Page 93 of Caging Darling

Choose me over him.

Astor reaches out with his right hand and strokes my cheek with his thumb, his skin tracing fire over my Mating Mark. He’s trembling. “Does this have anything to do with that?”

And then I remember.

I never told Astor about the bargain. I’d assumed he’d known. My mind has always placed him in my parents’ clock tower the night I struck the bargain with Peter. But, now that I replay the event, I realize the bargain was struck before Astor climbed up to the landing platform.

Even the bargain itself is difficult to see, tucked away in the crook of my elbow, most of the time covered by my sleeves or gloves, the rest of the time probably hidden by the way I often hug my torso.

My obsession with Peter, Astor still attributes to my Mating Mark.

I shouldn’t let myself be disappointed by this revelation.

When I don’t answer, he glances at my Mating Mark again running his thumb over it one more time. “I came here to apologize to you.”

“Well, it’s gone swimmingly so far,” I say.

He glances up at me. Opens his mouth. “I?—”

“I don’t care,” I say.

“Darling.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t need your apology. Don’t you get it? I’m with Peter now. I don’t care.”

It’s the furthest thing from the truth, but it’s what Peter’s bargain wants me to say, and I’m too angry with Astor to fight it. This wasn’t supposed to be how we were reunited. This wasn’t how his apology was supposed to go. In my mind, Astor is the same person who picked up my lost engagement ring. The man who dropped to his knee before me. But all of that was a show. A carefully devised plan to supplant Peter in my mind, an easy way to manipulate me into thinking Astor knows me better.

That’s the most agonizingly painful part—he does, and he uses that knowledge for nothing other than to destroy me.

“Please, just get out,” I say. “I’m already going to have to see you often enough as it is until this bargain with the Nomad sees itself through.”

“Are you happy?” he asks. “With him?”

His eyes trace my Mating Mark, as if that’s what makes me Peter’s slave forever.

“Happier than I’ve ever been in my life,” I say.

He pauses. “And if it’s not real?”

I stare at him. “Since when has a moment of happiness in my life been real?”

Astor tilts his head just slightly, almost but failing to hide his wince. With a deep breath, he releases my arm. It falls back to my side, limp.

“Is that why you didn’t tell Peter about your bargain with the Nomad?” says Astor.

My heart stops.

“You once told me you wake up every morning disappointed. Regretful that you didn’t simply die in your sleep, that you have to face another day.”

“Is that a question?” I say, my mouth going dry.

“Darling, why don’t you value your own life?”

“Because you do?” Sarcasm bleeds from my lips.

His throat bobs, the stubble at his jaw unshaven. “Answer my question. Were you trying to wait out the bargain until it killed you?”

When I don’t answer, he turns and slams his fist against the post of the Nomad’s bed. It cracks behind me. “Why don’t you value your own life? Why do you insist on not fighting?”

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