Rhapsodic (The Bargainer Book 1)

“Why don’t you take me with you?” I ask.

The Bargainer and I sit inside Douglas Café, the warm light illuminating our surroundings. Outside it’s begun to snow.

Des leans back in his seat, stirring his coffee idly. “To collect payment from my clients?” he raises his eyebrows. “Not going to happen.”

“Why not?” I ask. Or I try to ask—it comes out more like a whine. I have to stifle a wince. The last thing I want is for him to think I’m immature.

“Cherub, have you ever considered the possibility that there are things about me I don’t want you to see?”

“I’m not innocent, Des,” I say. “I already know what you do.” I’d seen it firsthand the first time I called on him. “Add a bead. Let me come along.”

He leans forward, jostling the table as he does so. “You foolish girl,” he growls as I reach forward and steady my cup. “Those beads aren’t a joke.”

“If you’re so against them, then stop handing them out like candy.” I know my words will just bait him, but part of me—the wilder, cursed part—wants to see Des lose control.

Des’s face sharpens. “You want to know what my favors will eventually cost you? Fine. I’ll show you. Maybe then you’ll stay far away.” He downs the rest of his coffee and stands, his chair screeching behind him as he does so.

Wait? We’re doing this now?

When I don’t immediately get out of my seat, he waves his hand.

My chair begins to tilt, forcing me to stand. Around us no one notices.

I barely have time to grab my coat and the last of my macaroons before he takes my hand and drags me out of there.

Outside, snow catches in my hair as we head down the street. Almost immediately the cold seeps into my clothes. Perhaps this was a bad idea.

Shadows of Des’s making curl around us like smoke.

He doesn’t speak to me the entire walk back to Douglas Cemetery, where the closest entrance to the ley lines is.

Ley lines are essentially supernatural highways. Across the world there are certain wrinkles and tears in the fabric of our world, which are entry points, or portals, onto these ley lines. From there, if you were a certain type of creature—say a fairy or demon—who knew how to manipulate these ley lines, you could move through worlds and between worlds. That last bit is precisely how Des could be a king in the Otherworld, then come to Earth and bargain with mortals.

When we get to a particularly old section of the cemetery, the headstones so old and weathered most of the names and dates have been worn away, he pulls me close, his jaw clenched. His stormy eyes stare down at me. “Don’t make me regret this.”

Before I have a chance to say anything, our surroundings disappear. A moment later buildings and canals replace tombstones.

I stare around us with wonder. “Venice,” I breathe.

I always wanted to visit. And at the snap of the Bargainer’s fingers, we were here.

Perks of being friends with a fae king.

“Stay close,” he warns.

“It’s not like I’m going anywhere,” I mumble, trailing after him. He practically had my hand in a chokehold.

The two of us wind through back alleys, and I wrinkle my nose at the smell of sewage. When we get to a small, weather-worn door, Des stops.

I glance over at him. His jaw’s clenched, his silver eyes icy.

Still pissed.

Moody fairy. It’s not like he had to take me. He’s a king for Christ’s sake; I’m sure no is the first word in his vocabulary.

I hear a lock tumble, pulling me out of my thoughts, and then the door in front of us swings open of its own accord.

Beyond it is a dark hallway. Exactly the kind of place you don’t visit if you want to stay out of trouble. Which I guess is why the Bargainer’s decided to come here.

Des steps into the hallway, pulling me in after him. Behind us, the door clicks shut.

“Well, this is cozy,” I say.

“Ssshhh, cherub,” he says, “and while we’re on the subject, try not to talk.”

I stick my tongue at him.

“I saw that,” he says, not turning around.

Eyes at the back of his head, this one.

We move deep inside the building, heading down a flight of stairs until we come to a dimly lit area that is really nothing more than a grid of pylons, cement walkways, and large, barrel-like buoys. And between the walkways and beneath the buoys is water.

Lots and lots of water.

Venice is sinking, I remember.

A slick-looking man with receding hair and a huge paunch steps out from the shadows.

“I called you an hour ago,” he says, his Scandinavian accent thick. He flicks the Bargainer’s business card out of his hand.

Des watches it hit the ground. “I’m not your lapdog,” Des says. “Don’t like my methods, call someone else.”

The Bargainer makes his clients wait? I sort of got the impression that he was as prompt with everyone else as he was with me.

Now I feel like a special snowflake.

The man jerks his chin to me “Who’s the girl?” he asks.

“Doesn’t fucking matter. Don’t look at her,” the Bargainer says.

