13
Promises from a Monster
Melody
A shudder goes through me. He doesn’t say more, as though he knows I’ll run the second he does.
It’s an offer from my side. And he, for maybe the first time, is waiting for permission.
I wonder how much he can still feel from me—walls between us or not.
Then my ribs close in on my ridiculous heart at the sheer lunacy of what I’m about to do next.
Well, since I’m already here, I might as well do it now.
“I want you to promise me not to give an order or make any demand over the bond—ever,” I say. “Our bargain is off limits for you to call in over here. Say it, or I’m gone in an instant.”
“This—”
“No.” I cut him off. “Promise me, or I’m gone. And you’ll never get me back.” I’m dying. I don’t say that out loud. If what Aris said is true, Caryan knows anyway. “You want me back, so let’s figure something out.”
I did it. After all these months, I finally talked to him. My teeth sink into my lower lip as I wait. I swear I feel an echo of his fury, even through my walls, resonating in my body and mind. But, at last, he says, “I hereby promise.”
I don’t dare breathe. For a heartbeat, I’m stunned. But he agreed. He agreed , damn it.
Caryan, the most feared man in existence, agreed to a condition.
Well, to blackmail, to be exact, but who cares about the details, right?
But shit…okay, fae can’t lie, but no one can assure me he won’t use this bargain on me once he’s done.
I’d have to wring another promise from him before it comes to that.
But that’s a problem for future Melody. I’ve already pushed too far.
“Don’t you want to advance a proposal, little Melody?” he asks mockingly, cutting through my spiraling thoughts.
Right. I draw in a deep breath. Fuck. I really haven’t thought this through.
He wants me to find three relics—artifacts where high elves bound stolen magic to keep it hidden from the world.
Magic he wants for himself, and for me to find.
Magic that corrupts the soul of everyone who isn’t its rightful owner.
At least, that’s what Caryan told me the last time.
He also once told me that, thanks to my heritage as the last silver elf, I’d never be safe.
I would always be hunted or wanted until the end of my time.
He was my best shot at safety in the fae world.
He also once offered me a deal—my freedom —if I found those relics for him.
But freedom, according to Blair, could also be a nice euphemism for my death.
I glance at the strange runes on my left wrist next to his signet—the bargain I foolishly struck—all surrounded by swirls of black and gold ink.
Runes. Arcane, ancient magic from his body he gave me, binding a part of his power to mine, in an unspeakably painful process.
Runes my very mother, Ciellara, a mother I never knew, once inked into his flesh.
She’d been the last silver elf until I was born.
I force another breath into my lungs.
“I will find those relics for you,” I start.
“We already had that deal,” he growls. Hells, he’s terrifying, even with walls between us.
“Oh, shame. I guessed it was off the table. Never mind. Let’s just renew it. I will find three relics, and in exchange, I want my friends to be safe.”
He chuckles on the other side—a sound that makes goosebumps crawl all over my skin. “You do not wish to include yourself, my little girl?” he asks after a heartbeat.
Heat flushes up my neck and I grind my teeth against the pejorative way he calls me that. “And I won’t return to your palace,” I add, ignoring his jabby question.
“Interesting.”
“I won’t go back to being your slave, either,” I push, more ferociousness than is wise sharpening my words.
He just laughs again, as if any of this is funny. As if I’m a pet performing some trick he’s seen coming.
“And—I won’t be seeing you ,” I add. “In return, I will find them. Send your men to go with me. But promise me that I’m never going to see you.”
“So many conditions for a desperate girl.”
“Not too desperate to die,” I snap.
He suddenly snarls viciously, and I shudder. I know too well how he looks when he does that. Fucking terrifying.
But his tone turns aloof again: “What I mean is—can you assure me you’ll be successful this time? Because I remember how you failed abysmally the last time, and you would have died had I not saved you.”
I swallow.
He laughs, and it feels like a trap I’ve walked into willingly. “No answer? This sounds like a poor bargain for me,” he pushes.
“You want me alive,” I remind him, trying to convince myself too.
“I do? Maybe you overestimate my desire to keep you this way. I might just wait until you’re gone and, one day, come to eliminate your friends. Once you are long buried and forgotten.”
His words send a jolt of pain through my ribcage—the bond, I know. When he threatens to break it, it hurts.
“And give up finding the relics—or risk others finding them? I doubt that,” I snap back, ignoring my hammering heart. “You can send Riven once you’ve made your decision.”
“Oh yes, I can see why you’d like me to send him,” he retorts coolly. “The one who tampered with my belongings and let them run.”
Belongings. He’s referring to me. He knows Riven helped me escape.
Real fear makes my heart stutter. He wouldn’t hurt Riven, would he? Riven is his closest…friend. If Caryan has friends at all.
“Did you hurt him?” I ask before I can stop myself, and again, Caryan has the nerve to laugh. Oh hells, he baited me, and I swallowed.
“Tell me you didn’t!” I demand, but he just keeps laughing—quiet, velvety, ugly. I close my eyes and then, with a mere thought, I step through my wall and—
—am standing right in front of him.
Hells, I forgot how much his beauty hurts.
How he looks so otherworldly you want to fall to your knees and weep.
