Chapter 3 Bargain #2
Shame burns in her eyes. Why does she keep doing this—accepting failure and crumbling beneath it?
She got rejected from Cygnus and gave up on any hope of leaving at all.
Her father sold her like an object to Lord Fournier, and she smiled at her betrothed.
She squirmed beneath his touch, but she didn’t pull away.
Even in her dream, she knows the nightmarish version of Lord Fournier is going to catch up to her any moment, and yet here she is, shivering in the dark, waiting to be caught.
When did she become so pathetic? Was it when her mother died?
It must have been—with no one holding him accountable, her father didn’t raise her to be her own person.
He raised her to become someone’s wife. He punished her when she acted in ways he disapproved of.
If she was ever too loud, too clever, too curious, he confined her to her room like a caged bird until she offered up a demure apology and a promise to be better.
She’s been too good for too long. It’s made her weak. It’s made her terrified of being seen as anything else.
“I can save you,” a voice says.
Reaching forward, she feels for anything that could anchor her to reality. Why can’t she find any trees? She was surrounded a moment ago, but now the only thing before her is thick, black night.
“Is this a dream?” she asks.
The voice presses itself to her ear and warms the side of her face. “This is a nightmare, which is always more exciting, isn’t it?”
The voice is wicked. It awakens some deep, primal instinct that begs her to run. Breathing quickening, she stretches out her arms and heads into the dark as if she can walk herself awake.
“Wake up,” she whispers before slapping herself in the face. “Come on, wake up. This isn’t real. You’re drunk. You’re scared. You’re asleep.”
“Darling, where are you?” Lord Fournier growls close by, startling her. She must be just about to walk into him. She’s sickened by the very idea of his closeness.
“If you run from me, Lord Fournier will be your fate,” the voice threatens. “We don’t want that, do we, Claudia?”
She pinches herself and pulls her hair, but nothing wakes her. “How do you know my name? Who are you?”
“I am what you prayed for. I can change your fate.”
With a loud snap, the sky cracks in two and leaks out an inky black, darker than the night itself.
Warm shadows weave over, around, even through her body, tightening around her chest so that her heartbeat feels like a wound.
The shadows bend, twist, and expand into hard lines and strong muscles.
Then, catlike green eyes and a devilish smile.
Long silver hair that glows like the moon and teeth sharp as knives.
Standing before her is a monster who is as beautiful as he is terrifying.
Tall and powerful, he has an ice-cold aura that radiates from him like he’s made of winter.
“Stay away from me, demon.”
He gives her a look of pity. “Demon?” he mocks. “How little you think of me.” A shadow lashes out from his body and wraps around her throat with an iron grip.
She claws at the shadow, but her hands pass right through. “So you’re a nightmare, then.” She swallows hard against the tight hold around her throat. Then she laughs. “I’ve had worse.”
“I know. I’m here to make it better.” He smirks when he saunters toward her. She can’t run—his dark power holds her in place. Now, as he towers over her, she can see pinpricks of silver scattered throughout his glowing green eyes.
When he smiles, light burns behind his teeth like he’s hiding magic in his throat.
“Poor girl. Bound to a man you despise. Forced into a fate you don’t want.
And then you nearly fell to your death.” While he speaks, he circles her, his arms trailing over her frame.
“All that fear. All that desperate wanting. It’s enough to drive one mad.
” Standing behind her with his hands at her waist, he rests his chin on her shoulder and whispers in her ear, “But now your nightmares have brought you to me, and I can so easily change your fate if you’re willing to do the same for me. ”
“Another man who wants to dictate my destiny.” She scoffs. “You do not tempt me. Leave me alone.”
“You don’t want that.” He faces her, hooking her chin right as the shadow relaxes from her neck. “You want me on your side.”
She pushes his hand away. “I don’t want anything from you.”
“What if I told you that I can get you into Cygnus University?”
Taking a step back from him, she furrows her brow. “How dare you offer something so plainly out of your control. The High Sage wrote that their rejection is final. I can’t even apply again. What power could you have that would change that?”
He looks stunned for a moment, but his face quickly falls back into cruel, calm composure.
“They are the liars. Not me. They also told you that Astrologia was false, didn’t they?
They said it was a futile pursuit. But you know in your bones that they’re wrong.
You sense something in the stars, don’t you?
You know there is a reason for your fascination with the night sky. ”
Her heart thunders. Her body hums. She looks up at him, and his eyes are earnest. Soft, even. “Who are you?”
“My name is Dorian. I was an Astrologia scholar at Cygnus when the god of stars and nightmares fell.”
Her rejection letter flashes in her mind. “That’s not possible. That happened a century ago.”
He shakes his head. “I was in the Realm of Nightmares when he started to run. I chased after him, and I should’ve known better.
The last thing Sidarphion did before he disappeared was punish me for trying to stop him.
He cursed me. Caged me. All I could do was watch as the stars turned.
Around me, their light warped. Darkened.
The night itself fell out of balance. The nightmares grew too strong, and I was too weak to wake up.
” His jaw tenses. “For one hundred years, I have been trapped in this realm by cursed stars, shifting from man to monster.” With a sharp claw, he tucks her hair behind her ear.
“But you woke me, and you have the power to free me.”
He takes her hand and drags his claw across her palm until it bleeds.
