But now’s not the time to tell Malaki that pretty was never Temper’s type, or that Des’s general should be more worried about Temper ravaging his man bits to death than her having a wandering eye. She’s loyal to a fault.
“I imagine we’ll find out soon enough,” Des says, tapping his fingers on the table. His gaze moves from person to person. “The conquered kingdoms will regroup, and then they’ll turn their sights on us,” he says grimly. “My mate’s glamour can’t save us all. We need to figure out another strategy. This time, I want to be ready for them.”
After Des deals out official orders, he dismisses his advisors, leaving just himself, Malaki, Temper and me in the room.
“If we’re going to defeat the Thief of Souls,” the Night King says, “we need to do more than simply have a good defense against his forces. We need to figure out once and for all who and what he really is and where he’s hiding.”
“What if we went after Galleghar?” I say.
Galleghar Nyx, the formerly dead Night King is somehow decidedly no longer dead. Back in the Flora Kingdom, he’d been responsible for luring soldiers into the woods, and he’d been there the night I nearly lost my life.
“If we find him,” I continue, “we might find the Thief.”
Temper swings her legs off the table. “Girl, one problem with that little plan of yours: we don’t know where he is either. I mean, it ain’t like he’s standing outside, flashing his titties and begging us to capture him.”
I give my friend a look. “I guess it’s too bad we aren’t PI’s who specialize in finding people.”
Temper harrumphs.
Des stands, leaning heavily against the table. His eyes meet mine and he gives me a slight nod. “We should check Galleghar’s crypt at the very least.
“Cherub,” Des says, his silver gaze raking me over, “care to pay my father’s tomb a visit?”
So I can kick that fucker’s corpse in the balls?
“Love to.”
We don’t visit the tomb right away.
Instead, the two of us return to the King of the Night’s chambers.
I can feel the weight of this long evening settling on my shoulders.
Silently, Des comes up behind me and begins to unfasten my battle leathers.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly, loosening buckles and untying straps. “For this war, for putting you in the Thief’s crosshairs, for making you endure last night.”
“None of that is your fault,” I say over my shoulder, my words quiet.
“Maybe …” he muses.
His quick wit is gone for the moment, and I get a taste of another side of Des, one that feels old and wise and battle-weary. He pulls my leathers off my shoulder and places a kiss there.
Despite the solemn circumstances, goosebumps break out along my skin. He removes my top, and his hands skim down my arms.
The Bargainer’s hands slip farther down my body, and his magic peels away the last of my clothes, and the last of his.
“Let me take care of you, cherub,” he says from behind me.
For the life of me, I don’t honestly know what he means by that. He’s taken care of me every single day he’s been in my life. But I nod anyway because being taken care of sounds really, really nice right now.
Without another word, the Bargainer scoops me up and carries me into the bathroom.
The tub is already filled to the rim with water. Scattered around it are lamps that flicker with starbursts of light. A balmy night breeze flutters in through the arched windows.
Des walks the two of us into the tub, sitting us down in the warm bathwater. I swallow as the liquid turns pink. All the while the King of Night holds me close, cupping my head against his chest.
I don’t know why, but this is the moment all my courage and bravado falls away. So many people died tonight, all of them victims in one way or another. Some of them I killed myself. The proof of it is discoloring the bathwater.
The Night King must sense my shifting mood because he says, “It’s alright, Callie. It’s alright. We’re just going to rinse off the blood and dirt.”
I close my eyes and my shoulders begin to shake and it’s stupid, stupid, stupid, but I begin to cry against him.
I feel sixteen all over again. Sixteen and broken and desperate for the Bargainer to fix me, even though that was never his job to begin with. But he did fix me; he picked up each broken piece of me and put me back together and he loved my cracks in a way that only he could.
And then seven years passed and I grew up. I believed that all those fragile parts of me were gone, but here we are again, me with blood on my hands and thoughts of dead fae and that fucking Thief all filling my head.
