People like us are someone’s nightmare.
I narrow my eyes on the Thief, and smile a little. “I don’t think so.”
The King of Night comes to the edge of the pool and crouches down, studying our foe. The Thief jerks against the incessant pull driving him downwards.
“You might have power, Euribios,” Des eventually says, “but there is one thing you never considered.”
My heart beats faster. Somehow, Des orchestrated this.
“Loyalty.”
Euribios’s back is to me; what I would give to see this conniving monster’s expression.
“For centuries, the shadows and I have been the closest of confidants.”
The shadows speak to me, Des admitted back on earth. It was how he learned so many secrets.
“Do you think that means anything to them? To me?” the Thief says. “I existed before the dawn of day.”
The shadows around us begin to shiver and grow.
“Do you know what they told me?” Des says.
Euribios falls silent.
Des’s face hardens. “Even shadows can deceive and gods can die.”
Des looks at me then, and like a thunderclap, I feel that look down to my bones.
Love, love as endless as the night. That’s all I see in his eyes.
“Now, my queen,” the Night King says to me, “where were you?”
He’s handing off the torch, letting me resume the insidious task I’d begun.
Slowly, a smile creeps along my face.
Vengeance, at last.
I lift my chin. “Des, you are to ignore every command I give from this point forward.”
His eyes flash with devilish delight. “As you wish, my sweet siren.”
With that parting line, he vanishes, melting into the darkness as he has so many other times since I first met him. Our bond sings, and I can feel him down the other end of it, sure and steady.
My gaze moves to the Thief, and my whole persona changes. For a minute, I set aside the knowledge that Des appears to be alive and well.
Right now, an entity needs to pay.
“Face me, Euribios.”
Slowly, the god rotates around, his expression incredulous.
He’s dominated others for so long that he can’t possibly recognize the position he’s now in.
“I will enjoy paying you back for this—” he vows.
“You will not threaten me,” I say. “Nor will you use any of your magic on me or anyone else. Right now, you are powerless.”
The Death King’s mouth curves up. “I will never be powerless, enchantress,” he says, wading through the souls to get to me, still resisting my earlier command. He doesn’t look frightened—I don’t think the Thief even knows what fear is; he’s never had to fear a thing in his life.
As he moves towards me he begins murmuring. His oily magic stirs, and I sense him redrawing his ward.
Too late, Death King.
“Drown,” I say, my voice hypnotic.
The Thief barks out a laugh, interrupting his work. “You cannot kill me—”
“I can do whatever it is I want. So come closer,” I say, moving out into deeper water, souls slipping past me. “Find me beneath the waves. Feel my watery kiss. Drown in my arms. Die for me, my undying king.”
Sinister. Seductive. Even death is tempting when a siren delivers it sweetly.
The Thief continues to wade towards me, only now, his torso is beginning to disappear beneath the water’s surface.
“I cannot die.”
“Yes,” I breathe, “you can.”
I move to the middle of the pool, feeling my magic in my veins and in the water. Euribios’s eyes are locked on mine, longing shining bright in them. The water has nearly reached his shoulders. He begins murmuring once more.
“Meet me down in the water’s depths,” I say, coaxing, coaxing. “There’s nothing to fear. Breathe it in. Drown.”
My words strike like an anvil.
The Thief’s breath catches, and a spark of something enters his eyes; it’s not fear, he’s too alien a creature for that; shock, maybe—or betrayal.
Or maybe it’s that, for all his dealings with death, this eternal thing can’t conceive of it happening to him.
And now it is.
Whatever ward he’s been casting, it sits in the air unfinished, and it’s not clear that it would be useful at this point anyway. My eyes, my body, my magic—everything that I am beckons to him.
Join us down below.
It doesn’t matter that he’s a god and I’m not, nor does it matter that my power is infinitesimal next to his. I promise a dream, a beautiful, deadly dream, and what is more powerful than that? Dreams, desire—what wouldn’t you do to have what you most want?
I slip beneath the lapping surface. All around me howling, phantom things grab and claw at the Thief.
They hadn’t harmed me—I hadn’t even thought they were capable of it—but they’re harming Euribios, his skin splitting open, his blood looking like ink in the water before his skin heals over.
“Drown, drown, drown.” Even down here I whisper it.
The waterline climbs up his neck, then his jaw.
I don’t know whether he sinks the rest of the way himself, or if he stops fighting against the powers pulling at him, but all at once, his head sinks below the surface.
“Drown.”
The Thief—Euribios—opens his mouth and draws in water.
That’s all it takes for the spirits to swarm him, descending on the god like ravenous beasts. If I thought they were hurting him before, it’s nothing compared to their onslaught now. I see muscle and bone as they tear into him.
More disturbingly, the dead shove their way into his mouth.
The Thief’s eyes are open, and the entire time he stares at me, his eyes sharp with desire and alarm. Euribios reaches for me, either in want or in need, the water around his arm darkening with his shadowy blood.
But I never take that offered hand, and the spirits crowd in so thick that after several moments, the Thief disappears behind so many ephemeral bodies.
The moment the two of us lose eye contact, his screams start up, the sound muffled by water and the spirits forcing their way into his mouth.
