A Strange Hymn (The Bargainer Book 2)

The room is silent for all of three seconds, and then I can’t contain my laugh.

  “Des, that’s not what I meant when I asked for a secret.”

  “And yet you received a secret nonetheless. Consider yourself indulged.” He squeezes my backside for emphasis, and I let out a little shriek, which causes him to chuckle. And that rumbly chuckle leads to kissing … lots and lots of languid, delicious kissing.

  When I finally break away, I lay my head against his chest. The room falls to silence, the only sound the thump of Des’s heart beneath my ear. I close my eyes.

  I can get used to this.

  What a terrifying thought.

  “For two centuries you’ve been nothing but a whisper of a possibility,” Des says, breaking the silence. “And then I met you.” He pauses, like an entire story begins and ends with that sentence. Like life was one thing before he met me, and it became something else afterwards.

  It’s enough to make me ignore the fact that he’s all but admitted to being over two centuries old.

  “You were everything I never knew I wanted. You were chaos. You were desperation. You were the most mysterious secret I’d ever come across. Everything about you drew me in—your innocence, your vulnerability, hell, even your tragic life. You were the most captivating creature I’d ever come across.”

  My throat works at his words. There’s a gravity not just to what he’s saying, but that he’s saying it at all. I asked for a secret and he gave me a revelation, something that I can hold close to my heart late at night.

  “Seven years apart,” he continues, “and the woman you became was a world away from the girl I met.” He tilts my head so that he can look me in the eye. “That only made me want you more. You were both old and new, familiar and exotic, within reach and forbidden. And I wanted you so badly for so long I was sure it would kill me.

  “And when I look at you even now—especially now—I see one simple truth.”

  He stops speaking.

  I sit up a little. “What was the truth?”

  In the darkness, I can see him staring back down at me. “You are magic, love.”

  Chapter 6

  There’s blood everywhere. In my hair, on my skin, splattered around where I lay. I push my torso up off the ground, glancing around me.

  No.

  Not this place.

  Not again.

  I take in the rotting leaves that cover the floor, the dead vines that climb up the walls of the long room, and the chair of bones that looms large amongst it all.

  Karnon’s throne room.

  “Pretty, pretty bird.”

  My blood runs cold at the voice at my back.

  It can’t be.

  The Fauna king is dead.

  “Do you like your wings?”

  But that voice …

  A shiver ripples down my spine.

  Karnon’s voice is deep and rough, just like I remember it.

  Leaves crunch under his feet as he comes around to my front.

  First I see his twisting antlers, then his strange, mad eyes and wild hair.

  God, it is him.

  “Now you’re a beast like the rest of us.”

  I pinch my eyes shut. He’s dead.

  “You’ll never be free,” he says … only, Karnon’s voice is no longer his own. It’s another voice I know all too well.

  My eyes snap open and I stare at my stepfather. The same man I accidently killed eight years ago. Why have these ghosts come back to haunt me?

  I only have seconds to gape at him before the room darkens.

  The air shifts to my left, stirring my hair. I glance over, but I might as well be blind, the darkness is complete.

  On the nape of my neck, I feel someone’s breath, so close that they must be leaning over me, but when I spin around and reach out, my hand only grasps air.

  In the dark, I hear the faint echo of laughter, raising the gooseflesh along my arm.

  In response to my fear, my siren comes out, making my skin glow softly.

  “Who’s there?” I call out.

  “Secrets are meant for one soul to keep,” a woman’s voice rings out, coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

  “Who are you?”

  “He’s coming for you.” This time, it’s a child’s voice that speaks from the darkness.

  “Who?” I say.

  Karnon is dead.

  Laughter echoes all around me, growing louder and louder. In it I can hear the woman’s voice, the child’s, the Fauna king’s, and my stepfather’s. I can hear them and so many others laughing at me.

  All at once, it ceases.

  “Who?” I repeat.

  The air rumbles like thunder, thickening as some strong magic builds and builds, gathering power. With a crack, a booming voice breaks through the magic—

  “Me.”

  I gasp awake. My wide eyes gaze into Des’s pinched ones. His hands cup my face, his worried gaze searching my expression.

  That dream felt too real. My stepfather and Karnon are both dead and gone, and yet on nights like tonight, it’s as though they never died.

  I suck in air, my chest rising and falling far too fast.

  Of course, those evil men only starred in a portion of the dream. There were other equally chilling presences calling out to me from the darkness. Intuitively, I know who they belong to—the sleeping women and their unnatural children.

  And then there was that final voice … I don’t know what to make of it.

  His brow pinched, Des kisses me fiercely. As quick as it begins, it’s over.

  “You wouldn’t wake,” he says.

  I shiver. It might’ve been just a dream, but the truth is that the warrior women still sleep and the male soldiers are still missing. Karnon might be dead, but his work isn’t.

  I stare into Des’s eyes. “I want to see the casket children again.”

  For the second time in my life, I willingly go visit the little monsters that the sleeping soldiers gave birth to. I might very well be the stupidest woman out there for seeking them out again. But there’s something I have to see.

