Page 4 of The Bartered Soul

* * *

When the door clicks shut behind me, I struggle again in earnest to escape Jacob’s grasp. “If he releases you, will you promise to control yourself?” Celeste asks me. “I don’t need you ruining my hair or dress. The night is still young.”

My breathing is still ragged as anger courses under my skin, but I give a small nod. Jacob releases me immediately at Celeste’s indication and ensures I am steady on my feet before looking to the Madame for a dismissal. Simultaneously, she waves him away and flicks her hand towards the chair in front of me. Although I’m practically vibrating with rage, I know emotions will not win me anything tonight. They haven’t in the past.

“Celeste…” I manage to say through clenched teeth, “What have you done? What about my choices?” I demand, trying to rein in my anger. Reminding her of our agreement — that I am not chattel to be sold to the highest bidder.

“Andromeda, be reasonable. You aren’t some virginal innocent being sent to sacrifice. The Captain’s fee is so handsome you wouldn’t have been able to resist the offer if I had given you the choice.” Celeste dismisses me as if she doesn’t understand that the choice itself is more important to me than the money.

“They don’t come back, Celeste,” I whisper, fear finally seeping through me and coating my words. “They never come back.”

“Don’t be silly — a few have come back, Andromeda. There’s one at the House of Graces down the row.” I know the girl Celeste mentions as she waves her hand dismissively. She acts as a laundress for the pleasure house a few doors down, but no one has heard her speak since she returned from losing her maidenhead for entertainment on one of the Captain’s voyages. No one knows what happened to her, but it doesn’t take much imagination to assume the worst.

Celeste is right: I am no innocent virgin, but the hatred I feel toward the Captain isn’t because he exercises the baser needs of humanity by purchasing women’s bodies for pleasure. It’s because he is known to snap up any of the young girls who have just reached womanhood before their first customers get to them.

Whenever he docks, the brothels know they will have a visit from Captain Lennox shopping for the latest virgin to entertain his crew. The girls know if they step foot on the deck of his ship, they will not return to the city in one piece, if at all. No one is sure if he sells them off at the next port, or if they ever make it to their destination.

“I won’t go. Give him the money back.”

“Oh, you won’t? How will you manage that exactly?” Celeste asks, glancing down at the metal on my wrist. In my fear and fury, I forgot about the cold bite of the bracelet that now hangs from my slender wrist.

I look more closely at the gold band and note that, although it is a delicate piece, it is screwed on securely. Too small to slide over my hand, but not so tight that it’s painful. The surface is engraved with various designs representing the sea — waves, reaching tentacles of a Kraken. But in the center, it’s clearly marked — Bartered Soul.

His ship. I am now marked as his.

There will be no escape from the city if any of the dockworkers or sentries manning the gates see this on me. I would have to cut my hand off and risk bleeding to death to get it off.

“Here.” Celeste passes me a glass of honey-colored whiskey. “Drink this.”

I grimace at the liquor, but decide to give up my carefully crafted exterior for one moment and swallow the burning liquid in one gulp. It heats my throat and chest immediately and tendrils of fire tickle my senses, ready to numb them entirely with another glass.

“You’ll be free, Andromeda.” Her voice takes on a wistful tone that catches my attention.

“The amount of money he has offered to pay for your services is more than you could make in several years. You are here of your own accord. Once you make it back, you can leave. Start your own pleasure house, run away from this city. Hell, run away from Selennia altogether.”

I look up into Celeste’s eyes, and they are gentle for the first time since I stumbled onto her doorstep years ago.

“And you can be there for Lyra,” she whispers, clutching my hand. I still and appraise Celeste, the fear and pride warring in her eyes.

So the girl that will be accompanying me is Lyra, her own daughter.

“How could you?” I snatch my hand away, looking at Celeste as if she is the sea monster, not Captain Lennox.

“She will command enough to escape this life, too. He promised it will be just one time and then he will give her the fee she is due. Please, Andromeda.” Her last words are a plea.

Celeste’s reasoning makes painful sense. A woman has few choices without a husband or money in our world. The bastard daughter of a whore, even if she is the Madame of an expensive brothel, won’t command either of those options easily. This could be the way for the girl to buy her freedom from the legacy of her mother. If we both survive the voyage.

“Fine,” I sigh, holding my glass out for another shot of oblivion. “I’ll go. I’ll keep watch over Lyra. Without a fight.”

Chapter 3

The following few days become a blur of flesh and wine as I allow myself to wallow in my misery — the first time I have done so since I first arrived at the House years ago. My usual standards for who I allow into my bed slip so that I only care that they are relatively handsome and clean, and I drink far more than my typical glass of sparkling wine per evening. Anything to distract me from the fact I will be sailing any day now from the relative safety I found at the House of Starlight.

The only standard I cling to is my choice in dark swaths of fabric instead of the bright colors the other girls wear, and I slide into an obsidian silk slip of a dress when a light tapping interrupts my thoughts.

This early in the evening, I have yet to depart my sparse quarters for the opulence of the salon. I wince as the nervous tapping at my door sounds again, echoing in my pounding head.

Tonight I will not drink anything, I tell myself rubbing my temples.

---