I stiffened in my chair. “A trade?”

“Cash for your goddess.” He nodded. “I give you my word I’ll look after her. I’ll respect her. I would never share her, and she’d be given a life fit for any princess.” His voice lowered with need. “I want to look after her. To love her.”

Ah, Christ.

Men were so goddamn predictable.

This wasn’t the first time a guest had asked to take a girl home, and I’m sure it wouldn't be the last. I never said yes. Ever. I could never be sure of the girl’s well-being or trust the word of a gentleman who came to my shores.

But…

Ever since standing over Eleanor while she slept, I’d done my best to fix my problem. I wanted her gone but didn’t necessarily know how. If I just let her go…she could tell anyone about my little operation here. If I killed her, she’d haunt me for the rest of my fucking days.

But…if I sold her…

My heart crashed and collided with my ribs, but I yanked hard on its leash, making it cower in the corner.

Something had to be done.

I couldn’t keep this up.

I couldn’t keep avoiding her.

I couldn’t pretend she didn’t exist or ignore that something bound us together.

The only way to be free of her awful curse would be to get her off my island.

For good.

And a solution had just fallen serendipitously into my lap.

Chapter Thirty-Two

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER Roy Slater accosted me on the path, I received a summons.

For a full rotation of earth, I’d existed in a heightened sense of fear. Last night, I’d tried to find Jupiter, Calico, and Neptune to eat dinner with them but only found an empty dining room. Jealousy wasn’t there, either, and I’d returned to eat the food waiting on my deck, then sat up for most of the night watching the moon track its way through stars.

This morning, I’d chosen to say in my villa. I didn’t want to run into Roy Slater again, or any other man for that matter. My ability to converse had been well and truly stripped away.

Breakfast had been delivered by a usual pretty staff member, a few new clothes arrived to replace the ones I’d lost, and I tried to lose myself in a book loaded on an e-reader that I’d found in the bedside drawer.

It didn’t work.

My eyes skimmed words, but my brain remained firmly fixated on Sully. On what he was doing, why hadn’t he come to check on me, how could I stop the complex mix of dislike and desire.

So when the summons came at twilight, I was almost glad.

I was ready to face anything if it meant it gave me something other than him to focus on. Something to endure rather than being forced to relax on a perfect island with unlimited delicious food and every wish I ever wanted.

It was the blissful existence between serving in Euphoria that ruined me. How could I lay on a lounger, dressed in expensive bikinis, eating ripe organic fruit, and reading a simple romance like I was on holiday, when none of that daydream was real? How could I forget that I paid for such luxury with my body?

Re-reading the note that Arbi had personally delivered, goosebumps darted down my spine.

 

Come to my office at ten a.m.

 

Such a simple sentence.

A collection of words that gave nothing away to Sully’s intentions or requirements of our meeting. So why did utmost dread slip like cyanide through my veins? Why did Roy Slater come to mind and his parting words that’d chased me down the path echo like a drumbeat for an execution?

“I love you, and I’m going to find a way for us to be together.”

My legs gave out, crumpling me to the floor.

No.

I scrunched up the note, tighter and tighter, then threw it into the corner of the room. It bounced off the driftwood couch, smashing into a potted fern. Skittles chirped indignantly from her chosen spot on the side table lamp. She’d taken up residency on the shade, her daily preening interrupted by my terror.

An awful premonition filled me.

Could Roy Slater have asked to claim me? Had he approached Sully with an offer he couldn’t refuse?

But he wouldn’t…would he?

He won’t sell me.

Why would Sully sell something that he’d only just bought? Something that was still new and valuable to his empire?

I buried my face in my hands, unable to lie. Skittles winged her way to perch on my shoulder, tweeting worriedly into my ear.

I couldn’t respond, too frozen with horror.

He’ll sell you to be rid of a problem.

To be rid of the mess between you.

I couldn’t breathe.

I hated taking elixir. I hated serving in Euphoria. I hated having my own body and mind work against me.

But at least, I could trust in my boundaries. I had a friend in Jealousy. I had shelter and food and clothes.

I have a parrot who chose me for her own.

The thought of having all that stripped away? Of being given to another man who might not grant the same level of care? Of being taken to another country? Of being nothing more than a possession, bouncing from master to dictator?

I…I can’t.

A silent sob swelled in my lungs, suffocating me.

God, why didn’t I try harder to escape?

Why did I step out onto the helipad when Sully flew above me?

Needing fresh air, I bolted to my feet and flew out of the villa. Skittles chased me, squawking with fear over our potential separation.

I didn’t stop running until the warm tide licked at my ankles and the sun slipped in a fiery crimson blaze into the sea.

I wedged a fist in my stomach as the last dregs of sunlight faded, seeming so final, so resolute.

A sunset on my time here.

* * * * *

Nine forty-five a.m.

I studied myself in the mirror.

My skin held a cast of ghostly white with foreboding, my eyes rested in shadows from lack of sleep, and my pulse pounded visibly in my neck from panic.

As a girl who’d barely slept, whose own life didn’t belong to her, whose future was so uncertain, I was a mess.

But for a goddess who’d been summoned before her owner, I was every bit a bewitching immortal.

It’d taken me since dawn to perfect the mirage.

Sully traded in chimera mockery and deception, well…I had learned from the master. I might not have elixirs and sensory deceptors, but I did have determination and the undying need not to be sold.

If I left this island.

When I leave this island…

I would be going home. Not to someone else’s bed.

Skittles sat quietly on the vanity, nestled in the cotton buds that I’d strewn across the surface in my haste to complete my fallacy.

I didn’t recognise the girl staring back at me. I’d lost the ability to call myself Eleanor Grace because that was a human name…and today, I was no longer human.

I was as myth-like as I could get without sprouting angel wings.

My hair was loose. Washed with coconut and kaduka plum, rinsed in icy water to bring ethereal shine to each and every strand. Sepia and bronze, mahogany and henna, the length and glossiness hung in a heavy veil down my back. Frangipani flowers decorated the length, randomly placed so I looked as if I’d been birthed by the very island that Sully adored.

My paleness had been hidden with finely applied make-up. I’d never been talented with a brush or pigments before, but I’d kept washing and reapplying until I’d achieved an otherworldly look.