by Ella M. Lee
“Ari, open your eyes,” Ren said.
“No way.”
“Trust me.”
I bit back a cruel remark and opened my eyes a crack. We were really high up. The navy-blue sky was almost completely faded to black, and the dark forest below us sprawled for miles. In the distance, I could see the lights of cities and towns.
Ren spiraled us higher as I looked around, distracted from my fear by the view.
“Will you stop spinning us around?” I asked.
“It’s the only way I can climb,” he said, his voice barely audible over the wind.
“You don’t have to do that, really,” I said.
“But the view is even better from higher,” he said plaintively. “And don’t you want to fly into that cloud?” He nodded at a puffy cumulus cloud nearby.
“No!” I said. “Can your feathers even get wet? I don’t want to die.”
He laughed and put his mouth close to my ear. “You seem to forget I’ve done this my whole life. Yes, my wings can get wet. No, you will not die.”
He angled to the left, his strong wings pounding at the air around us. I studied them over his shoulder, sure I’d never seen a more beautiful sight.
Without warning, we plunged into the cloud. If I’d thought it was dark before, that was nothing to the blackness laid out before me. It was like I’d gone blind. Cool mist buffeted my cheeks, and I buried my face in Ren’s neck.
I was freezing, but my fear was melting away in the face of Ren’s competence, and I didn’t know when I’d ever have a chance to fly in the arms of a winged demon again.
Ren spiraled us back out into the clear part of night sky, and I drank in the sights for another two or three minutes before he angled us downward.
Regardless of how much fun that had been, relief flooded me when my feet touched the ground. I was so dizzy and unsteady from flying that I stumbled and fell to my knees. Ren dropped down in front of me.
“Ari?” he asked.
He was blurry in my sight. “Yeah?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think. That was cool. Terrifying, but cool.” As if to provide evidence, I started shaking, my body finally catching up with the sheer madness of flying.
Ren crept closer. In the dark, I could see nothing except his outline and the expanse of his black wings, vertigo-inducing in their own way. My eyes closed, and I felt myself begin to slip sideways, spots of red pulsing behind my eyelids.
Ren’s hands caught me, and he collected me closer to him, holding me awkwardly in his embrace like he had no idea what to do with me.
He reached for my right hand, hesitantly bringing it high over his shoulder and placing it on the flat panel of one of his dark wings.
My breath caught. I opened my eyes, staring at the contrast of my pale skin against his inky feathers.
He kept his hand over my wrist, pressing it down, tense and quivering, ready to rip it away if I made a wrong move.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“You gave me your trust just now,” he said. “This is my trade.”
Trust for trust.
I shook my head. “You keep forgetting that you don’t need to make trades. You can just take what you want.”
“I’m not built that way. Nothing is free in my world, and nothing is to be taken for granted. It is too unpredictable. Trades are the only way to guarantee security and follow through.”
“Is that why you want to trade with me rather than to bind me to your will?” I asked, choking on the last word.
He tilted his head back and forth. “Will-binding is…tricky. It requires effort, control, active monitoring, very specific instructions, and strong fortitude on both sides. It can be painful and devastating. At the end of it, you may not have a mind at all, depending on the strength, length, and type of control. It is a last resort. It is not ideal, because doing what I require of you would work best if you could use your own knowledge—and mine—to command the situation.”
“But you would do it, right?” I didn’t think I’d misinterpreted him.
Those shadows flitted across his face again. “I would.”
Well, it wasn’t like I hadn’t understood that. He’d been painfully clear and consistent about his intentions.
I twitched my hand under his, enjoying the silky softness of his feathers over what felt like a hard tendon or membrane. I didn’t know much about the structure of wings, but whatever his were made of, they felt strong.
I tore my gaze away to meet his again. His black, swirling eyes were consuming as he studied me. I swallowed, focusing again on the wings over his shoulders, their expanse, and the casualness with which he wore them. It dawned on me that he spent most of his time in this form. His human form—or whatever that was supposed to be—wasn’t him.
I twitched my hand again, and his fingers loosened, lightening up. I stroked my whole hand down the length of the feathers, savoring the completely foreign feeling of them against my skin for just a second before withdrawing.
He shifted again, relaxing, his wings sprawled lazily behind me. He seemed so himself like this.
Dizziness still filled my head and blurred my vision, but I wanted more of him. I wanted to know him.
“What’s your name?” I asked because it felt weird that I hadn’t been given this piece of him yet.
“Ren,” he said with a small laugh.
“Your real name,” I said. “I want to hear you say it.”
He let out a low string of syllables, somehow both smooth and harsh at the same time. It sounded so natural, a word he’d spoken a million times or more.
“Really beautiful,” I said. “Thanks.”
The last of my adrenaline from our flight drained, and I passed out.
Chapter 19
I woke in the car. Ren must’ve carried me out of the forest.
“Thanks for earlier,” I said, my voice thick with sleep.
Ren glanced at me, his expression softening into a slight smile. “I like flying. I was happy to take you.”
