Chapter 5 A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

AVELINE

“Follow me.”

The man has been staring at me for so long that I am beginning to wonder if I have grown a second head, or if he is simply calculating the amount of force it would take to snap my neck.

Everything about this man is utterly terrifying.  And he looks like he would not mind killing me. In fact, he looks like he intends to kill me.

I shift my weight from one throbbing foot to the other, the bruised bones in my ankles screaming in protest.

Coming here was a terrible decision. I never should have trusted that stupid book that put me in this condition in the first place. I should have looked harder back home. Surely, I would have found some other cure for Cora. Now, it seems like I have come here to die while my sister gets trapped in a perpetual sleep for the rest of her life.

The thought of our fates causes a painful lump to form in my throat and hot tears to sting my eyes, which I try to choke down before they can pour down my cheeks.

He frowns, tracking the frantic, erratic pulse in my throat like a hawk marking a dying rabbit. The way his golden gaze burns into my skin makes me feel filthy, guilty, as if I have committed some horrific crime simply by having the audacity to breathe in his presence.

He turns abruptly, his dark velvet cloak sweeping across the stone like a cloud of smoke. However, I do not move a single inch.

He pauses after a few seconds, glancing back. "Was I stuttering, girl?"

"No," I swallow, my throat so parched it feels like raw glass. "Please where are you taking me?"

"Somewhere we can speak in silence."

I glance past him at the guards. One of them catches my eye and sneers, his fingers flexing over his sword.

I tear my gaze away, my heart violently hammering against my ribs until my breath hitches.

"Will I be permitted to leave afterward?" I ask, hating the pathetic, desperate tremor in my voice.

Something sharp, dark, and merciless flickers across his eyes. "I can’t say."

I consider running for a hot minute. But I know that it is pointless. I tried running when the guards circled me and if this man had not come at the right time, I would have gotten seriously injured by them, or even killed. I wonder what this terrifying man would do to me if I tried to run.

So I drag air into my terrified lungs and follow him. What choice do I have?

He stops deep into a corridor where there is no other person in sight and turns to me, coming so close, I need to take a step back so that my face doesn’t slam into his chest.

For a very long moment, we just look at each other.

I had thought him towering when he stood over me in the entrance hall. Now, trapped face-to-face in the narrow stone corridor, the horrifying reality settles in: my head barely reaches the center of his broad chest. I am forced to tilt my head back at an agonizing angle just to look him in the eye.

He is built like a dark war-god, broad-shouldered, and radiating a strong aura of violence. His black hair falls in thick, wild waves down to his shoulders. There is a cruel, flawless perfection to his features that makes my eyes hurt just looking at him.

His eyes, however, are an absolute nightmare.

They are two molten pools of liquid gold. Looking into them feels like staring directly into the heart of a dying star.

He slowly rakes his hand across his hair and sighs. For a single, fleeting fraction of a second, the terrifying, unyielding facade cracks.

He looks... exhausted.

Not merely annoyed. Exhausted in a way that seems carved into his very soul.

It makes him look hauntingly ancient. Fae are immortal, Papa used to say. Some were born before the stars were named.

"So, we must address the most obvious matter here."

I find myself talking to save my life before I can get back my composure. “Please, I don’t know what the guards are talking about. I am not a spy. I came here because I was desperate for help and my sister is the only family I know…”

He raises a hand, bringing me to a halt. He gives a tired chuckle. “My guards were fools to think that you were a spy. That is not what I am here to discuss.”

“So what…”

He moves even closer to me, his expression suddenly regaining its ferocity so quickly it sends a tremor down my spine. "Listen to me closely," he says silently, even though his voice has a lethal taste to it. "Whatever... force you felt out there in the courtyard, you will ignore it. Do not think for a second that I intend to honor it, or that it gives you any claim over me."

I blink, my mind racing through sheer fatigue and confusion. "What... what are you talking about?"

"The bond," he says, lowering his voice into a low, dangerous growl, as if speaking to a child. "When our eyes met, it detonated. You must have felt it tearing through your chest."

I look down at my bleeding hands, then back up at his terrifying eyes. "What?"

He pauses, his dark brows drawing together in a deep, sharp crease. "You feel it, don't you? The pull? The pulse in your chest?"

I just stare at him, completely befuddled. What on earth is he talking about?

He seems to realise that I have no idea what he is talking about because he looks completely undone. "You don’t... know what I am talking about?"

"No!" I manage to rasp out, my heart hammering against my ribs. "I don't know what you're talking about! I don't know who you are, I don't know where I am, and I don't know what you think I felt!"

He looks genuinely stunned for a second, a flicker of confusion crossing his intimidating, sculpted features. "I am certain of what I felt," he mutters, almost to himself, stepping a fraction closer. "It was undeniable."

Uncomfortable under his intense gaze, I lift a trembling hand and tuck a stray wave of fiery red hair behind my ear.

The moment I do, he freezes.

His silver eyes lock onto the side of my head, wide and unblinking. For a agonizingly long moment, he just stares at my ear. Then, as if drawn by an invisible thread, he reaches out a tall, gloved hand toward my face. I flinch, but his fingertips just brush the shell of my ear before he snatches his hand back violently; as if the mere touch had burned him, or as if I carried some lethal disease.

"You're not Fae," he says, his voice flat, completely stripped of its previous fury.

I stare back, my pulse hammering in my throat. "No?"

"You are not Fae," he repeats, dropping his voice into a dark, toxic register.

“I am not.”

“What are you? Where are you from?”

"I told your guards. A small town in Oakhaven."

"In which realm?”

"Erm… earth?"

“Earth. The realm of the mortals?”

“Yes,” I say, trying to understand the expression forming across his face.

