Her breath stuttered. Just like that he’d agreed. It was too easy. “What’s the cost?” she asked, her voice hesitant.
Droning silence devoured the room. Surely he would ask for the moon and the stars and the entire universe placed into his impatient hand. She waited on bated breath and feared this bargain would end right there.
“Release me.” Those two words wormed under her skin. “And after you melt away this blasted ice,” he said and the air grew thin, “you aremine.”
Her stomach plummeted, and her legs shook like the ground caved beneath her. “What does that mean?” she spat. “What does being yours entail?”
“A delightful number of things. But we can discuss such details later.” He chuckled, deep and wicked. “These are my terms.”
“Bring him back and I’ll melt this ice for you.” Her heart splintered in desperation and defeat. “But you will never have me. I’ll never be yours.”
He hummed, a devious, manipulative sound. “Fine. I shall send you back.”
Shoulders tense, she leaned into the ice and begged it to bend to her will, but it remained as rigid as his terms. She traced the bond etched into her skin in Dez’s beautiful handwriting, then peered at her reflection in the ice. She looked as battered as her insides felt: throat bruised, eyes bloodshot, hair a knotted mess.
Her wild, desperate eyes stared back at her. No part of her doubted they would find their way back to each other. She knew it deep in her marrow. Dez would rip the world in two to find her. Her frantic mind refused to even consider the consequences of melting the ice. Freeing this being—
All she could think of was Dez.
“W-wait,” she stuttered.
“Yes?” His voice stirred the black hollow pit in her soul.
“If I do this”—she swallowed down the bile burning her throat—“if I free you, you have to promise you’ll bring Destonne back. No catches or tricks. Restore his soul and bring him back to me.”
“No tricks,” he said. “No catches. Free me and become mine. But do know, I do not share. Though I will bring your Destonne back, he will never have you.”
Her heart raced too fast to think, each pound a knock to her head. What other choice did she have?
His words echoed through her head,I would do anything. I would be anything you needed. I would be your friend. Your confidant. Your strength. Your heart. Your soul. Your love.
And for him, she would do anything, too. She would sacrifice and trade her freedom, even if it surfaced the fear Nathaniel once crippled her with.
Because she couldn’t live in a world where he didn’t exist either.
“We have a deal,” she murmured, her lips numb.
Emmery drew her dagger from her thigh sheath and gripped it in her sweaty hand. She cut into her palm and slammed her hand against the ice.
In a mocking lilt, he said, “Say the words.”
Well rehearsed, she said, “It will be done, so it shall be.”
He echoed the phrase.
The moment the words resounded in her mind, a vice tightened around her throat, and she staggered back, clawing at its invisible hold. Her flesh burned andburned,like fire, like lava, like searing hot coals poured down her gullet. She smeared blood across her neck, tried to scream, but the leash cinched tighter. She gasped for air and her eyes bulged. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t fuckingbreathe—
Then, all at once, it stopped.
She nearly collapsed as her chest heaved, her need for air seemingly insatiable and unending. In her reflection she caught the elaborate dips carved the perimeter of her neck, in a series of deep, deep scars. Disbelieving, she blinked, but there it remained.
A collar. It was a fuckingcollar. An interlocking series ofcavaes.
“What did you—what did you do?” she panted. Panic bled into her voice.
“Come now, don’t be dramatic. I must say, that scar is quite fetching on you,” he mused. “My part is done. Now yours.”
“How do I know you kept your word?” she snapped, her throat a raw, raging fire. She burrowed into the bond, but found only shadows and none of Dez’s sunlight. His absence ate away at her.