“It was nice to share your world for a little while,” I said.
Ren’s shoulders relaxed; my words pleased him. We didn’t talk for the rest of the trip home. I huddled into the heated seat, lost in thought.
Everything about will-binding and completing Ren’s task involuntarily sounded miserable. So that left me with the voluntary option. The one where I listened to his plan. The one where I trusted him.
Would that be so bad? I’d just trusted him to take me flying, after all. That was less risky than entering a house full of vampires and stealing from them, but he’d had control over my life, and he hadn’t harmed me. Could I rely on him to stick to similar promises in the future? Uncertainty racked me.
When we arrived back at his apartment, I didn’t have the energy to cook. Instead, I took a ton of fruit out of the fridge and piled it on the countertop. I found a huge bowl and a knife and cut it up, adding it to the bowl until it was practically overflowing.
I gathered the bowl in both hands and brought it with me to the living room area, where I sat at the opposite end of the couch from Ren.
Tentatively, I held the bowl out to him. He surveyed it and selected a strawberry. I copied him.
I set the bowl between us, and for a few minutes, neither of us did anything except eat.
“There are no lemons in here,” Ren said eventually, picking through the bowl.
“You eat lemons?” I asked, cringing.
He paused with a piece of cantaloupe halfway to his lips. “You don’t?”
I shook my head.
We were silent for several minutes before he said, “Do you want to hear my plan?”
I sighed. “Okay.”
“Do you know any of the members of the vampire royal family?” he asked.
“I’ve seen a couple of them. Edino, and…his mate, I don’t know her name.”
“Aleeshia,” Ren supplied. “But that’s not the branch of the family
you’ll be with.”
Of course he knew all of this. He’d probably studied it for this plan. Or learned it in school. Or needed it for his job as prince. Or whatever.
“Tell me what you thought of them.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “They’re old. Scarier than other vampires. I think maybe Franklin felt a little bad sometimes for the things he did to me, or at least it seemed like that. Those older vampires…they don’t care. They don’t need to feed as often, so humans aren’t as necessary to their lives. They can do what they want. They’re discerning and unpredictable and completely foreign to humans and humanity.”
He nodded.
“Which is why trying to get me in with one is going to be hard,” I finished.
“I picked you for a reason,” Ren said. “The vampire in possession of the dagger is a collector of human females. His tastes align with your looks and temperament. I had to walk a fine line. He won’t take brand new humans—too much trouble, and he’s too lazy to break them—but he won’t take anyone too old or hard-used, either. With a year in this world and only one previous master, you are perfect. Irresistible.”
“So you give me to them, and I figure out the rest?” I asked.
This sounded terrible.
“The vampire I’m targeting is Shaw Ramira. He lives with his mate, Cassania, and they hold their court in an old plantation house in the south. They are distant descendants from Plothia’s line”—he had just named one of the original ten vampires—“so they are strong, but not devastatingly so. He is royal, and so is she. There might be one other royal, as well, but the rest of the vampires in the compound are not. There are a lot of humans in their harem.”
“So what happens if Shaw accidentally kills me the first night when he can’t control the bloodlust? Or when he decides I’m better off leashed at his side forever? Or he doesn’t like me and gives me to one of the others?”
“From what I’ve learned, I don’t think he’ll do any of those things. But if he does, you’ll have to convince him not to until your mission is accomplished.”
I exhaled sharply. “I can’t believe I liked you for a solid minute.”
Ren didn’t laugh. “You’ll have advantages. You’ll have some of my power, and you’ll know how to use it.”
“Won’t it be obvious to them that I’m not a normal human?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Trust me. I can help you get through this.”
Trust me. He definitely didn’t know anything about humans. How did he not get it? Had no one ever hurt him in his life? Had he never been betrayed? Was he just absurdly hopeful?
And, if so, would that hope get me killed?
Or was Ren good at this? Was he competent at these sorts of plans, just like he’d been able to fly me into the sky and not let me fall?
“Okay, let’s, um, just set that aside for a second,” I said. “Even if you can get me in, and even if they don’t realize I’m some sort of demon spy, and even if they don’t kill me immediately for some reason… What do I do? Do you know where the dagger is? Do you know what it looks like? How do I get it and destroy it? And how do I escape?”
“When I get you in, you’ll likely have freedom on the property. It’s in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by treacherous terrain. They don’t lock up the humans there. The dagger is hidden somewhere on the estate. You’ll have a way to track it, to find its essence, so to speak. It won’t be a perfect map, but with some searching, it will be possible.” He paused. “Once you locate it, you’ll either need to destroy it or get it off the property and give it to me so I can destroy it. You’re human. The loopholes in the truce allow you to find it, put your hands on it, and give it to me.”
“Even if I have some of your powers or whatever?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “You’re still a human. I can’t make you into a demon.”
I picked at my nails nervously. “You’ve really thought about this, huh?”
“I have,” he said. “I’m young, but I’m not an idiot. I know more about vampires than you do, although your knowledge will be helpful. I need you to figure out how to keep yourself alive with them.”
