beads twist up her forearm. A primal sort of pleasure stirs in me at the sight.

  “My bracelet still looks good on you, cherub.”

  I can ask anything of her, anything at all, and she must oblige me. I could ask her to live with me, to marry me, to bed me, to bear my children.

  It’s not enough. Not nearly. I want her love, her thoughts, her passion—and I want it to be given freely. Always freely. Nothing less will do.

  But she doesn’t know this.

  “Callie, you owe me a lot of favors.”

  You’re mine. You don’t know it yet, love, but you are.

  She meets my gaze, and I feel the weight of her dawning realization. A part of her understands this is the end—and it’s the beginning. “You’re finally here to collect.”

  Chapter 23

  Till Darkness Dies

  Less than a year ago

  The bounty hunter is a threat no more. That much is obvious the moment he sees my wings and recognizes what they mean.

  It all goes over Callie’s head. But she must have some sort of idea. After my confrontation with Eli, she locks herself away in her room, her face troubled.

  My body practically quakes with the need to be close to her. Just like the night of the dance, I’m losing my control. My fae instincts are crowding out reason.

  Eventually the door to Callie’s room opens and she storms out. “Is it true?” she demands.

  I glance at her, still distracted by my thoughts. “Is what true?”

  “About your wings,” she says. “Is it true that you’ve been flashing them to let everyone know not to touch me? That I belong to you?”

  I still. She’s come awfully close to the truth—she missed the mark, but gods, she’s close.

  My heart is picking up.

  My mate. Claim her.

  My magic is spilling out of me, darkening the room. All those years of denying myself; I’m about to crack us wide open.

  “It is,” she says, shocked.

  I approach Callie, who looks spitting mad.

  Claim her.

  “You bastard,” she swears. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

  If I admit to her the truth, I won’t let her slip away again.

  Is she ready for that?

  The devil knows I am.

  She pokes me in the chest. “Were. You?”

  I glance down at her finger, my good nature slipping away as she challenges me. My darker impulses rise to the surface.

  I let a smile slip out as I step in closer to her, our chests touching. “Are you sure you want to know my secrets, cherub?” I say. “They will cost you much more than a wrist full of beads.”

  “Des, I just want answers from you.”

  Take—claim—keep.

  I pick up a lock of her hair. “What can I say? Fairies can be incredibly jealous, selfish lovers.”

&nb
sp; … understatement …

  “You should’ve told me.”

  Told her when precisely? In high school, when she was too young? Or when I finally managed to return to her side after seven years apart? Because that would’ve been a great icebreaker.

  “Perhaps I was proud to have my wings out,” I say. “Perhaps I enjoyed the way you looked at them and the way others looked at them. Perhaps I felt things that I haven’t felt before.”

  I let my wings unfurl, careful to release them slowly. My magic is all-consuming. If I were to completely give into it now, it would cloak the room into darkness and release all sorts of pheromones that a siren would be especially susceptible to. I want Callie to come to me of her own volition.

  “Perhaps,” I continue, “I didn’t want to tell you only to find out that you didn’t feel the same. I know how to be lethal, Callie. I know how to be just. I don’t know how to deal with you. With us. With this.”

  For so long I’ve been the ruthless Bargainer and the fierce King of Night; I haven’t had practice being simply a man in love. I’m afraid I’m going to blow it.

  “With what?”

  She’s going to make me spell it out. I can feel my heart banging against my ribcage. When it comes to Callie, I want to give her my secrets, but her reaction also has the power to undo me.

  I trace her collarbone. “I haven’t been wholly honest with you,” I say carefully.

  Not exactly a shocking revelation.

  “There was a question that you asked me,” I continue. “Why now? I’ve been gone seven years, Callie. So why do I come back now?”

  Her brows knit. “You needed my help,” she says.

  Surely she can see that for the smokescreen it is.

  “A lie that became the truth,” I say.

  Put the pieces together, Callie. They’re right there in front of you.

  But of course, she won’t. She can’t. I’ve kissed her on the lips and between her thighs—I all but moved her into my home—yet she sees none of it for what it is. Because even after seven years, she still is that lonely girl that doesn’t believe she’s allowed to love and be loved.

  I gently touch her cheek. “Callie.”

  Can’t she tell that she brings me to my knees? Morning, evening, and night, she’s always right there in every beat of my heart. That sweet voice of hers sings through my veins. It calls to me across worlds. Everything she is, is mine, and everything I am is hers. Always.

  I spread my wings fully out, the tips of them nearly brushing the walls of my living room.

  Gods it feels good to finally expose them. Fought this for too long.

  “A fairy doesn’t show his wings to his betrothed.”

  I move my hand to the back of her neck, stroking the skin there softly. It still fills me with wonder that I get to be near her. That once again I can finally touch her. She’s not the only one who thought that this was too good to be true.

  “A fairy shows them to his soulmate.”

  She stills.

  Seven years of pain, seven years of waking up with the same damn ache that never goes away. Maybe tonight I can finally put that anguish to bed, once and for all.

  “You lie,” she breathes, disbelief coating her voice.

  I know the feeling. Like she can’t bear to believe it because it might break her. No, it will break her. It will break her and she’ll never be the same. It’s already broken me.

  “No, cherub, I’m not.”

  She searches my face. “So you’re saying …?”

  “That I’m in love with you? That I have been since you were that obstinate teen with way too much courage? That you’re my soulmate and I’m yours? Gods save me, yes I am.”

