Chapter 8
Asharp unease rises in me as he pulls me through the tavern to a dark, quiet corner. His grip is too tight, too forceful. I stumble after him, taking two steps for every one of his.
Then he stops, swiveling to cage me against the wall by standing so close I’m forced to look up at him. He still hasn’t let go of my hand. “We wouldn’t want anyone overhearing the vow,” he says with an unsettling, capricious smile.
“In your dreams. Now let me go,” I hiss.
I’ve heard nothing but terrible things about vows with the fae. The stories say mortals are given their wildest dreams in exchange for a cost that seems mundane in the moment, only for it to later rip everything away from them. Their friends, wealth, status. Nothing is safe.
“I’ll make it a fair vow,” he continues, his voice low and husky. “All I want is assurance that you will not betray my life.”
I pause, trying to find a loophole or a hidden meaning in it. “That’s it?”
“And you must aid me in reaching King Olin’s tomb by the next full moon. You can have everything inside of it, except for the one relic I’m after.”
The lunar cycle began with the full moon on Evie’s birthday, which means the next full moon will be in less than four weeks. This is the first time he’s mentioned a deadline. Is that date what Prince Eldon meant by ‘Until the moon’?
“What are you after?” I gaze up at him and see something dark and sinister storming across his face, a determination to get what he wants at any cost.
A sudden draft stirs the hearth’s flames, spitting crimson sparks into the air. His hazel eyes reflect them like dancing wildfire as he looks down at me. “Another question, foolishly used. That isn’t for you to know.”
Fine, I suppose I don’t need to know every detail. “What happens if I betray you?”
He smiles, and it doesn’t reach his eyes. No, that smile is as warm as winter frost. When he shrugs, a shiver creeps down my spine. This must be the fae guile I’ve been warned about.
“Do you plan to betray me?” he asks.
“No,” I quickly answer. Not when he’s offering me everything I’ve wanted, the wealth I need to support my family. And I doubt I’d walk away from betraying the Prince of Death. No one ever would hear from me again.
“Then you have nothing to be worried about.” His thumb absently rubs the back of my hand.
I stiffen, alarmed yet exhilarated by the intimacy of that touch.
“What will it be?” he murmurs. “Will you return home and explain to your family why you left them in the middle of the night? Or will you come with me and in four weeks, bring them Olin’s treasure? ”
I can’t go home. I don’t know how I’d face them. Especially Evie, when I ignored her screaming my name. “And I have to vow it?”
He nods.
Surprisingly, the terms do sound clear and fair. Everything except for his reluctance to tell me about the relic. My gut still screams Don’t make deals with fae.
I ignore it. “Let’s get it over with.”
His cold smirk vanishes, replaced with a sinister stillness.
“Do you swear to bind yourself to me, and me to you, until the terms of this vow are met? You will not betray my life, and you will help me reach the treasure chamber in King Olin’s tomb by the full moon.
In exchange, you keep the treasure, except for one item of my choosing. ”
A warm, pulsing energy thrums through his hand into mine. It whispers through my body, weakening my knees. Saying yes should be easy; it’s just one little word, but my breath catches in my throat.
“Cynthia,” Desmond murmurs, his voice low and imploring. The callused pads of his fingers are warm compared to the cold bands of his rings. He leans over me, the open collar of his tunic falling open to reveal his chiseled chest.
I try to calm the weightlessness in my stomach.
Hearing him say my name like that, his unsettling good looks, and his hand squeezing mine.
. . If he were a suitor in Nettlerock, it might be romantic.
But he’s a dangerous fae prince, and the last thing on our minds is our hearts. No, this is about our lives.
I steady myself before answering. “Yes. I swear it.”
Now he smirks, but it’s dark and foreboding. “This might hurt.”
Pain sears through my wrist like he pressed a fire poker to my skin. I gasp and try to pull away. He doesn’t let me. Shimmering gold ink blooms on my skin. It curves into a crescent over the veins on the inside of my right wrist. “What is that?” I demand.
“A moon, like your name.” He lets go, and I wrench my hand away.
“No, you ass!” I press our bodies flush, so no one sees when I unsheathe my dagger. I hold it against his spine, underneath his cloak. “What does it—” I pause to reframe my words. “Tell me what it does.”
He shrugs, unconcerned. “It’s a bit of fae magic, a pact that binds your life to mine for the duration of the quest. I wouldn’t push that blade in if I were you.” He extends his left arm, revealing an identical crescent on his wrist.
“Undo it,” I demand.
Desmond tuts. “Even if I could, where would be the fun in that?”
