The Bargainer waits for more explanation.

I shrug. “I don’t know. It was a bad day and he pissed me off.”

That guy was such an asshole. And I had absolute power over him, despite his enormous size and his white hot temper.

Des pulls out a tooth. He holds the incisor up. “Cherub, this looks more like my work than yours.”

Now that he mentions it, it does.

I take the tooth from him, rolling it between my fingers. I close my eyes for a moment, hearing an echo of this man’s screams.

“Human trafficker.” I can still see his crisp white shirt and the smoke that curled from his cigarette. He looked at me like I was livestock. The memory still gives me chills.

But I’m also proudest of that particular case. I ended up saving over a hundred men, women, and children.

“I left him alone in a room with his victims and their families.”

“Did he die?”

I shake my head. “He begged for it … but no.”

I never said I was a good person, but I came pretty close to the devil with this one. The tooth is proof enough of that.

“I brought all of these men close to death,” I say, looking down at the tooth.

For several seconds, the Bargainer doesn’t say anything. Finally, “How close?”

Close enough to feel that ancient power move through me, the same power that compelled my ancestors to kill.

I clear my throat. “Close enough to know I should feel ashamed.”

… Close enough to really enjoy it.

Des huffs out a laugh. “But you’re not.” It isn’t a question.

“No.”

Not at all. The box is full of mementos of the cruelest, most sinister people in the world. People who hurt children, who abused loved ones, who tried to get away with murder.

Not even prison or death can atone for the atrocities they’ve committed. I might be the closest they ever come to a true reckoning on earth.

Des shakes his head. “Godsdamnit but we’re similar. Did I make you this way?”

“You didn’t do anything,”—except maybe give me a template on how to work with criminals—“I was this way before you met me.”

At the reminder, the edges of the room darken. It’s actually pretty heartening, seeing Des get upset for me even after all this time.

He toes the box. “Think I should pay these guys a visit?”

I doubt they’d survive it. The Bargainer doesn’t have the same issue with death that I do.

Still, I smile at the thought of the King of Night in his leather pants and vintage T-shirts, dropping in on these men so that he can wreak a little havoc—and all because they pissed his mate off at one point in time.

I thread my fingers through his. “Marriage with you is going to be fun.”

Chapter 23

“… Enchantress …”

I suck in a breath at the voice. It comes from everywhere all at once.

“Enjoying your time on earth?”

I swivel in a circle, my feet digging into sand.

Sand … ?

That’s when my surroundings come into focus. There’s a beach, and the ocean, and a cliff—a very familiar cliff.

This is the beach beneath my house. I’ve been here a thousand times, usually alone. If my house is my sanctuary, this strip of land is my temple. And right now, it’s being defiled.

“Nice view,” the Thief says, his breath against my ear.

My skin flares to life as fear floods through me. I spin to face him.

The Thief is clad in dark clothes—human clothes. I thought I’d seen him at his scariest before, but the Thief masquerading as a human might be the most frightening version of him.

“How did you know where I was?” I ask.

“Callypso,” he runs a hand through his jet black hair, “I know everything.”

No supernatural is that omnipotent.

The Thief of Souls levels his pitiless gaze on me. For a moment we simply look at one another, then his eyes dip lower.

“That trick you do with your skin,” he says, “I quite like it.” He leans in close, his mouth brushing my ear, “I imagine being inside you is like fucking a star.”

The Thief straightens, running a hand down his shirt and smoothing out the imaginary wrinkles. "Speaking of stars—” Before I realize what he’s doing, he captures my left hand. He angles it so that he can get a good look at my ring. “The King of the Night didn’t go cheap when he popped the question—and you said yes.”

“What did you think I’d say? ‘No’? That I was saving myself for you?”

He chuckles at that. “What a mortal thought. I rather enjoy our talks, enchantress. No, I want you to enjoy your mate’s company for as long as you possibly can. You see, life is just one long story; I don’t really care how yours begins … only how it ends.”

That sends a foreboding chill down my spine.

The Thief sits down in the sand then, and it’s so disarming. You expect evil to be obvious; you never expect it to act like anyone else might. He pats the ground next to him. “Join me.”

I stare down at him. “I don’t intend to stay here.”

“Would you rather go back into your house? Care to see if your mate’s there?” he says. “I wonder what that would be like, me cornering the two of you in your own home. Maybe we could all kiss and make up for our trespasses.”

That visual physically hurts.

“Or I could just hold you down and deflower your ‘virgin’ cunt while the Night King is forced to watch.”

This conversation is over.

I walk away from him. I haven’t taken five steps when the earth violently rolls, throwing me onto my back. Beneath me the sand shifts then resettles.

I blink up at the sky, a couple of seagulls crying out as they fly overhead.

“You are in my realm, enchantress. Here we play by my rules,” the Thief says. He sits right next to me, and I have no idea whether he moved to my side, or whether the earth deposited me at his.

My fingers dig into the sand. If I’m in his realm, a realm I only visit when I fall asleep, then …

I push myself up, studying his profile. “So you control small death, and everything that happens here.” Like shaking the ground and throwing me onto the sand.

The Thief’s eyes brighten. “The PI finally put it together. How very keen of you.”

This asshole.

I huff out a laugh. “You know what your problem is?” I say, rotating to face him once more. “You think you’re some special brand of evil, but you aren’t. I’ve met plenty of men like you before.” Men that use and break and destroy.

He gives me a sly smile, and I’ve never seen features so cold. It scares me—truly it does. I’ve caught the attention of an abominable thing, and I know the moment he really, truly gets his hands on me—not in some dream, but in the real, waking world—he’s going to ravage me.

“I assure you, enchantress,” he says, “you’ve never met a man like me.”

I wake in Des’s arms, my body covered in a cold sweat. I’m panting, my chest rising and falling.

A moment ago, the Thief and I were sitting out on the beach beyond my backyard, and I can’t shake the nonsensical belief that he’s still out there, staring up at my house, debating whether or not he should break down the door and fuck with me and Des.

I clasp onto the Bargainer’s forearm as he cradles my head and neck. I close my eyes and will my heartrate to slow.