A Strange Hymn (The Bargainer, #2)

by Laura Thalassa

But then I catch sight of my reflection and see the wings. The glow leaves my skin in an instant. Des notices the moment my interest wanes, moving away from me like he was never there. And I hate that. I feel the distance between us. But I don’t want him to give me space—I want him to pull me closer, kiss me deeper, make me extinguish this new insecurity I have.

The part of me that enjoys sex and violence quakes with excitement, wanting whatever Des offers. The rest of me is starting to think I should be scared shitless. This is the same man known around these parts as the King of Chaos. Just because we’re mates doesn’t mean he’ll go easy on me. He’s still the same wicked man I met eight years ago.

“Your one weapon—your glamour—doesn’t work here in the Otherworld,” he says, continuing to advance. “No mate of mine will be defenseless.”

He steps in close, tilting my chin up. “I want to be good at this, cherub. At us.” I reach out and run a hand down his sleeve of tattoos, my finger lingering over the tears inked onto his skin. “I do too.”

“For two centuries you’ve been nothing but a whisper of a possibility,” Des says, breaking the silence. “And then I met you.”

“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 met.”

“Seven years apart,” he continues, “and the woman you became was a world away from the girl I met.” He tilts my head so 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.”

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

his warm hand runs over the upper ridge of my wings. He strokes them the same way he strokes the rest of my flesh, the touch oddly erotic. “They’re breathtaking, you know,” he says, his fingers skimming over my feathers. “Just one more tempting thing about my enchantress.” “Enchantress?” The question slips out before I remind myself he’s supposed to be receiving my ire right now. “That’s what fairies have started to call you—an enchantress.”

twat-waffle

We get to the end of the block of shops. Here the street opens into a grand plaza. Right in the center of it is a sculpture of a winged couple holding each other in a tight embrace. The sculpture floats several feet in the air. I pause in front of it. “Who are they?” I

“The Lovers,” Des replies. “Two of our ancient gods.” He points to the man. “He’s Fierion, God of Light, and she’s Nyxos, Goddess of Darkness.” Nyxos…why does that name sound familiar? “In the myths,” Des continues, “Fierion was married to Gaya, Goddess of Nature, but his true love was Nyxos, the woman he was forbidden from ever being with. Their love for each other is what causes day to chase night and night to chase day. “Here in the Land of Dreams, they’re finally allowed to be with each other.”

“This is my favorite thing,” he says. I’m still trying to drag myself awake. “What is?” I ask. “Waking up to you each morning.” He taps a finger to my nose. “Especially when you’re sleepy and adorable.”

“Why did you make me breakfast?” I repeat. “Because I love you,” he says. “Does everything have to come with a price?” My gooey heart melts a little at his admission, but I’ve known him just a little too long and a little too deeply to trust those wide silver eyes of his. I look at him skeptically. “With normal people, no. With you? Absolutely.”

As the cool air whips my hair about, Des cups my face to his chest, shielding me from the worst of the wind. I lean my head into him, breathing in his masculine scent. I don’t understand how even out here, in the middle of a foreign world’s night sky, I can still feel right at home pressed against this man. But I do.

We start walking, and oh God, everything hurts. I mean everything. Whatever that horrible place was where we trained in Phyllia, it worked me over good. I groan as we walk, rubbing my backside. “Des, I think you broke my ass.” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his leather pants. “Cherub, you’ll be making different moans when I break your ass.”

Their eyes linger on my wings and my forearms, but I don’t see fear or pity in their eyes. If anything, they look…mesmerized. Self-consciously, I reach around myself and run a hand over one of my wings. “They don’t see your features as you do,”

He stops, waiting for me to catch up to him. “Fae come in all shapes and sizes,” he explains. “Seeing someone who looks as you do does not seem strange to us. You’re a beautiful human with wings, and that’s both strange and appealing.”

“Trust me,” Phaedron continues, “the man is desperate for you. He might not say it, but…” His eyes return to Des, whose own gaze has inadvertently found mine. The Bargainer gives me a wink when he notices me staring. “Put up some true resistance,” Phaedron says, “and you’ll see. He won’t let you go.” How is it that one sentence can fill you both with such satisfaction and such dread? More than anything, I love the idea that Des wants to be mine every bit as much as I want to be his. But to think he’d force me to stay at his side—that part of him would cast aside my own wants and needs—that’s frightening.

Des leans in close. “You are no victim, cherub,” he reminds me. “Not even here in the Otherworld. Pick a weapon. Make the next person who crosses you regret it.” Those are the devil’s words, wicked words, but the siren in me rallies at them. Hell, the broken girl in me rallies at them. I am no one’s victim.