I lean my forehead against Des’s chest and silently cry against him. He doesn’t need a confession from me to know what’s wormed its way under my skin. He cradles the back of my head and holds me to him. I sit there in his arms, keeping my eyes closed so that I can’t see the discolored water. Des begins to hum.
I pause for just a moment, recognizing the melody. He used to sing the same song under his breath back in my dorm room. At the sound, my sobs quiet. Because Des is here, comforting me as he used to, and even as I mourn the evening’s horrors, I savor this.
He holds me a little longer, and then he grabs a washcloth and begins to scrub my skin, raking the cloth up and down my back, then moving to my arms. He carefully runs it down my wrist and over each finger of mine, all the while humming that same song.
I take in a shuddering breath and watch his ministrations.
“You don’t have to clean—”
“Cherub.” With one word he stops my weak protest in its tracks.
It’s quiet for a few minutes as my breath evens, the only sound the slight splash of water as Des scours my body.
“This is …” Des begins, then starts again. “In my imaginings, we did this. I scrubbed the world’s filth off of you, until you were just you in my arms.”
“Stop,” I say, my voice breaking. I had almost put myself back together, but Des’s words are going to pull me apart again.
The washcloth gets to my face, and he tilts my chin up. “You saved my people tonight, Callie. You saved them. Who knows how many more would have died if you hadn’t been there.”
I stare into his moonlit eyes.
“I’ve never seen anything more beautiful or fearsome than you beguiling those fae. You are a force of nature.”
I swallow. “You’re no longer immune to it.”
I’d seen firsthand what my glamour could now do to Des.
“I’m delightfully terrified of the prospect. Our sex life has just gotten ten times kinkier.”
He has no idea.
I glance at the water. I don’t know what magic the Bargainer is dealing out, but the bath’s water is now crystal clear. Whatever blood once sullied it is no longer visible.
Des sets the washcloth aside and brushes his thumb along my lower lip. “Give me a wish,” he says, out of the blue.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because I want one.”
Demanding fairy.
I raise my eyebrows. “And what’s the cost?” I ask.
He taps my nose. “So jaded. I wish you had a little more faith in me.”
My eyebrows hike up farther. “So you’re giving me a free wish?”
“Hmm. Perhaps free is not the right word.”
That’s what I thought.
He plays with my hair. “But you’ll like the repayment. That, I promise.”
I don’t doubt it.
“Fine. I want coffee.”
“Out of all the wishes in the world, that’s the one you go for?” Des looks distinctly unimpressed.
I really want a cup o’ Joe, alright? So sue me. My brief taste of Temper’s wasn’t enough.
I tilt my head back and forth, weighing his words. “You’re right, on second thought, maybe I should wish for another boyfriend—”
A cup manifests out of t
he ether and into Des’s hand. “Alright baby siren,” he says, cutting me off. “I see how you’re going to play your hand.” He presses the mug into one of my palms.
I grin at him, the last of my earlier sadness vanishing with the action.
“Going to have to remind you later of why there will only ever be me …” he murmurs.
My grin widens, and the Bargainer leans in and steals a quick kiss, the action causing some of the blessed coffee in my mug to slosh into the water. As always, Des tastes like sin and wicked thoughts, and I’m almost more interested in drinking him up than I am the coffee.
Almost.
Once the kiss ends, I lean back against the rim of the tub and gather my knees to my chest.
“What was that song?” I ask, taking a sip of my coffee.
Des is appraising me like he wants to eat me for lunch. “What song?”
“The one you were humming just now.”
Recognition sparks in his eyes. “‘For my Lost Love, I Dream of Thee’.”
I set my mug next to one of the glowing lanterns. “I like it,” I admit.
He gives me a soft smile. “I’m glad you do. My mother used to sing it to me when I was little.”