Hair and wings the shade of Cimmerian, deep and dark and consuming like the void.
Skin silky, milk-white with bluish veins; his body honed and angelic.
Everything about him is absurdly attractive. So much it’s terrifying.
His eyes widen in surprise. They’re all black now, blacker than I remember—irises blending into the rest. Midnight blue bleeds in, glowing faintly in the semi-darkness of our bond.
“Endearing, how all it takes to get you to crawl to me is to threaten the little love of yours,” he drawls, looking me over through lowered lashes, so long they almost touch his cheeks.
I jut my chin up. “I’m not crawling. I stepped through my wall. And I’m demanding that you tell me you didn’t hurt him.” King or no, immortal or no, I stare him down.
After a while, the corners of his cruel lips lift into the hint of a smile.
“Intrepid as ever, yet braver than any high-born fae would dare to be,” he muses, cocking his head like a predator.
“I admire that. I forgot how refreshing it is. Yet, I cannot say I did not hurt him, little Melody. But Riven is a grown man. He can take it…I suppose.”
My mouth goes dry. Riven loves Caryan. I know it. I saw it in his aura. But Riven also once said he’s not sure Caryan can love. And Riven was the one who helped me escape.
“What did you do to him?” I ask, my voice strangled.
Caryan only raises a brow. “Did?”
My blood feels iced over. “Stop it!”
He merely looks at me in that arrogant way, eyes slowly dripping over my body. “Are you suggesting to include him, too, in this pretty little bargain of yours? Then I might also suggest that you listen to my terms. Because it will cost you, my generosity.”
“Then, by all means, tell me.”
He licks one sharp fang, drawing blood as his tongue runs along it. It makes me remember how he sank them into me—how good that felt. His spreading smile says he remembers, too, and I fight the treacherous heat rising in me.
He knows.
“You claim you don’t wish to be my slave again, yet I see you came to enjoy at least some moments of that time.”
“That was before,” I say dryly, crossing my arms.
“Before,” he echoes. He comes for me, but I hold my ground. “Before I gifted you a shard of my magic.”
“You could have asked ,” I snap, ignoring the tendrils of his magic twining up my body and under my clothes—unasked, yet again, but as real as if he’s touching me with his bare hands.
“One does not ask his slave for permission, my little one. I should have taught you that better,” he drawls, catching my chin between his fingers. He laughs and straightens when I pull free, snarling. “And technically, you are still my slave. A runaway slave.”
The way he says it implies a bad punishment waiting for me.
“I’m tired. Tell me what you want and let’s get this over with, shall we?” I wave a hand and raise my brows at him as if I’m bored.
“I demand that you learn how to use those powers. You’re going to stay in Avandal and attend the university there.
You will train and master your magic. This is my condition.
So you won’t die on me the next time I send you out to find the artifacts.
In return, I shall agree to your other terms.” He leans down to me.
“Neither of your friends shall be harmed, as long as you fulfill your side.”
“And I’m not going to see you,” I add, not flinching as his breath ghosts over my lips.
“I remember that you quite enjoy the sight of me,” he counters, his voice suddenly deep and raw. This time I look down, unwilling to let the memories rise.
“So—do we have a deal, my little girl?” he teases, but his voice holds no warmth. Darkness presses up against him. Avandal. I’ve heard the name before but know nothing about it.
“I want to see Avandal first. And I want to talk to them.”
“To whom?” Caryan asks, annoyed.
“All of them. Riven included.”
“Of course,” he mocks. “You shall be granted this favor. I will send him once you tell me where you are.”
My head flies up. “If I do, you also have to swear you won’t just take me.”
His eyes shimmer like tar under moonlight. “If I wanted to just take you , I could have done so many times,” he drawls. Again, my body flushes under his slow look, his words. The insinuation.
“And neither will Riven,” I grind out, ignoring the ambiguity.
Caryan keeps looking at me. “Oh, I’m sure he could have taken you already too. If he truly wished to.”
That barb hurts.
“You know what I mean,” I snap. “No one can just grab me and deliver me up to you. Not you, not him, none of your lackeys. Not the next time, nor any others. Swear it.”
“I do not swear. To no one. But I agree, if we find ourselves having a deal, little Melody. If not, I’m under no obligation. I can hunt you down like an animal.”
“If we don’t, you have to give me three days’ head start,” I say, ignoring the cruel look he gives me at the last word. Animal.
“One.”
“Two.”
He clicks his tongue. “Two it is. Tell me where to find you, and I’ll send your…heartthrob to fetch you.” He turns, looking at me over a muscled shoulder, spreading his wings a little.
I take one more moment—one that will decide the rest of my life—before I say, “We’re in an inn. In Phoenix, Arizona. The Skyranch Inn.”
I flinch as his black magic comes for me, formed like a large, crescent blade ready to cut me in half.
My heart tries to jump out of my chest. My last thought is that he changed his mind and decided to kill me.
I close my eyes, waiting for the pain and imminent death—but all that happens is that I come to on my side of the bridge, safely back behind my wall.
My heart still races. I still tremble when I open my eyes in real life and find familiar golden ones boring into mine.