  “Remind me again why I agreed to this?” Des says next to me, echoing my thoughts.

  Today Des wears the T-shirt and black pants combo I’m so used to seeing him in, his hair tied back with a leather thong and his sleeve of tattoos on display. He looks broody as hell, probably because he’s not exactly thrilled to be bringing me back to the royal nursery.

  “I’m helping you solve this mystery,” I say, heading down the hall.

  He doesn’t say anything to that, but a muscle in his jaw tightens.

  I can feel it, low in my belly, the fear that whatever happened to me and those women wasn’t the end of this. Death should lift magic—even fae magic. That’s one rule that’s the same both here and on earth.

  When we enter the nursery, a wave of déjà vu washes over me. Many of the younger children lie in cribs or beds, eerily still, and the older ones stand at the far side of the room, staring out the large windows. It’s all nearly identical to how I found them before.

  The only thing different about the nursery is that more beds and cradles have been brought in, all to accommodate the influx of children that came from Karnon’s prison.

  I try not to shudder as I stare at the kids. They were frightening before, when they were simply strange children that drank blood and prophesized, but now knowing how they were conceived … The horror washes over me all over again.

  Even after the nurse announces us to the kids, none of them move.

  The hair along my arms begins to rise.

  There’s something deeply unsettling about these kids, this place.

  Taking a deep breath, I head towards the window. Des is right at my side, his heavy boots clinking with each step, his jaw tight.

  “You came back,” one of the children says, her back to me.

  I falter for a moment before pulling myself together. “I did.”

  “You weren’t suppos
ed to,” another says.

  I’d forgotten that these kids act as a single unit.

  As one, they turn, watching me with wary eyes as I approach them.

  Des steps in front of me, and I hear several of them hiss at him.

  “Any of you touch my mate like last time,” he says, speaking over their hisses, “you’ll find yourselves banished.”

  Surprisingly, the threat works, and their hisses die off.

  I catch Des’s eye as he steps aside, and I give him a look. Threatening kids, even creepy ones, is not kosher.

  He meets my gaze with a steely one of his own.

  Alright. Banishment it is.

  The children split their attention between cagily watching Des and shrewdly studying me.

  I crouch in front of the closest child, a girl with flaming red hair, my eyes scouring her features. No horns, no claws, no slitted pupils. She looks nothing like Karnon, save for the fangs she must have in order to drink blood.

  “Slaves live such sort lives,” she tells me as I assess her.

  Slaves, the official classification of most humans living in the Otherworld.

  Ever heard those stories of human babies being swapped with fae changelings? Ever wonder what happened to all those human babies? Slavery is what happened to them.

  The Night Kingdom deemed the practice illegal some time ago, but the other kingdoms still allow it.

  “Why do you say that?” I ask the girl, trying to hide the fact that I’m majorly creeped out.

  “They are dirty and weak and ugly,” the boy next to her says.

  I’m acutely aware of the fact that in these children’s eyes, I am one of the slaves they’re degrading.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see wispy, curling shadows form at the edges of the room, a clear indication of Des’s rising anger.

  I focus on the boy. “Who told you that?”

  “My father,” he replies. His mouth curves into a small, secretive smile. “He’s coming for you.”

  I straighten, taking a step back, my eyes glued to his face. I can hear the blood rushing between my ears.

  They’re just words. They don’t mean anything.

  But my bones believe they do mean something. As do my instincts. As does that little voice in the back of my head. They’re all telling me what I feared the moment I woke from that nightmare: it’s not over.

  I feel Des’s hand on my stomach, gently backing me away from the children. Dazedly, I let him do so, all the while I stare at the boy. He and the rest of the children follow us with their eyes, and I get the distinct impression they’re tracking me the same way predators track prey. Finally, I turn away from the boy, making a beeline for the exit.

  I can feel myself trembling. How absurd, that a child could frighten me so much.

  Des and I are just about to the door when I hear the boy’s voice at my back. “These are dark times.”

  My wings tense, hiking up, and thank goodness the castle is full of large doors, otherwise I’d be wrestling with my unwieldly wings to get out of that room.

  As soon as the door clicks shut behind me, I draw in a shuddering breath.

  How could that boy know to say that line? It’s the same line I heard whispered in the air when I visited the sleeping women weeks ago.

  “Karnon’s dead,” Des says.

  I nod. “I know.” I run a hand over my mouth.

  My fear doesn’t abate. If anything, it grows. The thing is, I didn’t come to see these kids because I was afraid Karnon was alive.

  I came here for another reason altogether.

  “Do all Fauna fae have animal features?” I ask as we leave the nursery.

  My jailers had animal features. As did Karnon. As did the unfortunate Fauna messenger I saw yesterday.

  Des stops. “Most do.”

  “And Karnon’s children?” I say. “Would they share his features?”

  The Bargainer’s mouth tightens. “At least some of them would, yes.”

  “Those children didn’t share any of his features,” I say.

  By Des’s expression I see that he’s already come to the same conclusion I just have—

  Karnon is not their father.

  Chapter 7

  Karnon is not their father.

  Karnon is not their father.

  But … how?