“You didn’t tell me that the price is my death!” I huff, and it shifts my chest against his, so that I feel its steady rise and fall. Our faces are so close, I smell peppermint on his breath. “You’re despicable,” I tell him.
“You’re staring,” he says back.
“So are you.”
Neither of us moves away. Doing so would be admitting weakness.
“I could’ve promised loyalty without a magic vow.” I tilt my head up, ineffectively attempting to gain height on him. “I’m insulted that you thought it was necessary.”
A stroke of amusement bleeds through me as he grins. The emotion feels intrusive at first, like something has crawled into my ear and whispered “Her stubbornness is almost endearing.”
I flinch. The feeling fades.
“I have no reason to trust you,” Desmond says. “Unlike fae, you can lie. And you don’t strike me as obedient or pliable.”
“Obedient?” I scoff. My ire reignites. “If that’s how you like your women, we’re going to have a problem.” Maybe I should stomp on his foot, just to show him how obedient I’ll be.
A troubled frown breaks his smirk. “You’re angry.”
“No shit. Even a troll could’ve deduced that!”
“But I felt it.” He grabs my wrist again and runs his thumb over the crescent moon. “You wanted to step on me.”
“I wanted to step on your foot,” I correct, my cheeks flushing. How could he know that? If it’s not a coincidence, did I sense him thinking about my ‘stubbornness’?
No one in the tavern pays heed to us. We look more like intoxicated lovers than two people locked in a stand-off. Slowly, I retract my dagger until there’s an inch between it and his tunic. If he’s surprised, he didn’t mean for this to happen. Still, I need to know more.
“Tell me what that vow really did,” I order, dreading the answer.
“Exactly what I said. It bound our lives so that you can’t survive betraying me,” he answers, every word vibrating from his chest through mine.
“If I press my dagger in just a little, will I feel your pain?” I ask.
“No. It tethers our souls, not our bodies.”
“Then how did we sense each other’s emotions just now?”
His brows knit, and a flicker of his trepidation rocks through me.
It’s gone just as quickly as it appeared.
“I suppose it’s a side effect of the vow.
Fae magic is different from Gifts, often unpredictable.
There is a chance we’ll only feel each other when one of us has a strong emotion, or when we’re close in physical proximity. ”
Avoiding being close to him shouldn’t be difficult. No matter how handsome he is, he’s dangerous. I glare up at him. He’s hiding something about the vow from me. I’m sure of it.
“Maybe time will tell,” he adds, irritatingly enigmatic. “Your five questions have been answered, by the way.”
I finally step away and sheathe my dagger. “Room. Now. And if you try anything like that again—”
“You’ll what?” he asks. “Kill me?” Then he turns, leading the way toward the stairs.
I shiver, glad he didn’t see it, but I hope he couldn’t sense it, either.
A man stumbles between us, a tipsy, gleeful smile plastered to his face. “On your way to your room? Mind if I join? I pay well.” He fondles his coin purse, the marks clinking instead.
Revulsion flashes through me, hot and burning. “Back off,” I warn. Or I’ll punch him somewhere else he fondles.
The lecherous man ignores my warning and grabs my breasts. His nails sink into my skin. “Come on,” he whines. His breath reeks of mead. “You’re so pretty.”
Before I can even hiss a threat, Desmond wrenches the man off me and punches him. Blood flies from the man’s smashed nose. His eyes roll back as he crashes into the sticky floor. There are cuts in his cheeks from Desmond’s rings, and he doesn’t twitch, knocked out by the hit.
The tavern’s racket halts for three silent beats. It quickly resumes. No one cares about a stray punch in a seedy place like this.
“After you,” Desmond says, gesturing for me to step over him.
“I could’ve taken care of him.” And I’m shocked that he did for me.
Desmond watches me like I’m a rather interesting page in his book. “You shouldn’t have to.”
I don’t know how to feel about a fae prince protecting me from perverts. Flattered?
I walk around the drunkard, but Desmond steps on the man’s hand as he passes—the same hand that groped me. I hear cracks. Maybe I’ve pegged him wrong. Maybe there’s a touch of chivalry in him after all.
We walk up the creaking spiral stairs to a hall of bedrooms. Desmond dons a glove, unlocks his door, and gestures for me to enter first. “Iron door handle?” I ask him.
“You’re out of questions,” he says with a pointed raise of his brow.
“Gods,” I mutter. He’s insufferable. Yet if he can’t touch iron, it must mean that the rumor that it burns fae is true.
I enter and pause in shock. The room he’s renting is cozy but devoid of frivolities, a budget room. Why didn’t he choose a better one? He can clearly afford to.