  Callie reels a little back, her eyes widening and her lips parting. One of her hands touches her chest, right over her heart.

  She must feel the rightness of it. The same way the river flows downstream, the same way night follows day and the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. We were always meant to be.

  She searches my face. “But you left.”

  “I did,” I agree. “But I never meant to stay away.”

  “Then why did you?”

  Her eyes have that same haunted look they had back when I first met her, only now it’s my transgressions and not her stepfather’s that are responsible for it.

  I run a hand through my hair, feeling like the world’s worst soulmate. “You were so damn young,” I explain. Never meant to hurt you. “And you’d been abused. And my heart chose you. I felt it that first night, but I didn’t believe it, not until the feeling grew until it couldn’t be ignored.”

  How to explain our bond? It defies the logic of both our worlds and our magic.

  It’s like someone bottled up her essence and I drank it all in. It simmers beneath my skin. It’s recognition so primal, so pure, there are no words to describe it. It defies the senses—it defies even magic.

  “I couldn’t stay away,” I continue, “I could barely resist you at all, but I didn’t want to push you into something. Not when you’d just escaped a man that took and took. I didn’t want you to think that was all men were good for.”

  She stares at me, a tear escaping her eyes. Another follows.

  I feel my secrets unburdening themselves. A part of me expected that. What I hadn’t expected was for them to unburden her.

  I brush Callie’s tears away. Should’ve done this much sooner.

  “So I let you play your game, buying favor after favor from me,” I say, “until the day I couldn’t take it. No mate of mine should owe me.”

  When had it started to feel wrong? I can’t remember the date, only the sensation—like a brand pressed under my own skin, shame burning me from the inside out.

  “But my magic,” I explain, “it has a mind of its own … like your siren, I can’t always control it. It thought that the more you owed me, the longer I could guarantee that you were in my life. Of course, that strategy came to an abrupt end the moment you cast your final wish.”

  That’s when all my crafty plans came crashing down. I was sabotaged by my own power.

  “That final wish of yours,” I continue, “it was bigger than either of us. You wanted me, I was falling for you and it wasn’t right, Callie. I knew it wasn’t right. Not when you were sixteen. But I could be patient. For my little siren, my mate, I could.”

  I already waited centuries for her. Had she needed it, I could wait centuries more. In theory. That’s what I told myself every time I got too close and had to flee. That keeping my distance was in her best interest, that I was strong enough to endure this sweet agony.

  Fucking lies, all of it.

  I wasn’t strong enough. After the night of Callie’s dance, had I managed to leave before her last wish, I might’ve kept my distance for a week, maybe two. I doubt I could’ve lasted a month.

  My magic, as it turns out, is far, far stronger than my will ever was.

  “But that wish …” I say, remembering that fateful evening, “I was a prisoner to it.”

  “What wish?” she asks, looking lost.

  The one that kept me from you. All this time and she still has no idea.

  “Your last one,” I say. “On the night of the dance—‘From flame to ashes, dawn to dusk, for the rest of our lives, be mine always, Desmond Flynn.’”

  Those words have been seared into me. Callie might never know just how many lonely nights I murmured them to myself. Or that I’ve sketched the look on her face when she spoke them a hundred times, trying to capture and recapture everything she was and wanted in that moment. All so that I could hold onto her while we were apart.

  Her face heats. “You never granted that one.”

  I tilt my head just the slightest. “Are you sure about that?”

  The flush dies away from her skin. She looks like someone doused her in ice water.

  “You … you granted it?” she says.

  “I did.”

  What I’d give to not have.
How our lives would’ve been different if that hadn’t happened. I have to hope that my magic knew something I didn’t; that this was the better road to take.

  Callie’s eyes move to her bracelet. “But the beads never showed up …”

  “They wouldn’t, since you were already paying them off. We both were.” Damn my magic for that.

  Slowly her gaze rises up to meet mine. “What do you mean?” she breathes.

  “A favor as large as the one you requested requires steep payment,” I say. “Do you think my magic would allow you to buy yourself a mate so easily? That kind of favor requires a good dose of heartbreak and years of waiting—seven years, to be precise.”

  Seven years that are finally, thankfully, over.

  “Every day after your last wish, I worked myself raw trying to get close to you.” The sheer agony of it all. “And every day I was stopped by my very own magic, which had turned on me.

  Callie begins to shake, and I can see all that brittle bitterness of hers falling away. Peering out from beneath it, she’s that same innocent girl she’s always been. Though perhaps innocent is the wrong word. Perhaps hopeful is a better one.

  “Then one day,” I say, “the magic’s hold on me loosened. I tried to approach you like I had a thousand times before, and this time, the magic didn’t stop me.

  “Finally, after the longest seven years of my life, I was able to come back to my love, my mate. The sweet siren that loved my darkness, and my bargains, and my company when I was no one and nothing more than Desmond Flynn. The woman that took fate into her own hands when she spoke those ancient vows and declared herself mine.”

  It’s dawning on her. This is real. We are real.

  All those evenings she watched me leave her, those are the illusion. Because the truth is, I have searched worlds for her, looked for her for centuries. I’ve held her a thousand times in my dreams, and I have died a thousand times upon waking.

  My heart, my soul. My queen.

  “Callie,” I say, “I love you. I’ve loved you from the beginning. And I will love you long after the last star dies. I will love you until the end of darkness itself.”

  “You love me,” she says, trying the words out.

  “I love you, Callypso Lillis.” I love you. I love you. I love you.