Page 107 of A Bargain with the Fae King

It should hurt. I don’t feel the pain. I can’t feel anything over the agony of my heart ripping in two. Not just ripping, shredding bit by bit, until nothing but ribbons of torn, bleeding flesh remain inside me.

He said his land was in trouble. Dying. The Unseelie were a threat.

Truth. But not all of it.

How had I been so stupid, so naïve?

I remember that day so clearly now, standing in that hated ballroom amid strange fae who stared at me in wonder…and greed and lust.

I didn’t take your sister.No, damn it, he hadn’t, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have her taken. He’d lied without lying. Fae can’t lie with their words, but they can deceive. They can deceive so horribly.

Another memory flashes through my mind, one I didn’t understand at the time.

You’ve made a mistake dealing falsely with us, Forest King.Katiya’s words.

He stole my sister. He played it off as some random raid when, really, he’d paid Unseelie to do it and then tried to kill them all.

And I’d played right into his hands. Every step I’d taken was one that he’d planned for me to take. He led me into this world, into his bed.

I can still feel him between my legs, his hands on my body, the scent of him in my nose.

I gag, choking down the bile that climbs up my throat. My hair falls about me in a cascade as I hunch on my hands and knees. Tears run unchecked down my face now, dripping onto my hands while my fingertips dig into the paving stones below me.

Sigurd kneels on the ground next to me and pulls my hair back from my face, like a friend holding my hair back after I’d had too much to drink at a college party. But this is no party, and Sigurd is no friend.

“Poor, dear, Lia,” he croons, accenting each word.

“I am not your dear,” I retort around gulps of air.

“No, you wouldn’t have ended up like this if you were.” He tilts my face toward him, still holding my hair back. “Do you still trust him to save your sister, knowing that he had her taken in the first place?” His face has lost its harshness. Instead, he’s solemn.

We have a bargain. He promised. But…

“No.” The word tears from my lips as a sob.

“I could save your sister for you.” His thumb wipes a streak through my falling tears. “Give me the key, and I’ll give you your sister. I’ll even return you to your world if you so choose.”

“I made a magical bargain to stay.”

“The key you found is more than it appears. Its power could break your bargain. Set you free.”

A glimmer of something—hope?—sparks inside my ruined heart. “How?”

“Give me the key first.”

“I don’t have it.”

“But I’d bet you can get it. Return here with it before sunset if you want my help.” His hand caresses my face. “I need to leave. Now. But I’ll send someone to bring you to me.”

His spy?

“Why help me?”

Sigurd cocks his head to the side in a truly alien movement. He opens his mouth, as if to speak but halts. A half-smile paints his features. “Your guards come for you. I’ll see you soon.”

“Lia!”

“What’s happened? Are you all right?”

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