I linger underwater, my ears feasting on his dying cries. They grow fainter and fainter, until eventually they vanish altogether.
And then—
BOOM!
The Thief’s magic detonates, rippling outward. It slams into me, throwing me back before continuing on, blasting across the throne room.
In its wake, the spirits begin to fall away from the Thief. Only, there’s no more Thief. No body, no bones—just a few drops of inky blood. The last of his dark magic unfurls in the water, then dissipates away.
His death wasn’t the sweet seduction I promised him it would be. It was painful, brutal. As it should’ve been.
He’s gone.
The Thief is finally dead.
Maybe there will always be darkness and shadows and all those things that happen when the sun goes down. Maybe night will always be waiting to swallow up the earth, but today—
Darkness died.
Chapter 45
When I rise from the water, the dead cling to my clothes, not wanting to release me. Eventually—and reluctantly—they do. I gave them the blood they demanded, after all.
They slip back into the pool where they wait for whatever it is that the rulers of the underworld do with the souls of the dead.
Now that the Thief is well and truly gone, his staggering magic lifts from the air, and the room around me brightens.
The siren’s savage nature is still riding me hard. I want to kiss and touch and taste and torment. I want it all so badly that my wings and claws throb.
I’ve only taken a step or two when Des appears several feet from me.
I come to a stop, and I don’t dare breathe.
This feels like a spell, one that will be broken the moment I move.
We stare at each other for one beat, then two. And then the spell is broken.
Des disappears, only to reappear right in front of me. The Night King crushes me to him, and it is everything I’ve needed.
I gather his shirt into my fists as his lips find mine. Suddenly, it feels like I can breathe again, like the world has colors and purpose and joy because Desmond Flynn, King of the Night, is alive and in my arms.
He tastes like magic and mayhem. I want to laugh; I’m sure I’m going to cry. Des is no dream, no apparition that will be swept away when the Thief has had his fun.
Somehow, he outwitted death.
When the kiss ends, I stare up at him. Those pale, silver eyes, that softness right around his mouth, all those planes of his face that are so very heartbreaking—I didn’t know I could miss anything so damn badly.
“You’re real, right?” I whisper.
“I’m real.” The Night King is giving me that gaze of his, the one that makes me feel like I’m something worthy of worship.
“I thought I lost you—” My voice breaks.
The corner of his mouth curves up, and he looks at me so tenderly. “There are many uncertainties in life, but this one thing holds true: I will always come back to you, cherub.”
Des is not just darkness. He’s moonlight and stardust; he’s wishes and adventure and a love as vast as the night sky.
And he’s here, alive.
He’s alive.
A flash of anger flares through me, and I give him a light shove. “I thought you were dead.”
He smiles, catching my wrist. “Aww, cherub,” he says. “Don’t be mad.”
“Don’t aww, cherub me, Des,” I say, yanking my wrist out of his grasp. “You can’t even know what it was like,” I say hoarsely. “You can’t.” I couldn’t dream up a nightmare worse than that. Those hours I spent lamenting him.
Des closes the last of the space between us, his face turning somber. “I can, Callie. I almost lost you once.” His eyes pinch shut and he gives his head a shake. “I’m so sorry,” he says. He opens his eyes, his gaze blazing. “For deceiving you and forcing you to experience that. There is no worse hell.”
There really isn’t.
“And I’m so sorry for making you face the Thief alone.” He takes my hand and cups it between his. “Never again,” he vows, his voice fierce.
I take a deep breath and pull myself together. Now that Des is alive and burning with his own brightness, my skin has finally started to dim, my wings and claws and scales disappearing from view.
“I want more than promises and apologies from you,” I say.
Des’s eyes brighten and a corner of his mouth lifts when he realizes exactly what I’m asking.
He brings his wrist up in front of himself. As I watch, a strand of spider silk forms around it, then a dull black bead.
“Is this fair?” he asks.
A deal. One that I get to claim.
I give him a skeptical look. “One bead? I endured my soulmate’s death and faced down a god, and all I have to show for it is one measly bead?”
“Demanding siren. Fine.”
A second bead appears next to the first.
I give Des another light shove, a laugh slipping out. The laugh turns into a sob. And the sob … the sob gives way to ugly, heaving tears.
And that’s how this fearsome siren ends up sitting on the Bargainer’s lap in the Death King’s throne room, listening to the Bargainer sing her a fae lullaby, his head pressed to hers.
It was bound to happen. The last bit of my bravery was spent killing Euribios. I’ve got nothing left.
“I love you, cherub,” Des murmurs. “More than any fairy has a right to love anything.” He sweeps away my tears with his thumbs.
I nod against him.
“I’ll add a whole row of black beads to the bracelet—several rows. Just please stop crying. I can’t bear the sight of you sad.” He punctuates the sentiment by taking my hand and kissing the base of my palm. And then he kisses each fingertip, and the whole thing is so ridiculously sweet that I choke up again.
Closing my eyes, I take a few deep breaths. It’s a physical thing, putting myself back together, but eventually I do it.
I open my eyes and cup Des’s face. “I love you.” I smile a little as I say it.