I may still have my reservations about owning a weapon, but I’m not going to lie, securing the belted holster to my waist and arranging those daggers onto either side of my hips makes me feel powerful, dangerous. For the first time since I arrived in the Otherworld, I feel like myself again. All it took were a couple of weapons.

“I’ve imagined bringing you here for years,” he admits when he breaks away. “You have?” I ask. He clasps my hand, walking backward through the gazebo and toward the river. “Many times.” I take in the scenery with new eyes. It’s dizzying to think he imagined bringing me here when I could not have imagined a place like this even existed. His voice drops low. “Over our time apart, I’ve gotten very imaginative when it comes to you.” Jesus. Just him saying that sends a bolt of heat through me. The way he’s looking at me doesn’t help either. He stares at me like I’m his starlight and he’s the darkness preparing to devour me.

would steal the stars from the sky for you,” he whispers into my ear. “Anything to hear you laugh like that.”

“You met me the day I killed my stepfather.” I finger one of his talons. “And I’ve seen you execute men. I think we’re past that.” At my words, Des’s eyes deepen. He pulls me in close, one of his wings covering me like a blanket. He kisses the tip of my nose, then rests his chin against the crown of my head.

My friend is a rare breed of supernatural, one most people should hope to never encounter. Sorcerers and sorceresses wield magic like witches, but unlike witches, they have a nearly limitless amount of power they can tap into on a whim. The only trouble is every time they use their magic, it eats away at their conscience until there is nothing left.

“Spun moonlight?” I repeat. I’m trying to wrap my mind around the fact that, in the Otherworld, this is perfectly normal. “And I get to wear this?” His lips twitch again. “That is the idea, cherub.” He steps in close and strokes away the hair from my face. “I’ve waited years to see you dressed as the queens of my world are dressed,” he says.

He takes notice of my interest. “Give me just this evening, Callie. Then everything you want, I will give you,” he promises. “Everything I want?” My eyes move to his mouth, and I click my tongue. “You know better than to make such an open-ended deal.” His eyes alight. “I’m eager to see what you’ll do with it.”

“Fairies have begun exposing their wings,” he says, nodding to the crowd. I follow his gaze. He’s right. Many of them do have their wings out, their thin membranes glittering under lamplight. “Why are they all out?” I ask. Fairies usually only bare them when their emotions run high. “Because ours are,” he says. Indeed, Des, who once studiously hid his wings from me, now proudly bares them. And I have no choice but to show off mine. “Why would they imitate us?” I ask. “Because we’re royalty.”

Des pulls away from my lips, his hand on my neck still holding me close. In his eyes I see a spark of fear, a dash of adoration—but most of all, I see a deep and endless well of fury. Here’s the monster behind the war cuffs and pretty fabric, the monster I don’t want to tame, the one I want to unleash. I am the darkness, his eyes seem to say, and you are my lovely nightmare. And no one will take this away from us.

“Sacred Gardens,” I murmur as we walk under a flowering trellis and enter the wooded clearing. “That sounds like something teenage me would call my vagina.”

I raise an eyebrow. “If you think I’m going to be some docile, agreeable girlfriend, you’re—” Before I can finish, an invisible hand pushes me forward into Des’s arms. He still has that smug-ass smile on his face. “Mate is the correct term,” he says, his voice pitched seductively low. “I’m not your”—he makes a face—“boyfriend. I’m neither a boy nor particularly friendly.” He ends his little speech by kissing me on the nose.

“We can do this the easy way”—he slides the hair off my shoulder, his lips skimming my skin—“or the fun way.” He doesn’t know just how effective he’s being at the moment. Nothing gets my siren stirring quite like fear and arousal, and I’m feeling a bit of both at the moment. “I could undress you slowly and lay you out on the grass,” he breathes. “I’d spread your legs apart and give you the most sacred of kisses.”

The more we fight, the harder he makes me work for it, and the harder he makes me work for it, the more I want it. Blood. Sex. Fighting. Fucking. Any of it. All of it. His violence and his passion are mine to use. Mine to exploit. Mine to savor.

He smiles. “The slaves are usually the ones who see him. They say that during a full moon, you can see him move about the coffins.” “‘Him’?” I say, stepping a bit closer. “How do you know it’s a man?” He tilts his head. “Because there’s only one person who attends these women now— “The Thief of Souls.”

Cupped in his hand is starlight. But I know stars aren’t this small. I reach out and touch them with my finger. They feel like grains of sand, and they’re warm to the touch. I still can’t contain my surprise. “How did you…?” “I borrowed their light for an evening,”

I would steal the stars from the sky for you. You wouldn’t have to steal them, Des. “You made a deal with the stars?” I ask, incredulous. “I asked nicely.” He says that as though there’s some distinction. Now I throw my head back and laugh. He talked the stars out of the sky. When my laughter finally dies away, Des is still staring intensely at me. “I told you I’d give you the stars for that laugh.”