She gasps, jerking her hand back, but he won’t let go.
“You have stars in your blood.” Light spills from his mouth, and he licks the cut on her palm.
Her blood begins to glow. “A gift from your mother,” he says. “She would want you to use it.”
Her blood warms her palm. She watches it spill between her fingers. “You knew my mother?”
“She was a Roe. Haven’t you ever wondered how they built an empire from nothing? What gave them the vision to create their world-changing timepieces? It was always magic, Claudia. The same magic that burns inside you.”
Claudia looks around and sees nothing but him.
There is no light other than whatever burns at the back of his throat.
The forest, the trees, the sky itself—all gone.
Dorian is all she has. She can’t help but reach for him, if only to keep from falling.
He welcomes her hands in his, stroking her knuckles with his thumb.
“Here is my offer: I will get you into Cygnus. In turn, you’ll learn the language of stars until you’re strong enough to rewrite them. You will set me free.”
“But they don’t teach Astrologia anymore. How am I to learn?”
“Everything you need remains at the university. You will find it. Study it. Master it. It won’t be easy and it won’t be quick, but you won’t stop. You will do whatever it takes.”
He pulls her closer until her chest is touching his. Cold radiates from his body. Every instinct tells her to pull away, to run, to do everything in her power to wake up from this nightmare.
But instead, she leans in. The pull of his power is stronger than her fear. Or perhaps her fear of her current fate is stronger than her fear of him.
“Why me?” she asks. “I was rejected. Surely there are scholars at Cygnus who could help you better than I ever could.”
“None of them are like you. It was your voice that woke me. That must mean something. You’re the witch with no way in. I’m the devil with no way out. We are each other’s only chance, Starling.”
She gasps at hearing the name her mother used to call her. Her eyes well. “What did you call me?” It’s been so long since anyone called her that. She’d forgotten how special it once made her feel.
He comes down to her ear. “Starling,” he whispers, sharp teeth grazing her skin. A shiver runs up her spine. His voice echoes, nearly luring her into a trance.
Stepping back, she stares down the devil before her—she’s read dozens of stories about them and how they play games with their words.
People say humans constantly fall prey to their tricks.
“So you’ll get me into Cygnus, and my debt will be paid once I learn to change the stars that have caged you here,” she says, mostly to herself, testing the sentence for traps.
“Exactly. That’s fair, isn’t it? I’ll save you. You’ll save me.” His breath is cold against her lips. “We’ll both walk away with exactly what we want.”
“And this isn’t a trick?”
“I don’t do tricks. I simply want my life back.”
She sees desperation welling in his eyes. “All right.” Her voice is unsteady. “I accept. Where do I sign?”
His laugh is sharp and sudden. “You sign with your soul.” In an instant, his mouth is at her throat and his teeth are in her neck.
His power pours into her and changes her blood into something thicker, warmer.
If she sliced herself open now, she’s sure that nothing but stars would spill out.
Her body becomes white-hot. She closes her eyes and screams out in pain, but the feeling changes to something stronger—pleasure.
It builds and builds as his bite tightens on her throat.
She moans deeply, drunkenly, begging for more.
What’s coming over her? Why is his touch turning her into an animal?
She knows that some part of her, the rational part, would be appalled at her own behavior. But she can’t stop.
“I want more. Give me more,” she growls. She claws at his back and tears the fine satin fabric of his black shirt. She wants his teeth on every part of her.
He laughs against her pulse before pulling back. Claudia’s blood drips down his chin and stains his teeth.
“You love the feeling of power, don’t you? Fulfill the bargain and you can have it all.”
She’s hardly listening to him. All she can think about is getting his teeth back on her body, and more of his power in her blood. She lunges for him, but in an instant, he’s gone.
“Dorian?” Her voice echoes so she can hear every ounce of desperation in it. The darkness purrs, and Claudia falls as the nightmare fades to nothing.
She wakes up screaming his name, and her whole body is shaking.
She is back in her room, her snake on her chest, her heart in her throat.
Her window is still open, and snow carpets her wood floor.
She can feel pieces of her soul missing, wind whistling through her where careful bites were taken out of her essence.
Blotches of blanched skin appear everywhere Dorian touched her as if he stained her with frostbite.
A sense of shame wells up in her, knowing she begged for something that left her bloody and bruised.
But when she gets a hint of his power burning in her veins, it drives her right back to that heady, delirious need. His words echo in her mind: Fulfill the bargain and you can have it all.
She can’t help but wonder if she shouldn’t let herself feel it again.
It’s a drug that makes her sick and wild and hungry for nothing else.
A few drops unleashed a wave of otherworldly euphoria, but now, she’s left with a gnawing fear that nothing else will ever bring her such intense joy.
She has this nagging guilt that she can’t pin down, can’t perfectly place or understand, but it’s like she’s jumped from a great height, and only now, halfway down the fall, has she realized that a leap of faith could so easily end in a fatal crash.
Was he even real? Was he, after all, too good to be true? Had her wine-soaked, terrified mind conjured him, only to have that dream destroyed by waking up? She has to know. She has to check. Holding her breath, she reaches up and touches her neck, where she feels two wet wounds the size of fangs.
It was all just as true as she’d hoped.
And just as real as she’d feared.