Dark Harmony
Page 77

My knees nearly buckle at the sound.
So much pain. I can feel echoes of it through our bond.
“Stop,” I whisper.
The Thief ignores me, and Des continues to shout, his eyes sightless. The sound closes up my throat.
“Stop!”
Still, no reaction.
I swallow down my disgust and my anger. I imagine for a moment that I am Des, that I am dark and untouchable and nothing can ever hurt me.
I gaze up at the Thief. In all my life, I’ve never hungered for someone’s death so badly. But instead of delivering death, I lift a hand and cradle the side of the Thief’s face.
And still Des’s cries carry on.
The Thief’s eyes slide to mine. “More,” he commands. I can see the thrill in his eyes.
There are so many ways to control a person, but blackmail is, perhaps, the worst of them all.
Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and force myself to drown out my mate’s horrifying shouts. I guide the Thief’s face to mine. Very softly, I brush my lips against his.
I can taste the barest hint of the Thief’s dark magic. It reminds me of all those other kisses he forced on me.
We’re simply picking up where we left off.
When Des’s shouts finally quiet, I drop my hand and end the kiss.
The Thief smiles at me. “I think I’m going to like this game very, very much.”
Going to gut him for this.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Callie. You’ll learn to love it—or live with it. Because you will live. After all, that was part of your mate’s bargain.”
What?
“Des made a bargain with you?” My heart stutters. I glance over at my mate, his face placid.
You and I had an understanding, he’d said to the Thief.
“Desmond, Desmond, Desmond, ever the secret keeper,” the Thief says. “Did he not tell you just what lengths he went to, to try to save you?”
I continue gazing at my mate’s sleeping form. The flickering light makes the shadows dance along his skin. Perhaps it’s just my imagination, but it looks as though the darkness is grieving for him.
Des, what did you do?
It shakes me to the core to think that whatever Des plotted and planned, it landed him here, in this state. I’ve never known someone to get the upper hand on the Bargainer.
Not like this.
The Thief steps away from me, circling around the altar. It makes me jumpy, seeing him focus on Des when my soulmate is so exposed.
“I had heard so many things about the King of the Night’s infamous bargains. How shrewd he was, how calculating and unforgiving. Love seems to be his downfall.
“See, he came to me not too long ago—did he tell you this? He came to me and he made a deal: so long as I never killed him or his precious mate, he’d willingly become my prisoner.”
The room seems to tilt a little, and I have to place a bracing hand on the altar. My eyes move back to Des.
This is not life. This is some mockery of it.
But Des must’ve been aware of this going in. He saw the sleeping soldiers, he knew that the Thief could keep a man alive without them ever truly living.
So why would he make such a deal?
The Thief stares down at the Night King. “What your mate missed is this: the truest pain comes with life, not death.”
Des would never miss something like that.
The question is: what am I missing?
“You know,” the Thief continues, “he’s still in there. His mind, everything. Perhaps I will wake him up …” I can see the gears in the Thief’s head turning.
I manage a delicate swallow. I want to see Des’s eyes open, more than anything in the world I do, but I don’t want the Thief to compel them open—and I don’t want Des seeing whatever it is the Thief intends.
The Thief breaks our stare-down first. “Perhaps we’ll revisit that exciting thought later.”
He takes my hand again.
“I’m not leaving him,” I insist. I can’t. The thought of walking away from Des now that I’ve finally found him is unbearable.
“You are,” the Thief insists, a bit of his good humor seeping away.
I bare my teeth at him. “Make me.”
I’m still glowing, still feral with my power.
He laughs, the sound skittering up my arms. The Thief’s grip tightens on mine, chaining me to him. “Do you realize I could immobilize you just as I have your mate? I have done it to a thousand different fairies. Now that you’ve tasted lilac wine, you are no different from any of them.”
He’s right. He could incapacitate me so easily. His threat hangs over my head like a blade.
I search his face. “Is that what you’re going to do? Are you going to force dark magic on me just as you have every other fairy?”
He doesn’t need to speak for me to pull the answer from him.
“You’re not.” Oh God, he’s going to do everything but that. For some perverse reason, the Thief wants to watch me tailspin.
His hand slides to my wrist, where golden scales dust my skin. He squeezes my flesh to the point of pain.
“Do you feel that?” he asks.
For a moment, I assume he’s talking about the pressure on my wrist. But then there’s a stirring in my chest, and what is happening? My hand moves over my heart, then my back bows as a rush of magic floods my connection to Des.
For an instant, it feels like the bond we share is coming back to life. On the slab, Des stirs.
As quickly as the sensation comes, it passes, settling back down to the dying embers it’s been. My soulmate goes still again.
“That’s what’s at stake for you,” the Thief says.
I hate him. Christ, do I hate him.
He holds Des’s life in the palm of his hand, and while he might not outright kill my mate, he’ll dangle our bond in front of me. That’s all he needs to do to get my compliance.
“This is what’s going to happen,” the Thief says, “you’re going to do everything I tell you. Otherwise, you lose Des, piece by piece.” To emphasize his point, dark magic thickens the air, and Des’s back arches again. Like some sick dream, my mate begins to cry out again.
“Stop—stop!” I’m shouting, and my glamour is everywhere and in everything, burning so brightly. It doesn’t make any sort of difference.
“Understood?” the Thief says calmly, Des bellowing between us as pain continues to rack his body.
My wrath gathers in my veins, but those shouts—it’s as though a part of me is dying.
“Understood,” I say, my voice raw.
Des shudders, his body falling limp on the stone slab.
“You’re going to regret doing that,” I say, blazing with barely contained rage.
“No, enchantress, it’s you who will be regretful, should you defy me again.”
Chapter 42
The Thief leads me out of the room and through his castle, showing me this or that, all while wearing a triumphant smile on his lips. We both know he doesn’t give a shit about anything in this stolen castle of his, save for the wretched souls he gets to torment. Right now he’s just savoring my pain.
We’ll stab out his eyes and cut out his tongue—
Ever since the Thief started leading us through the palace, my siren has been whispering all the ways he will pay for his crimes.
We’ll bring him to the point of pleasure and then we’ll destroy him as we have always destroyed our enemies.
Eventually, the Thief leads me out onto a balcony. From where we stand I can see the vast ocean. Under the cover of night it looks like spilled ink, stretching out as far as the eye can see.