Branded like livestock. I’m reeling from that realization long after Malaki joins our group, his eyepatch silver tonight. He only lingers long enough to invite Temper to dance, and then my friend is gone, dancing about the field like she belongs to these people.

And here I am, still the same wallflower I was in high school.

I stare down at my wine.

This is why I really shouldn’t drink. Pity isn’t flattering, no matter how well you wear it.

My eyes sweep over the gardens, taking in the revelries of Solstice.

This isn’t a party, it’s a bacchanal. Everywhere I look people are dancing, their forms illuminated under the moonlight. They’re laughing and spinning, their loose hair whipping about them.

Those that aren’t dancing are on the outskirts of the dance floor, chatting and drinking. Well, they’re either chatting and drinking, or else slipping away. Couples are disappearing into the woods, and I’ve seen at least one fairy leave with one man and return with another.

Everyone’s eyes are too bright, their smiles too wide, their cheeks too flushed.

Tanked out of their minds.

The crowd has all managed to let go of their cares for the evening. The only people who haven’t are me and the human servants, the latter who keep their eyes downcast most of the time.

“Enjoying yourself?”

I jump at the voice, my drink spilling over the rim and onto my hands.

“Shit,” I curse under my breath.

Green Man is at my side, and I have no fucking clue just how long he’s been there watching me as I’ve been watching everyone else.

“Sorry,” he says, his eyes trained on my face, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No, you’re fine,” I say, shaking off my hand.

“We were never formally introduced,” he says, holding out his hand. “I’m the Green Man, king consort to the Flora Kingdom.”

I take his hand, mine still a little sticky with wine. Rather than shaking it, he brings my hand to his lips and presses a kiss to the back of it, his amber eyes trained on me.

His eyes, I decide, are too intense, too mischievous, too covetous.

He releases my hand. “So, are you enjoying yourself?”

The man is too perceptive. He knows I feel uncomfortable and out of place.

“No,” I say, going with the truth.

The Green Man’s face lights up with my admission. “It’s a rare treat to come across honesty within these walls.” He glances around us.

Technically, there are no walls around us, but the ones he’s talking about are invisible. They divide peasants from nobility, humans from fairies.

I give him a tight smile, my gaze moving to the crowd. They’re watching me again, probably because the Green Man is at my side.

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” he says.

I glance to him. “What is?”

“The eyes that both see you and don’t. The posturing. The effortless gaiety.”

I hide my swallow. This man is reading me, and I don’t like it that he can do so, so easily.

I make a noncommittal sound, searching the crowd for Des. There’s an ever increasing cluster of fairies around him, vying for his attention. I’m tempted to elbow my way back to his side, but I don’t want to be in that dog pile any more than I want to be right here.

My eyes then land on Mara, who’s laughing amongst her group of men and some fawning nobles. She’s the sun and they’re all planets revolving around her, eager for her smile, her touch, her gaze. The only one missing from her group of admirers is the man at my side.

“Will you dance with me?” said man asks.

That makes me turn my full attention to the Green Man.

Fairies in general, and male fairies in particular, make me nervous. Karnon and his men are to blame for that.

But when I look at the Green Man, I don’t see a predator, I see a kindred spirit. 

Why not dance? Tonight is a festival, the Green Man looks eager, and I’ll be damned if I don’t have fun.

“Sure,” I say.

He smiles at that, and I reel back at how staggeringly handsome he is when he’s happy. It’s not that I hadn’t noticed earlier—all fairies seem to be attractive. It’s just that Mara’s presence seems to eclipse him.

He takes the wine from my hand, setting it on a side table, and leads me into the crowd of dancing bodies. And then we’re moving, spinning just like all the other couples.

The alcohol warms my stomach, and the dancing throws away the last of my caution. I find that as soon as I move my feet, I’m caught up in the music’s haunting rhythm.

“So you are the Night King’s mate,” the Green man says, staring a little too intensely at me.

“Mhm.” It’s hard to focus on him when the music, the wine, and the dancing all want to pull my attention up and away.

“You have all of our kingdom fascinated by you,” he says, his hand moving to the small of my back. “A human who has supernatural powers, a mate to the King of the Night. Not to mention that you are lovelier than many of our women.”

Why are we talking? And why about this?

“What does being lovely have to do with anything?” I say, distracted.

I guess it’s a stupid question to ask here in the Otherworld, where beauty is a point of fixation and ugliness only ever lurks beneath the surface.

“Everyone thought the merciless Desmond Flynn had gotten himself shackled to some ordinary slave,” the Green Man says. “We had pitied him until we met you.”

The wine sours in my stomach, the music begins to grate, the dancing starts to dizzy me. I push away from the Green Man, no longer interested in dancing with him.

“Is something wrong?”

He says this as though he didn’t just call my people slaves, as though he didn’t just insinuate that he holds them in such little regard. It’s his casual bigotry more than anything that’s off-putting.

“I am an ordinary human,” I say as the couples around us continue to twirl.

“No, Callypso Lillis, enchantress of mortals,” he says, “you are not.” With that, he begins to back away. “Try to enjoy yourself tonight,” he recommends. “You have a week of festivities ahead of you.”