But the man can’t help himself. I’m a siren, I’m made to be distracting. His eyes move over me, his expression turning hungry.

Next to me, I feel the air begin to vibrate with Des’s power. Darkness begins to creep in the corners of the room. I don’t need to look at him to know that he’s tense.

“Listen to what the Bargainer tells you,” I say to the man, putting power into my voice.

Reluctantly, his eyes leave me.

And now I feel like I need to wash my skin. Ugh, the guy is old enough to be my dad.

“What you want?” Des asks, crossing his arms.

“I want my daughter to get into the Royal Academy of Arts.”

A.k.a., the supernatural equivalent of Juilliard. It’s a performing arts school that caters to students with special abilities.

The Bargainer whistles. “Last I heard, almost all the slots for next year’s incoming class were full. I’d have to pull a lot strings …”

“You know I’m good for it,” the man says.

I hear the gentle lap of water as it brushes against the buoys and the walkways down here.

“And what will you give me?” the Bargainer asks.

The man clears his throat. “I have information on a series of ley line entrances that the House of Keys is considering destroying.”

The House of Keys is the supernatural world’s government. It didn’t matter if you were American or Argentinian or Australian, so long as you were a supernatural, you had to follow their laws first and foremost.

“Mmm,” the Bargainer says, “I need you to do better than that if you want the deal. I need you to prevent that legislation from getting passed in the first place.”

“There’s no way,” the man says. “It’s public sentiment. People are worried about their homes, their neighborhoods. There’s been a rise in the changeling population—”

“Best of luck with your daughter’s future.” The Bargainer places a hand on my back and begins to steer us out of there.

I guess shutting a bargain down is as simple as that.

Behind us, the man blubbers out some more excuses and explanations.

We’re almost to the stairway when we hear it.

“Wait—wait! Fine, I’ll do it.”

I cast a side glance at Des. A nefarious smile spreads across his face.

“Then we have a deal,” the Bargainer says, not bothering to look over his shoulder. “Make sure that legislation doesn’t pass. It would be a shame if your daughter didn’t get in to any of the schools she applied for.”

And with that, the two of us leave.

Back out on the streets of Venice, I reappraise Des. “That was pretty cold,” I say as we begin to walk, my boots clicking against the cobblestones.

“That was business, cherub. If you want to come along with me, you better get used to it—and worse.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a bad dude.”

He nods to my bracelet. “One day you’ll have to pay all those back. Are you scared now?”

A little.

But when I look in Desmond’s eyes, I get the distinct impression that he doesn’t want me to be scared. That despite trying to frighten me, he doesn’t want to push me away.

I guess that makes two of us.

“I would be if you weren’t wearing your hair in a girly little ponytail,” I say, reaching for the ends of his white hair.

He catches my hand. “It’s not good manners to taunt a fairy. We have notoriously thin skin.” Despite the threat, his eyes spark with excitement.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “your ponytail is very masculine. I feel like I’m going to grow a beard just looking at it”

“Mouthy thing,” he says endearingly.

We walk along the Grand Canal, passing tourists as we go. I watch boats move down the canal. Looking out over it are gift shops and restaurants, their warm light spilling out onto the streets.

Venice. It’s even more wonderful than what I imagined it would be like.

“Before we go, can we take a gondola ride?” I ask.

The Bargainer’s upper lips curl when he sees one such boat pass by us. “Why would I ever—?”

“And can we swing by one of those gift shops so I can get a mask?”

I’d also like some gelato—and perhaps a blown glass bottle—but I won’t push my luck too far.

He groans. “Haven’t you ever heard the expression ‘Don’t mix business with pleasure’?”

A sly smile spreads across my face. “Aww, are you suggesting I’m pleasure?” My heart is thumping way too loud.

He frowns severely at me. “I’m definitely rubbing off on you.”

He really is.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun,” I say, grabbing his hand and tugging him towards a little area along the canal where several gondolas wait.

Behind me the Bargainer says, “I’ll only agree to this if you do me one favor—”

Me do him a favor? “Yeah, anything.”

“Please give me my balls back at the end of the evening.”

Present

Even after we land in front of Des’s home and Eli is a whole body of water away from us, the Bargainer doesn’t immediately release me. Instead, his claw-tipped wings brush against my hair as they wrap around us protectively.

“Des?”

His wings twitch.

He lets out a shuddering sigh. “I kept thinking that something was going to happen to you,” he whispers, his voice hoarse. “I kept seeing that animal turning on you. I feared I wouldn’t get to you in time.” His entire body trembles.

