He waits for my requests. For me to fill in my end of this bargain. I rack my brain, trying to make sure all the cracks are filled and I can actually get something out of this horrid arrangement.
If only Ford could see me now…making deals with demons.
I shake my head, laughing darkly to myself.
“So, Na’vazēm,” Kincaid prods. “What do you want in exchange for my forty days?”
I lick my lips. “I want you to get me across,” I tell him. “Not just to The Hinge. I want you to see me across it.”
I don’t even know if he has the power to make that happen, but he won’t be able to agree to it if he doesn’t.
“Smart Na’vazēm,” he says, eyes sparking. “Yes. I will get you across The Hinge. Anything else?”
Biting my lower lip, I gesture to the books on the shelves. “I want to read these,” I tell him. “And I don’t want to be locked inside of a room.”
I’ve been locked inside of too many rooms for too much of my life already. “I want a proper room. And freedom to move about the house when I want to.”
Kincaid’s lips press into a firm line. “Agreed,” he says after a moment and begins to rise.
“And one more thing,” I add, a ball forming in my throat.
He waits for my request with barely concealed irritation.
“The boy,” I say, swallowing past the lump. “The healer boy who was sold before me at the market. I want you to buy him.”
He glares at me. “He’s already been sold.”
Feeling brazen, I square my shoulders. “Those are my terms.”
He lowers his head, eyes searching the carpet while he thinks over my final request. It’s a bold one, and I half expect him to deny it, but I had to try.
Watching that boy be dragged off by those women made me ill. I didn’t want to imagine what they were doing to him right now.
He helped me without my asking. He healed me. He made me brave when I felt anything but. It would be ungrateful of me not to at least try to help him in return.
If Kincaid bought him, I could watch over him. I could make sure he was safely returned back across The Hinge with me when Kincaid set me free.
My debt to him would be paid.
“And clothes,” I add before he can reply. “Can I have some clothes?”
Kincaid eyes me warily.
“The clothes I can do,” he says. “The boy…I make no promises. He may already be dead.”
“But you’ll try?”
“Yes, Na’vazēm, I will try.”
Without thinking, I extend my hand. It’s what you do when you strike a bargain, isn’t it?
But when Kincaid moves in, the tiniest smirk curling up one corner of his lips, I regret my decision. When his hand wraps around mine firmly and shakes, his long fingers brushing against my knuckles, I shiver. His scent, like hickory and musk under a hot sun, reaches my nose.
“We have a deal,” he says and then grips my hand harder, drawing me in closer to whisper harshly against my cheek, “And this time, I expect you to honor it.”
“I will.”
“If you don’t,” he replies, releasing his hold on me with a dangerous glint in his cat-like eyes. “I will make you regret it.”
14
We sit opposite one another at a long table. Kincaid sipping what looks like wine—or maybe blood—from a goblet, heedless of the fact that it’s barely ten in the morning.
He watches me with the intensity of a predator stalking prey, but I am emboldened by our bargain. From what little I know, demons are good at finding loopholes, but they don’t break their word once a bargain is struck. Kincaid must get me back across The Hinge in forty days, alive. There is much he could do to me between now and then and I sort of wish I’d been wise enough to add in that he not be able to harm me…but he can’t kill me.
There is a comfort in knowing that. A reassurance I’ve never had before.
I eat slowly. After our bargain was struck, Kincaid led me to this dining room, where a place setting was already made at the table. A bowl of sugared oatmeal and small plate of fruit laid out next to a tall glass of water.
As if he already knew exactly how the morning would play out. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find it a bit unnerving.
I stifle a moan as I pop a quarter of a strawberry in my mouth, savoring the tart sweetness of it. It takes everything in me not to stuff my face with the fruit and oats, but I know from painful experience how well that goes on a starved stomach.
If I have any hope of getting even half of this meal down, I must take my time. And it seems Kincaid is intent on watching me take every bite.
Creep.
Though Kincaid takes second place in the murderous stare contest, his demon cat takes the gold medal. It lies, paw tucked beneath its breast in the windowsill across the room. Its body is still, almost rigid, as it watches me. Its fluffy white tail jerks left and right.
I may have made a deal with Kincaid, but I made no such bargain with his demonic feline, and the way it’s looking at me…well, let’s just say I’m not sure if I can best the cat anymore. There’s something ancient and sentient in its bright green eyes. Something unnerving.
Why did I have to go and step on the damned thing’s tail.
I dab at the corner of my lips with a napkin and lean back, needing a moment to digest before I can eat more.
“Are you satisfied?” Kincaid asks, swirling his goblet.
I purse my lips. “For now. I’d like to try to eat a bit more.”
He nods. “Very well. I’d planned to allow you to finish your meal before beginning my questions, but it seems I’ve made a bargain with the slowest eater in all the world.”
I scowl.
“Shoot,” I say, sipping my glass of water.
He frowns as though confused.
“That means go ahead and ask,” I say with maybe a bit too much glee at his discomfort.
He stands, and for a second, I worry I’ve insulted him to a point of repercussion, but he merely strides to my side of the table and sits on its edge, staring down at me.
If he reaches out, he’ll be able to touch me. To attack me. He doesn’t, though. Instead, he dips his hand into the breast pocket of his long jacket and draws out a small plastic bag. It’s the size of a quarter, and sealed inside it is a single purple pill.
A triangle stamped on one side.
He sets it down triumphantly next to my plate. I can feel his gaze on me, steady and searching as I lift it, turning the little pill over between my fingers.
Is he giving it to me?
Is this his extra insurance to make sure I don’t break my side of the bargain a second time?
Give me one pill per day, just enough to ensure I don’t die of illness. Just enough to ensure I’ll stay for my dose each day.
It would be brilliant if it weren’t for the fact that I’d already come to terms with dying for my freedom.
I open the bag and drop the pill into my palm, inspecting it more closely to be certain he’s purchased the correct one. I wonder how he was able to get it.
“Is this the same as the pills you spoke of, for your illness?”
I wet my lips. “Yes.”
A knot forms between Kincaid’s brows. “I thought it might be.”