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“No, you aren’t,” he said. He swallowed, and I watched his throat slide, watched that hint of shadow on his jaw tense and release, watched his tongue lick the juice lingering on his lower lip. “We need to discuss the terms of our arrangement.”
“There is no arrangement.” My heart pounded in my chest, beating faster and harder until I felt it everywhere. I steadied myself, but when I tried to turn away, I couldn’t. My feet might as well have been encased in concrete. The tingle on the back of my neck returned, sharpening to a sting as though an invisible hook had caught me. My breath sped into shallow pants that heaved with my speeding heart. “What is happening? What have you done?”
“You made a bargain.” Darkness glittered in his eyes as he watched me strain, trapped like a butterfly caught in a spiderweb. “Your soul for his—and now, you are mine.”
Then, he snapped his fingers.
Chapter Four
I didn’t have time to panic as a tapestry of colors wove around me, shimmering rainbow strands glinting with an edge of gold. I tried to scream, tried to move, tried to do anything, but I couldn’t. My stomach dropped like a trapdoor, my arms splaying to catch my fall while the whole world transformed around me, and when its threads knit together once more, I was no longer standing in front of Gage’s desk. I was standing in a garden.
It was not a well-kept garden, tended and orderly, or the polished halls of the Avalon. This was more like wandering into the Garden of Eden. Plants with large, fernlike leaves as tall as me grew in wild clumps around the bases of enormous willow trees. Their branches wept overhead, sunlight breaking through and falling in dappled patches over a plush blanket of grass. Vines covered with exotic crimson blooms as large as my hand snaked around the trunks of the trees. The air was humid but not suffocating, and the wind carried the herbal scent of flowers. Their perfume filled my lungs as I sucked in a deep breath—
Something jolted me out of my shocked state. This time, my legs moved, and I stumbled.
Or, rather, nearly fell on my ass.
A strong arm caught me, and I looked up to find Gage assessing me. I clutched him until the world felt solid beneath my feet again, until my head stopped spinning. But when it did, I opened my mouth to demand answers only to find myself once again shocked into silence as he transformed before me.
He was even more beautiful now, so beautiful that it almost physically hurt to look at him. New tattoos swirled into place, only to blink away again without settling onto his skin. His shoulders were broader, his cotton dress shirt barely containing them, and I swore he was a few inches taller. Except that would be impossible, right? His green eyes sparked with feral amusement as I gawked at him. And as I watched, his ears sloped into long, elegant points.
At that final transformation, I jerked out of his hold, needing to put as much distance between us as I could. “What are you?” I gasped, my eyes skittering around me but never quite letting him out of my sight. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the Otherworld.”
“The? Other? World?” I repeated haltingly, as if breaking the words apart might help it make sense. It didn’t.
“My world,” he clarified. “Although I suppose it’s your world now.”
His…world? No. I was hallucinating. Had to be. Because this wasn’t happening. Things like this did not happen.
I gulped down the fear that shot into my throat and scanned his muscular body, his pointed ears. What was he? I resisted the urge to reach out and touch those ears, even if it would prove I wasn’t hallucinating. Nothing good could come from touching him. I didn’t really care what he was or where we were. I only cared about one thing. I planted my hands on my hips and forced myself to sound more defiant than I felt. “Take me back.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
“Make it possible,” I demanded.
“You made a bargain, or did you already forget?”
Wicked delight danced in Gage’s jade-green eyes. He was a cat playing with a mouse. Any minute now, he would pounce.
The thought slashed a white-hot line through me. More magic or whatever trickery this was. I clamped down on the heat it produced, determined to channel it into something useful: anger. I could use it to keep moving forward, keep focusing on getting out of this situation. “I didn’t—”
“I asked you what you would give for your brother’s life,” he reminded me. “You agreed to give yours.”
Yes. I had. But I hadn’t known what, exactly, he meant—or who I was dealing with. I still didn’t know. “Okay, but I never agreed to this. Who goes around actually collecting souls as collateral?”
He waved that off. “I asked you three times,” he said as if this fact alone sealed my fate. “You exchanged your life for your brother’s.” He paused and regarded me with lethal quiet. “Do you regret your choice?”
Yes. But also no, because I’d saved Channing. I bit down to keep my lip from trembling, to hold back tears that might douse that flame fueling me. Something told me not to show this man—or whatever he was—weakness.
“I can see you do.” His shapely lips pressed into a line, but then he shrugged, his corded biceps straining against his shirtsleeves. “Unfortunately for you, it’s nearly impossible to break a fae bargain.”
My thoughts snagged on nearly. It took a minute to process the rest.
“F-f-fae?” I tripped over the word. Wrapping my arms around my middle, I stroked my ring with my thumb. I couldn’t fall apart. Not now. Not here. “Like cute little garden pixies with wings? Is that what you are?”
His upper lip curled to reveal his sharp teeth, a guttural snarl rumbling from him. Fear flooded through me, and Gage’s nostrils flared. My arms tightened as if I could physically hold myself together.