I rise to my feet, pulling the Bargainer up after me. He still wears his crown, and he looks every bit the fairy king.
He squeezes my hand, and I think that’s his way of seeing if I’m ready to leave this room, and God am I ready, but before we go, I notice a discarded shirt several feet away. It’s Euribios’s shirt—he must’ve removed it right before he entered the pool.
Walking over to it, I pick the shirt up. Des eyes it curiously as I begin to twist the cloth round and round, turning the shirt into a makeshift rope. I then slide the rope through my belt loops.
There’s a box this belongs in, a box that sits in a house with sandy floors and chipped countertops. A box that all my most prized relics go in.
“It’s a memento,” I say, tying off the Thief’s shirt.
Des’s gaze turns capricious. “You may not live in the ocean, Callie, but you are every inch the siren.”
I don’t know much about sirens, other than the few lines I’ve found in dusty school textbooks and what I’ve learned myself, but collecting macabre mementos of my victims seems about right.
The Bargainer’s gaze sweeps over the pool. The waters are still humming, the sound pricking my skin.
His eyes drop to me. “You’ve never been more fearsome than you were when you took down the Thief,” he says.
I remember my magic singing through my veins and the thrill of watching my victim bend to my will, a god whose immortal life I stole because I ordered him to die.
“You were watching?” I ask.
Des should be frightened of me, not impressed. But I guess I’m overlooking the fact that my husband is a cold-blooded killer.
“How could I not? I’m a terribly curious creature.”
So he watched me kill. I wonder if he thinks of me differently.
People like us are someone’s nightmare.
Then again, maybe he always thought of me differently; I just finally lived up to his dark imaginings.
The two of us leave the throne room, winding our way back through the palace.
Des’s eyes study our surroundings. “So this is the Palace of Death and Deep Earth,” he says. “I got to admit, I was expecting a little more.”
“A little more of what? Ghosts?”
Because I saw plenty.
Not going to get those little ghostly fuckers out of my head for a long while.
“My mother used to tell me tales of the monsters that lurked in the land of the dead.”
I’d bet money the Thief hunted them all down for sport long ago.
“Are you going to tell me how you did it?” I ask, interrupting his reverie.
Des gives me a sly look. “How I tricked the Thief of Souls?”
“No, how you learned to whistle. Of course, how you tricked the Thief.”
Like pulling teeth with this one. I’m going to need every century of my newly long life to tease out this man’s secrets.
His eyes spark with delight at my attitude; Des likes me best with my claws out.
“Now, cherub, you know these secrets are going to cost you.”
“Des!”
He laughs. “Two words: kinky sex. If you can agree to it, I’ll sing like a choir boy and tell you everything.”
We both nearly died—the whole world almost fell to the Thief—and this is what he’s thinking about right now? Kinky sex?
I narrow my eyes.
“Promise you’ll enjoy it, wife. I’m vividly imagining pressing you up against the side of our pool and licking that glowing water from between your—”
My skin is starting to glow, which is hugely embarrassing.
“Fine. But you’re going to tell me everythi
ng.”
“It began with Solstice.”
The two of us have stopped walking so that Des can explain himself.
“When I discovered that the Thief of Souls—Euribios—had wanted you to drink the lilac wine so you’d be vulnerable to his magic, I learned three things: One, the Thief was a clever bastard. Two, he wanted you. And three, it seemed that no fae was immune to his magic. He could put any of us to sleep the same way he had all of those soldiers; the only thing holding him back was his own scheming.”
My mind is racing, listening to this.
“I knew the Thief was waiting for the right moment to exact his plans—whatever they were—and I couldn’t let that happen.” Des’s eyes fall heavily on mine. “Not when I knew he wanted you.
“So I began devising a plan of my own, one that would save you and the Otherworld. I altered it as new information came in about the Thief. And once I discovered he was not just a god, but the god of darkness, I knew that even my power was useless against him.”
And yet, somehow Euribios still died.
Des threads his fingers through mine. “I’m sorry that I didn’t confide in you, Callie. He was using shadows to watch us.”
Of course. If Des had told me his plans, the Thief would’ve learned of them, and the element of surprise would’ve been lost.
“My father’s prophecy—” he continues, “I knew the human it mentioned was you, so I knew that not only could Galleghar fall, but the Thief could be taken down with him.”
My brows knit. “How could you be sure the prophecy was about me?” I ask.
The corner of Des’s mouth curves up. “Shadows are not the only creatures who tell me secrets. There are pixies and diviners and all sorts of other fae that have secrets to share.”
So my mate learned I was destined to stop Galleghar. That truth sits heavy in me. I was fated to be a killer centuries before I was even born. I try not to shudder at the thought.
“At some point, it came to me. How to truly stop Euribios.”
He pauses dramatically.
I give him a devastating look. “And?”
He laughs. “You’re adorable when you’re impatient.” He pulls me close and wraps a lock of my hair. “I made two deals—one with the Thief of Souls—and another with the shadows. With the Thief, I agreed to willingly become his prisoner, so long as neither you nor I died.”
Dark Harmony (The Bargainer Book 3) Page 35