How to earn freedom in three easy steps.
Infiltrate a house of old, powerful vampires.
Locate and steal an ancient, demon-killing dagger.
Get myself out alive.
Chapter 20
“I can make our deal trustworthy,” Ren said. “I can make it binding. A contract. Something for you to believe in, something with hefty repercussions if we break it.”
“Through magic?”
He nodded. “You keep my father alive, and I’ll keep you alive. At the end, you can walk away forever. You can have whatever human life you want for yourself. I’ll give you anything you desire.”
“So if I agree to this, what happens next?”
I really hated the tiny flickers of hope hiding in the shadows dancing across his eyes as he said, “I need to craft multiple spells to achieve our desired effects. And then you need to practice with my magic. And I need to lay the trap for getting you onto Shaw’s estate.”
“How do I get your magic?” I asked. “Do you, like, give me some?”
“No,” he said. “That’s not how it works. I can’t just hand over my power untethered. That wouldn’t quite serve our purposes anyhow. In addition to offering you power, I also want to offer you protection, and knowledge, and a way to keep in touch with me. To do all that, I have to forge a bond between us.” His eyes flicked upward in thought. “Hmm. What’s the word?” He stretched a hand toward me, and then placed it against his own chest. “A soul bond. The two of us, cleaved together. We’d be able to share everything. More than that, we’d want to.” He laughed slightly. “You’d be able to trust me completely, which I suppose is a benefit. It’s a type of trade in my world. It’s usually used between mates.”
He must’ve noticed my wide eyes, my horrified expression, the way all the breath had left my lungs.
“Ari?” he asked hesitantly.
But I was frozen, because what he wanted… I didn’t know if he knew how serious it seemed. It sounded a lot like…like…
Marriage.
When I found my voice, I choked out a laugh. “You don’t ask for much, do you?”
He studied me, bewildered. “This type of bond is safe—”
“You want to marry me?” I burst out.
He looked taken aback, his lips parted, his brows drawn together. “I don’t,” he said calmly. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Yeah, it’s worse,” I said. “Humans don’t even have the type of…thing you’re talking about.”
“And my kind doesn’t have marriage,” he said, shrugging. “If I were you, I would stop assigning meaning where it doesn’t make sense to do so.” His haughty cadence was ruffled and annoyed. “I am planning on using the soul bond differently with you. I made mention of mates just now because I want you to understand that this is something done between beings who trust one another, for good reasons, for benefit. It’s not a will binding, and it’s not meant for enslavement. The two of us will be tethered as equals.”
“And when I’m finished? When it’s time for me to be freed?” I asked.
“A soul bond can be easily dissolved. It’s mutually agreed upon and mutually held.” He smiled. “Even you will be able to dissolve it, from your side. You won’t need me to do it for you.”
“And this soul bond, it also makes it so you keep your promise to me at the end? That you’ll free me?”
“No,” he said. “I’ll put another spell in place for that, a conditional bond. When all our conditions are fulfilled, we’ll be free of it.”
“This sounds complicated,” I said.
He shrugged. “Magic is complicated, but I am good at it, and these plans will succeed. I don’t have a lot of options, Ari. This is important to me. Why do you not believe that I will help you with it? I’m not just throwing you into a house
of vampires and leaving you there.”
I sighed. I didn’t know how to explain. I felt completely out of my league here, in so many ways. Especially since he didn’t seem to understand my feelings at all.
He hadn’t experienced what I had.
He didn’t know how hard it was to walk into a house of vampires with what felt like a bunch of flimsy promises. To risk being trapped forever. Hurt. Killed. I swallowed tears and tried to think of something to say.
“Are there demons that are stronger than Baphometic Demons?” I asked. “You know, like, much stronger. Like how a vampire is strong against a human? A demon who could take you and make you bow before it and snap your neck if you didn’t?”
His lips twisted in thought. “Some, yes. A few kinds, maybe. Not in my realm.”
“Can you imagine how it would feel if one of them took you, and brought you to their realm, and locked you in a cage? Watched your every move? Told you that you couldn’t speak? That you couldn’t fly? What if they hurt you just because they thought it was fun or interesting to hear you scream when your bones were broken or when you bled? What if they plucked feathers from your wings because it amused them? What if you couldn’t heal? What if you could only lie there day after day, scared, wondering when it would end? Or if it would get worse before it did? What if they took away every part of you that made you feel like yourself?”
I watched his chest rise and fall for three even breaths. “That would be horrible.”
I was shaking. “That’s what a vampire did to me.”
His eyes clouded with shadow. “I’m not a vampire.”
“I know. You keep saying that. But you might as well be a vampire to me, because I don’t know the difference.”
“I’m different.” His tone was back to that convincing, irresistible purr, and it made my breath catch.
“Are you?” I asked. “Because you’re asking me to go back to them.”
“I’m different,” he said again. “I’m different because I’m going to bring you in there, but I’m also going to get you out.”