  He was the one imprisoning those women. He was the one sexually assaulting them.

  Beside me, Des begins walking again, like this revelation doesn’t change everything.

  That’s when I realize—

  “You knew,” I accuse him as we head down his palace halls.

  Rather than appearing surprised or guilty or ashamed by my accusation—rather than any of those normal responses—Des appraises me with one of his typical devil-may-care looks.

  He lifts a shoulder. “So what if I did?”

  So what if I … ?

  I slap a palm to his sculpted chest and halt him in the middle of the hall. “Oh no, amigo, our relationship doesn’t work like that.”

  He glances down at my hand, and I can tell I’m getting close to riling up the King of Night.

  “Our relationship doesn’t work like what precisely, cherub?” he asks, his gaze going shrewd.

  “You can’t just keep secrets like that from me.”

  He has the audacity to look amused, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I assure you, I can.”

  My eyes slit. “Des,” I warn.

  He removes my hand from his chest. “Is that supposed to be a threatening tone?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. He clucks his tongue and brings my hand up to his mouth. “Because if it is,” he continues, “then you’ve got to work on your intimidation game,” he continues. “I mean, you gave it a decent try, but I’m more turned on than anything else.”

  Des proceeds to kiss the tips of my fingers, which is totally distracting. Who knew fingertip kisses were even a thing? Because they so are. I’m declaring it here and now.

  Focus, Callie.

  “Let me show you something,” he says softly.

  So much for focusing. Rather than picking up our argument where we left off, I let Des lead me through his palace. We eventually enter what looks like a grand library, the arches of it inlaid with decorative tile. Between several bronze chandeliers hang a myriad of colorful lamps. And that’s not even mentioning the books.

  Shelves and shelves of them line the walls and fill aisles of the room, each one bound in cloth or leather. There are also heaps of scrolls stacked along the shelves, the handles they’re wound around made of carved wood and bone, some even inlaid with mother of pearl and semi-precious stones.

  I spend a solid minute turning in a circle and taking the whole place in.

  “Wow,” I finally say.

  It smells like leather and paper and something else that I’d say was cedar, but who knows. I have the urge to walk up to each shelf and pull out the books and scrolls one by one, letting my hands trail over the dried ink and soft paper. This place feels like magic and wisdom, and I might be having a spiritual experience right now.

  I can feel Des’s eyes on my face. Eventually he peels his gaze away to take in the place as well.

  “Is this the royal library?” I ask.

  The corner of Des’s mouth curves upwards. “One of them.”

  “One of them?” I repeat dumbly.

  “This one is where many of the realm’s official documents are kept. The main library is on the eastern grounds of the palace.”

  I can’t wrap my mind around the sheer magnitude of that.

  He leads me to a table, and one of the chairs magically slides out for me. Des takes a seat across from me, and for a second he just appraises me. When he looks at me like that, I feel acutely exposed.

  “What?” I finally say, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear.

  He gives me a soft smile. “My mother would have loved you.”

  Just saying those words, he’s invited ghosts into this place. I barely reme
mber my own mother, and I don’t have any memories of her being especially loving to me. It’s a beautiful gift to imagine that Des’s mother might’ve loved me.

  “You think so?” I finally say.

  “I know so.” He says it so steadfastly that my one objection—that I’m human—dies before it ever leaves my lips.

  Before I can ask more on the subject, Des lifts his hand and flicks his wrist. Off in the distance, I hear the sound of paper sliding against paper.

  A scroll rises above the aisles and floats towards us. The Bargainer’s hand is still in the air, and the scroll lands softly in his open palm.

  “This is the report taken from the victims that recovered from their imprisonment,” Des says, changing the subject. He places the scroll on the table.

  I get up and drag my chair closer to him.

  “These were taken from the survivors of Karnon’s prison?” I ask.

  “Just the Night fae survivors,” Des says. “The other kingdoms are recording the interviews of their victims. At the next summit our kingdoms hold, we’ll compare notes, but until then, we only have my subjects’ testimonies.”

  I know without looking that I’m one of those testimonies. It was optional (perks of being mates to a king), but I did it anyway. I’ve worked enough cases to know how helpful testimonies can be.

  “Why did you want me to see this?” I ask, lifting the edge of the parchment between us. I catch a glimpse of my name, and my stomach dips a little.

  Des had been in the room when I gave my testimony, so he knows what happened to me, but seeing it written out next to all the other victims still makes me squirm.

  “You went to the nursery to determine whether Karnon was those children’s father.”

  Des slides the parchment over to me. “I thought you might like to read what the other prisoners had to say about their experience.”

  His words sound almost like a challenge, and I eye him a bit circumspectly before I glance down at the scroll.

  My eyes travel over the paragraphs written in elegant scrawl. I skip over my own testimony, focusing on the other women who escaped.

  One by one I read about nine different fae soldiers, each who’d been kidnapped in her sleep. Each had languished in Karnon’s prison between one and eight days.

  Apparently, they, like me, were able to recover from a week’s worth of the Fauna king’s black magic. Those who were captives for longer than eight days … they now lived far below us in glass caskets.