Surreptitiously, he looks between me and the man who was, only seconds ago, glowing like the sun. “He took me,” I whisper. “He was the one who took me. From your house. He took me to Karnon.” The person who delivered me to my attacker, the person who could very well be the Thief of Souls himself, is another fae king.

Des’s gaze is on me for a hot second, and then, in the blink of an eye, Des disappears, both champagne flutes he held a second ago falling once more to the ground. They shatter, glass and bubbly wine soaking the floor and the hem of my dress. Des reappears in front of Janus, the air around my mate cloaked in shadow, his talon-tipped wings splayed out. Shadows billow about the room, beginning in the far corners and creeping between fairies’ legs like some sinister dark fog.

“Desmond Flynn, King of the Night, by law of my kingdom, I order you to stop,” Mara’s voice booms. Arm pulled back, Des hesitates, his breathing heavy and ragged. His hair, which he’d previously worn combed away from his face, now hangs in wild tendrils. I’ve seen my mate when he’s all coiled rage, but I have only rarely seen him like this: messy with his anger. There’s something so very…raw about it.

Now that the fight’s over and the adrenaline is subsiding, it hits me—the man who took me is a fae king, and he’s here. I’m going to have to be around the King of Day for the rest of this visit. I might even have to interact with him. The thought sends a wave of nausea and nerves through me. “I’ll say this for the Bargainer,” Temper says, “he throws a mean right hook. That pretty-boy king went down like a boner in church.”

“What’s a mate challenge?” I ask Malaki. He frowns. “If a rival fairy disputes a bond, they can challenge a mate to a duel. It’s an old tradition, mostly used to either show off the worth of the mate being contended over or as an insult if an outside fairy doesn’t think one of the mates is worthy of the other. Most of the time it’s simply a way for mates—usually male ones—to work off their aggression and establish their claim.”

Dozens of fae look to the side of the room. I follow their gazes in time to see Mara, Des, and Janus filing out of the side door they previously entered, Des wearing a dark expression. I tense when I see the King of Day behind him, my palms beginning to sweat. He might not have abused me, but he delivered me to my abuser. In my mind, there’s hardly a distinction between the two.

This time when Des pulls my hand away from his lips, he’s gentler, clasping my hand between both of his. “I cannot undo what’s been done, but I want to make things right for you.” His voice drops low. “I don’t want you to ever have to go through that experience again.” He’s legit going to make me choke up.

“My mother was a favorite concubine of his. When she found out she was pregnant, she fled the palace. Eventually, she ended up in Arestys. I didn’t know it until later, but throughout my entire childhood, we were living in hiding.” I wondered how Des could’ve come from the royal harem and still have led the life he did. Now I know. My wicked king. He wouldn’t have existed if his mother hadn’t done what she did.

What would life be like if there were no Bargainer to save me from my past, no Des to comfort me in the night, no mate to stake his claim after seven long years of waiting? Just the thought hurts. I stroke my fingers down his skin. It didn’t happen. The man beneath me is more than dreams and wishes. He’s flesh and blood, skin and bone, muscle and magic. And he’s mine.

“That morning, the morning you went missing,” Des begins, “you can’t even—” His voice breaks, and I swivel my head to stare at him. He’s a far cry from the cocksure fae king he was back in Mara’s breakfast nook. Now I feel the heat and pain in his words. “At first, I thought you walked out on me,” he says. “I thought you took off the way I had so many times back when you were in high school. In the days that followed, I wished you had. “It was the full cup of coffee that changed everything. It was just sitting there on the patio table, still full. You of all people wouldn’t just leave a cup of coffee untouched.”

“That’s about the time I realized you hadn’t left; you’d been taken. “The anger I felt, the fear—” He shakes his head. “I scoured the earth for you, and then I scoured the Otherworld. Every minute that passed, the dread deepened. And it—” He runs a hand through his hair, letting out a choked laugh. “It was so much worse than those seven years of waiting. So vastly worse. “I cashed in years of favors for bread crumbs, and still it took me days to find myself in the Fauna Kingdom.”

“I should’ve been able to find you. I should’ve. The way my power works…the secrets I hear—the voices that tell me what I need to know—they were ominously quiet.”

“What about our bond?” I ask. “Couldn’t you have found me through it?” I’ve heard tales of soul mates tracking each other down, their bond like a compass directing them to the location of their mate.

“There is something about our bond that I haven’t admitted to you…” I don’t know how a single sentence can fill me with such foreboding, but this one does. My gut squeezes. “What is it?” I can barely force the words out. “Cherub, our bond…has issues.”