With that, the crowd swallows him up, and I’m alone once more, warm, twisting bodies brushing against me from all sides.

The thought of a week here, surrounded by these fairies is suddenly so terribly daunting.

On the edge of the dance floor, a thick shroud of darkness cuts through the brightly clad fae, and right at the center of it is the Bargainer. He strides towards me, the night clinging to him like a cloak.

I head over to him, noticing that for once this evening, he’s free of an audience.

His eyes are pinned to someone in the crowd. “That little fool is right,” Des says when he reaches me. “You are not ordinary.”

“You were listening in to my conversation?” One day I’m going to have to figure out just how he comes by his secrets. There’s no way Des could’ve just overheard what the Green Man said to me.

“Are you surprised?” he asks, turning my question into one of his own.

I shrug. Now that he’s here, his presence like a drug, I find I don’t really care about whether or not he was snooping, or the fact that he might’ve left his fan club just to make sure another dude wasn’t poaching on me.

I drape my arms around his neck. Suddenly, I get what’s gotten into everyone else. It’s the smell of the smoky bonfires, the thrum of the music, the tingle of the alcohol in my veins. It’s all coaxing me to fall into this night and this man. To give everything to magic, if only for a single evening.

He cups my cheeks, and I see him drinking in my expression. I imagine that I must now look like all the other revelers—flushed cheeks, dilated eyes, easy smile.

Making some decision, he kisses me hard. He tastes like fairy wine and dirty thoughts.

“Dance with me,” I say when our mouths part.

His thumb strokes my cheek. “I don’t want to dance with you.” The pitch of his voice hits me right in my core.

He doesn’t want to dance, but his smoky, pale eyes want something else, something that’s waking up my siren.

My eyes move to the edge of the clearing, where fairies have been disappearing and reappearing all night.

He pulls me in tighter. “I would make it worth your while …” he whispers, knowing where my thoughts are.

I could just give in. I mean, why not?

… But I shouldn’t. Right?

His hand moves to my wrist. “Or I could simply make the decision easier.”

My breath catches as Des holds my wrist between us, the black beads seeming to suck in the light around us.

“Truth or dare, cherub.”

If I choose truth, the two of us will have a little heart-to-heart, and then we’ll go back to dancing and drinking. But if I don’t …

My gaze moves up his imposing frame to that hardened, pretty face of his.

“Dare.”

His hand squeezes my wrist tighter for a moment, as a slow, devious smile spreads across his face. “So be it.” His hand slips down to my palm, his magic smoothing along my skin like a thousand light caresses.

The Bargainer warned me about this before I bought my first favor off of him. That with a siren, he wouldn’t just ask for secrets.

There’d be sex, too.

Only then, he’d been saying that to scare me off. But now … now being mates, well, sex came hand-in-hand with love.

Des pulls us towards the dark woods that border the clearing, his silver eyes smoldering.

I can feel the sly looks of other fairies as we slip away, and I can’t help the rising heat in my cheeks. They all know what we’re about to do.

We leave the music and the dancing behind us, the forest eerily silent.

“What are you thinking?” Des asks, his voice smooth like Scotch.

That just the thought of your skin pressed to mine is making my knees weak.

“That you’re a sly devil,” I say instead.

His laugh echoes through the night, unfettered, abandoned. He pushes me up against a nearby tree, the trunk slipping between my wings. “You’re as wild as me, Callie. I know what you crave—what your siren craves.” He nuzzles my neck. “Let me show you.”

Between that soft touch and his seductive words, my siren surfaces, brightening my skin.

I arch into him, throwing my head back.

Yes.

This is everything I want. Him and me beneath the dark sky. Primal. Passionate.

I reach for his pants just as he reaches for my skirts, gathering them in his hands. Our hands are deft and hurried, our movements jerky. I can hear my own breath hitching.

With our clothes still halfway on, that hard, delicious flesh of his presses against me.

“My mate,” he murmurs, his hair tickling my cheek as he leans into me.

There’s an urgency both to the magic that’s demanding, demanding, demanding and to our own fevered passions.

The Bargainer’s shadows blanket us, darkening our surroundings until it’s just him and me, a single point in the dark universe that he rules.

His wings come around us, further shielding our bodies.

Next to my glowing skin, I see his neck muscles clench, and with a powerful shove, he enters me.

One of his hands cups my breast through the fabric of my dress, and then his head dips down, his hot mouth kissing the exposed skin of my chest. My fingers dig into his shoulders.

He’s moving in and out of me, our bodies hot and wet where we’re joined. They make slick, wet noises as we come together.

“Meant … to take this slower,” Des rakes out.

It’s almost painful, the force of his thrusts. This joining isn’t something sweet. It’s wild, primal, and it calls to all my darkest corners.

I thread my fingers in his hair and force his head to the side. Minutes ago, all his white blond hair had been elegantly swept back from his face. Now it’s fallen victim to my touch.

I tighten my grip on his hair. “I don’t want slow,” I say, glamour entering my voice. “I want everything the King of the Night can give me—and then I want more.”

With a growl, Des gives me exactly that.

Again, and again, and again.