Page 48 of Bloody Bargain
Gamil got to their feet with a groan, holding the wound in their shoulder. I glanced at it with concern, ignoring my brother’s old scars and the faded cut of hate we’d shared in the past. My dagger still sang with his blood and would for centuries to come. But…
“A fork?” I asked, nodding to the wound. “It has no stench of iron in it.”
Gamil stretched their neck. “Iron? No, thank Mother. No, no. It wasniccolum.Ah, nickel.”
I blinked at them and they grinned, raising their eyebrows at the dagger. “It is a fitting bride price, is it not? For the woman that gave us a mortal wound with a fork?”
I glanced down at the dagger with unease. How had my beloved been able to wound a god? Fallen or not, it should have been impossible.
They held out their hand, motioning to the dagger. “We will present it to her ourselves.”
“If I refuse to return it?” I asked, glancing at their shoulder and how they favored it. It was not that mine Tessa was stronger than other mortals, but that Gamil was weakened. Mere nickel would leave a scar upon their flesh? Even as they morphed into my brother, I could see the imperfection.
“We are not mortal yet, D’abeloloa,” Gamil warned in an uncharacteristically stoic tone. “We will turn it to dust if you refuse.”
I forfeited the blade with hesitation. Gamil did not lie. They reveled in the chaos that blunt truths wreaked. The dagger slipped from my hand to theirs with slow acceptance.
“If you do not deliver it to her,” I warned, gripping the blade until it cut my palm. Black webs of ironbane creeped through my veins as I held the god in my stare. “I will ensure that you suffer, Gamil.”
They held the knife between their palms and collapsed it into nothing. My heart stuttered as it disappeared, concerned I’d made the wrong choice. Gamil clasped my palm and the iron seeped from my flesh, dripping in metallic beads to the ground. The wound healed, as hot as molten glass.
“Remember what you said.” Gamil grinned, squeezing my palm. It was unnerving to see such an expression on my brother’s face. “And enjoy her while you can. My children will come soon. If you are good to her…” They stuffed my brother’s hands in a pair of sleek pants. “Maybe she’ll protect you.”
19
An eerie green morning on Pen Llyn stretched out behind me as I stared down at an old paint-stripped rowboat on the beach before sleepy Porthdinllaen.
This is where D’abel had pulled me to.
A quaint little beach village nestled against the peninsula’s cliffs, brimming with old British money in that way that felt lived in and worn down as if by design. The grass was thick and dark green, the sand was clean, and the black silhouettes of dozens of small boats dotted the silent bay.
It had been two days since the ALDI, and the fork was still crushed in my palm. I hadn’t let go of it unless I’d needed to climb an embankment or drop my pants to pee. What’s worse, I’d run out of food the day before. I didn’t feel hungry, but I knew I should. So I’d get my courage up to approach another corner store or grocer, then stare through the windows without the guts to go inside.
My track record with markets had been shit the last couple weeks.
But that wasn’t the only thing that kept me away from the larger villages. It was the long-appraising looks, the knowing squints, the aggressive smiles. Every set of eyes I connected with made my skin crawl in a profound way. A violent way.
If I’d had a knife, I might have…
But there was no sense of love, lust, or safety that came with those homely, sinister faces of passersby. I didn’t feel the telltale warmth, the buttery flutters in my heart, that euphoria that made me want to fall into a fiend’s thrall. My sense for that had gone mute.
Maybe they were all fiends…
There was no chance. The most likely answer was that I was losing my senses, sliding down that slippery slope at greater and greater speed. The inevitable mistake was closer at hand than ever, and I could only thank the void demon from ALDI that I didn’t have a real weapon with me.
Even if I did brave the streets and shoppes, I wouldn’t have been able to stay long, though.
D’abel came to me as often as the rain. When the lightning crashed atop Mount Snowdon, I stripped bare of my own free will. The friction of my jeans against my groin drove me wild throughout the endless hike so that the moment I laid down in the nearest creek and spread my legs open, I was moaning angry threats at my b’adruokh for disappearing on me.
Maybe he heard me, or maybe he didn’t. But his water and blood always found me and filled me to bursting. I’d run out of food, but my belly felt full thanks to him. And besides, my appetite was changing.
A few pollock bobbed in tandem beneath the dark water and I swallowed hard, imagining their scaly hides tearing within my teeth.
I ripped my eyes away and trudged down the sandy trails to the beach.
The door chimed as I walked into the front of a dark pub with white siding and a red facade out towards the water. The door was heavy with rusted hinges that complained as I pushed it open wiping my boots on the mat.
“Bore da.Fancy something warm, love? Looks like you could use it, soaked right through you are!”