That confession—freely given, I note—sends a pang through me. There’s a soft spot in Des’s heart that belongs to his mom and his mom alone, and for the hundredth time, I wish I could’ve met her.
“What’s the song about?” I ask.
The Bargainer’s expression turns a little melancholic. “A man loses the love of his life, and he yearns for night because in dreams they’re reunited,” he says.
The two of us are quiet for a moment.
“Well, that’s a fucking bummer,” I finally say.
That’s the song he’s been reassuring me with this whole time? That’s like chasing away a nightmare by telling someone a ghost story.
There’s a beat of silence, and then Des’s laughter fills the chamber. “Yeah, cherub, it really is.”
Chapter 8
I glance around me at the sun-scorched earth.
This is … not what I’d been expecting. I mean, I’m not sure what I had been expecting when it came to Galleghar Nyx’s resting place, but I think I’d assumed it would be somewhere in the Night Kingdom—and that a cemetery would be involved.
To be fair, the place feels about as morbid as a cemetery.
After I’d had coffee, a bath, and a wink—er, okay, a fuck-ton—of sleep, Des and I headed off to visit the tomb of Des’s father.
Which, apparently, is this wasteland of a place.
My eyes sweep over the landscape again. The dry, dusty earth stretches out for miles and miles around us, only interrupted here and there by a boulder. Off in the distance, some craggy cliffs rise, looking just as barren as the land. The wind whistles a lonesome, loveless tune as it tugs at my hair.
It’s more than just the austere look of the place. There’s something about this land … like color is seeping away and the senses are dulling—it feels as though the earth itself is sucking the life out of me.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“The Banished Lands,” Des says, squinting at our surroundings. “It’s a section of land that divides the Flora and Fauna Kingdoms. This is where exiled fairies go.”
You know what, I didn’t even know fairies could be exiled. I assumed fae rulers just made their criminals disappear.
I guess you learn something new every day.
“And you buried your dad here,” I say, putting the pieces together.
The Bargainer stares at the landscape, a troubled expression on his face, before his gaze meets mine. “This is as close to desecrating his body as I could get,” he says.
The admission sends a shiver through me. Des is so good to me that I often forget just how ruthless he can be.
Night’s falling here, and for once since I met Des, the darkness doesn’t feel welcoming.
I take the Bargainer’s hand. “Show me where your father is buried.”
We cut across the landscape, Des leading me towards an unassuming cluster of stones, the biggest of which is as large as a car. When we get to them, Des lifts his hand, his expression grim. Down our bond I sense the pull of magic, and then I feel it around us, saturating the parched air.
With a groan the massive stone in front of us drags itself aside, revealing a small and crudely made pit.
For a while, the Bargainer simply stares down into the inky darkness, his face expressionless.
I lick my parched lips. “Is this … ?”
“My father’s resting place,” Des says, his eyes never wavering from that hole in the ground.
As far as burials go, this one is pretty much the equivalent of giving the dead the middle finger—a final fuck you to send them off to the afterlife with.
So I guess it’s fitting for his A-hole dad.
“Why give him a tomb at all?” I ask.
I would’ve thrown his carcass to the wolves.
“Believe me, I didn’t want to.” Des takes a deep breath, then tears his gaze away from that hole. A sardonic smile pulls the corner of his mouth up. “After Galleghar died, I left his body out for carrion to eat,” he says, “but no creature would touch it. When that did not work, I set his body to sea—but the waves returned it to me.”
I stare at him as he talks, sensing his restlessness. My own unease is growing.
“I tried burning his body.” He rubs his lower lip. “It was impervious to flame. I tried to vaporize his remains, but they resisted my magic.”
My eyes dip to that hole in the ground, trying not to get spooked by Des’s words.
“There are only three types of souls whose bodies can resist returning to the earth: those that are too powerful for it, those that are too pure for it, and those that are too corrupted for it.”
One guess which category Desmond Flynn’s father falls into.