"What manner of creature are you?"

"I'm a human," I say softly.

The silence that follows is suffocating as he stares at me looking bewildered. Then, beneath his breath, he spits out a phrase in a harsh, ancient language that sounds like grinding stone and curses.

"A human," he repeats, the word tasting strange and impossible on his tongue. He lets out a low, breathy laugh that holds no humor at all. "A King of the Fae... and a mortal human. The universe has a truly sick sense of humor."

He is a king? Oh… I do recall the guards addressing him as such. And of course… the castle.

He snaps his head back toward me, his golden eyes burning. "You are a human, of mortal flesh," he whispers, the word tasting like poison on his tongue.

"Yes…"

His voice dropping into a whisper that chills my very marrow, he says: "I find it very difficult to believe this."

I shift uncomfortably, my heart sinking. "Believe what?"

He stares down at me, his molten eyes dark with an agonizing, violent fury. "A King of the Fae cannot be bound to a mortal human."

I gather the tiny, fraying shreds of my courage, gritting my teeth through the pain in my jaw. "Bound? What do you mean bound? What are you talking about?!"

He dismisses my question with a sharp flick of his wrist, stepping around me like a predator circling prey. "It doesn't matter. Explain to me exactly why you are here. And speak quickly."

"My sister," I gasp out, the image of Cora's pale, motionless face flushing through my mind, washing away my hesitation. "She... she was jinxed by some sort of… spellbook. She fell into a deep sleep more than twelve hours ago and won't wake up. My father's old stories said the Fae have magic that can fix things humans can't. They said... they said a Fae could help if I offered a bargain. I came to bargain for a cure."

He watches me in cold, unbroken silence.

I draw a shuddering, broken breath, my pride shattering into dust. "Please."

The word tears out of my throat, pathetic and weeping. I hate it. I hate begging a cold, merciless monster for grace. I hate being trapped in a castle of nightmare creatures, bruised and helpless. I hate that Cora is lying alone in the dark, and I hate that I cannot fix her.

But I hate the thought of a world without her a thousand times more.

"I don't know what dark spell that book cast upon her," I choke out, tears finally spilling over my bruised cheeks. "I don't know why it brought me to your gates, or if there is a way to break her curse. But my father swore the Fae possess magic that can defy death... if one is willing to pay the price."

The king does not move a muscle, his golden eyes locked onto my weeping face.

"I have no gold," I sob quietly, wiping my face with a dirty sleeve. "I have no land. I run a failing shop, and we are starving. I have nothing of grand value. But if there is a debt I can pay, a sacrifice I can make, a task I can perform, I will do it. I swear it on my life."

A dark, lethal gleam ignites deep within his golden eyes.

"Anything, Aveline?" he purrs softly.

I freeze. The word hangs in the freezing air like a drawn blade.

Papa's haunting voice echoes out of the dark of my mind: Never bargain with a fae unless absolutely desperate, Aveline. They will carve their desires unto your flesh.

Well, I am desperate. Cora is trapped in a magical sleep. I am already here and I cannot turn back.

"Anything I am capable of giving," I say, my voice hardening through the tears. "Anything that does not cost her life."

For a long moment, the king simply stares at me.

And then, something terrifying shifts in his posture.

The rigid tension in his broad shoulders melts away. The chaotic fury leaves his face, replaced by a slow, terrifying calculation.

And slowly, very slowly, his lips curve into a dark, wicked smile.

A cold, razor-sharp terror cascades straight down my spine, freezing the blood in my veins.

"Well," he whispers, his voice smooth as silk and heavy as iron. "You want to bargain with me."

I do not like the sound of his voice. My stomach turns to liquid lead.

"Can you save her?" I demand, my heart pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears.

"Yes. I can help you, little human. I can give you the cure to wake your sister."

The answer comes so fast, so effortlessly it steals the breath straight from my lungs.

A sudden, violent surge of hope explodes in my chest. "You can?! Truly?!"

"I can."

"There exist ancient, dark rites to sever such curses," he says smoothly, his golden eyes burning into mine. "Some require ingredients gathered from the depths of hell. Others require... a far more permanent transaction."

He pauses, staring down at my terrified face.

I swallow hard, my voice barely a whisper. "Require what?"

"A price."

"I understand," I say frantically, nodding. "I expected a price! I will pay it!"

"No," he whispers, leaning down until his dark face is inches from mine, his warm, dangerous breath fanning across my bruised skin. "I do not think you comprehend the scale of what this will demand of you, girl."

The way he looks at me makes my soul recoil. He is weighing my flesh, calculating the exact value of my mortal life, measuring how much blood he can drain from my veins.

I have walked straight into a dark trap.

But there is no path back. The door is shut.

The king straightens to his full, terrifying height, his dark cloak billowing around him. "I believe we can reach a most... mutually beneficial arrangement, Aveline."

Hope and utter terror war violently in my chest, threatening to tear me apart. "Thank you..."

"Do not thank me yet, human."

He walks around the table, stopping directly in front of my chair, casting a massive, dark shadow over my trembling body.

His golden eyes burn with a dark, absolute triumph.

"The price for snatching your sister back from the grave ... will cost you everything you are."

I stare up into his molten golden eyes, my heart hammering a chaotic rhythm against my ribs.

I think of Cora's bright, mischievous laugh. I think of her stolen pastries, her terrible jokes, her warm hand in mine. I think of our dead parents, our cold home, and the terrifying silence of a world without her.

I lift my chin, squaring my bruised, aching shoulders, and look the monster dead in the eye.

"I am willing to do whatever it takes."

The Fae King smiles down at me, and I know, with absolute certainty, that I have just signed my soul away to the devil.