Right now I feel oddly vulnerable with him. Maybe it’s the raw honesty in his words; Des has always been careful to bury his feelings under wit and wiliness. Maybe it’s that I felt that same fear when I saw Eli lunging for him. And maybe it’s simply being held in his arms after choosing this life, and not the one I left back at my house.

I lean my forehead against his, placing my hand against his cheek. “Thank you for coming for me,” I say.

I fear what would’ve happened if he hadn’t.

“Cherub,” he says, his voice serious, “I will always come for you.”

We stay like that for another minute, unmoving. It’s actually kind of nice under these wings of his, but eventually I get antsy to put my own two feet back on the ground.

“Des,” I say, “you can put me down.”

Reluctantly, he releases my legs, letting me stand, but he keeps my upper half still caught up in his arms. His wings pull back, but they won’t fold nicely behind him. Instead, they keep spreading and retracting, spreading and retracting, looking agitating.

“He visited you during one of the Sacred Seven,” Des says. “He thought of you as his mate, and he knowingly put you in danger.” Now his wings billow out around him, flapping angrily, those talons of his looking particularly sharp. Des releases me. “He is no true mate if he thought to do that.”

Des is right of course, but I’m not even thinking about me at the moment. All I can see when I close my eyes is Eli charging at Des. He would’ve killed him.

And then another thought strikes me.

“Oh God,” I say quietly. “We left a fully shifted werewolf in a residential neighborhood.”

“I already contained him; he can’t venture beyond your property for the night. Hopefully by morning he’ll have gotten control of himself.” Des looks at me apologetically. “I’m sorry about your house.”

I’m just relieved he can’t hurt anyone else for the moment.

And then another horrifying thought hits me.

I won’t be able to go back home tonight.

Not unless I want to chance another encounter with an angry werewolf.

I rub my face. I glamoured and then spurned an alpha werewolf.

Once he was back in his right frame of mind, he could put out a warrant for my arrest. Even if he decided not to press charges, he’d do something to punish me for glamouring him, spurning him, humiliating him. The alpha in him would demand nothing less.

He knows exactly where I live, and earlier he made it more than clear that a locked door wouldn’t stop him from entering.

Tonight I can’t go back, but could I go back tomorrow? Or the next night? Or the next? Would I feel safe knowing how easily he broke in and how quickly he shifted?

Des’s eyes are sad. “Cherub, my home is your home,” he says, reading my thoughts, “for as long as you need it.”

I look over my shoulder, at the sprawling house behind me. All that furniture Des had me purchase, it had all been to furnish a single guestroom in his house.

A room I’d now likely stay in.

And when he confronted Eli, Des hadn’t acted surprised or confused by any of what happened back at my home. And the only reason for that would be …

I swivel back to him. “You knew,” I say, remembering how he taunted my ex earlier. “You kissed me that first night knowing I was with Eli.”

My anger’s rising.

The Bargainer knows my heart; he knew I’d never settle for being romantic with two men at once. All he had to do was plant the seed—brush a chaste kiss along my lips and suggest that he and I would be intimate. Easier than snapping his fingers, I’d broken up with Eli.

And now there’s a room in Des’s home just waiting for me.

I feel like a fly caught in the Bargainer’s web. I’m playing right into his hand.

I went from a controlling man to a scheming one.

Des’s jaw tightens. “Callie—”

“Do you do this for all your clients? Force them to break ties with their boyfriends? Furnish a room in your house just for them?”

He steps up to me, his eyes bright with life. “I’m not doing this with you. Not tonight.”

“No, you won’t, will you?” I challenge. There’s fire in my veins, fire that’s been building from the moment Des reentered my life. “You’ll just run like you always do.”

He catches my face. “Does it look like I’m running, Callie? Does it look like I’m trying to leave your side?”

“But you will,” I say fervently.

How did this conversation become me airing my own insecurities?

“You want to speak truths,” he says hotly, “here’s one for you: this isn’t about the dog, this is about us.”

“Will you stop calling Eli that?” I say.

The Bargainer releases my face and squints down at me. “You defend him even now?”

“He still means something to me.” And I hurt him. Deeply.

A muscle in Des’s cheek feathers.

The Bargainer steps in close, his lips curling up in a sardonic smile. “You have over three hundred favors to repay me. By the time we’re done, you will realize that Eli and all those other men were just a dissatisfying dream. That this, and only this, is real.”