“Eventually, I brought him here.” The Bargainer’s eyes return to the pit. “It killed me to give him even this—a hole in the ground. He deserved so much worse.”
From the stories I’ve heard—that Galleghar had slaughtered all his heirs in a bid to keep his throne—I can’t help but agree.
Des releases another breath and steps up to the edge of the hole. He kneels, studying its depths. Then, in one smooth motion, he lowers himself into the darkness.
Oh sweet Jesus, we’re going down there.
Of course we are.
Really don’t want to …
Maybe I can just linger topside …
“Don’t tell me you’ve developed a fear of the darkness now, cherub,” Des calls from below, his voice echoing.
Ugh. Fine.
I move up to the hole, sitting down at its edge and letting my feet dangle into it. I squint into the shaft, trying to gage how deep it is.
From the shadows, two hands wrap around my ankles, and with a swift jerk, I’m yanked into the darkness. Before I have a chance to shriek for dear life, Des catches me, and I’m sure he can feel the drum of my heart pounding against his chest.
“Oh my god,” I say, breathless, my skin brightening seconds too late, “why would you do that?”
Des laughs into the darkness. “You are much too tempting to toy with …” his eyes drop to my lips, caught in the glow of my glamour, “and to resist.”
He leans in, but before he can kiss me, I press a hand to his mouth.
“Uh uh,” I chastise him, glamour in my voice. “You don’t get a kiss for that.”
At my words, he pulls away a little, his eyes bright. “What do I get?” he says, the corner of his mouth curving into a mischievous grin.
A spanking, my siren whispers. Let’s make him give himself a spanking. He’s been a bad boy.
I almost laugh at the thought.
“You get the pleasure of avoiding my siren’s wrath. She wants you to spank yourself.”
The appropriate reaction is to be horrified at the thought. Too bad the Bargaine
r is decidedly inappropriate.
His face fills with gleeful surprise. “Naughty thing,” he chastises. “And right here in my father’s grave too.” Now he does give me a quick kiss. “Maybe later I’ll appease your dirty thoughts.” In the dim light cast by my skin, I see him wink at me.
It’s enough to mollify my siren.
With that, Des releases me. “Watch your step,” he advises. “There’s a tricky staircase you’ll need to maneuver—on second thought, it’d probably be best if I carried you …”
Before I can say or do anything else, his magic curls like smoke low in my belly. I feel the tug of it drawing me close to him.
“This is repayment for the coffee, isn’t it?” I say as the magic courses through me.
That, or Des really likes stirring my siren into action. Because where a second ago she was settling back down, now she’s pressing against the underside of my skin, eager to take over completely.
“I told you repayment would be fun,” Des says, a smirk in his voice.
Ha!
“This is not really what I had in mind when I made that wish …”
“Consider this foreplay, baby siren.”
And still his magic tugs at me, getting more insistent with every passing second.
“Alright, but I want to ride piggyback,” I state.
“I didn’t realize that you called the terms of repayment,” he says smoothly, scooping me up. Now that I’m in his arms, the magic relaxes. “Of course, if you want to ride me from behind—” his tone is undeniably sexual, “I won’t protest too much. Though it’s not my favorite position.”
God, he’s in rare form today.
He moves me to his back, and I wrap my arms around his neck, breathing in his smell as his hair tickles my cheek. His hands hook beneath my legs and he carries me down the winding stairway and deep into the ground.
The air down here is thick like molasses, heavy with protective wards meant to keep intruders out. It’s a shock to feel so much magic concentrated here when the land itself seems parched of it.
Des utters a phrase in Old Fae, and just like snapping one’s fingers, the magic parts, letting us through.
Ahead of us, mounted torches flare to life, illuminating a small chamber; the walls, ceiling and floor of it are nothing more than packed dirt. Right in the middle of the room, sitting on a natural bed of rock, is a roughhewn stone sarcophagus.
Dark Harmony (The Bargainer Book 3) Page 5