I flinch. I can’t help it. She’s speaking words I know for truth, with such conviction that they would convince me even if I had doubts. I’m suddenly exhausted. It’s clear these two love each other, and equally clear that Sol committed no harm against Briar. It takes a little while to get them out of my office and on their way home. It passes in a blur. All I can think of are Briar’s words.
No wonder Eve doesn’t want you.
I sit in my office for a long time after they leave, thinking of nothing at all. I love Eve. I’ve loved her for years, even as I resigned myself to always occupying a specific space in her life. Manipulating her into signing a contract was shitty. I could have explained the situation. Or I could have gone over her head to Pope and explained what they needed to know of the danger. They could have sent her into hiding.
I’ve been selfish and just as much an overbearing asshole as she’s claimed.
I push to my feet with a sigh and go in search of my woman. Except she’s not mine. She never will be. No matter what she feels for me—and I know Eve well enough at this point to understand that she does have feelings for me in some capacity—my deception will always stand between us and any future we could attempt.
For once, the castle is feeling kind. I only have to climb a single set of stairs before it spills me out into what I’ve come to consider Eve’s Garden. She’s here, knitting away at a blue garment. She’s fast, needles clacking steadily even as her gaze is on something a million miles away. It’s clearly a sweater, the fabric spilling over her lap. This mundane act of creation is a beautiful kind of magic as far as I’m concerned. I can’t wait to see it finished.
If I do right by her, it never will be.
“Briar went home with Sol.” When she doesn’t immediately respond, I clear my throat. “I, uh, might have acted too hastily in that situation.”
Her gaze flicks to my face, finally focusing on me, and there’s such deep sadness there that I nearly hit my knees and beg for forgiveness. It won’t make a difference. I’ve apologized, and she’s rightly called me on the truth that I wouldn’t do anything differently. She won’t believe that my regret has taken hold enough for this apology to be true. I’ve given her no reason to.
Even so, I can’t stop myself from moving closer. “I’ll make things right.”
Her lips twist. “Some things you can’t make right, Azazel. No matter how hard you try.” She finishes a row and carefully sets her knitting aside. “But I’m glad you saw reason when it comes to Briar and Sol. I think I’d like to meet him properly at some point. After hearing about him for the last few days, I feel like I know him.”
My throat is so tight, I can barely get the words out. “I think Briar would welcome any chance to see you again.” And then I do fall to my knees, because how can I not? “I’m sorry, Eve. Truly sorry.”
She reaches out and cups my cheek. I would welcome her fury, her spite. Instead, she just smiles sadly. “I know you are.” It feels like she’s saying goodbye. She’s touching me, but she’s retreating all the same.
It makes me want to clasp her to me all the more, to hold her so tightly, she wouldn’t dream of leaving. Which just proves I’m exactly the monster she believes me to be. I close my eyes. “With Ramanu back, we’re closing in on Brosh.”
“Azazel.” She waits until I open my eyes to continue. “What difference does it make? I understand the situation well enough. If you kill or imprison him, it will just start a blood feud within your family. I won’t be any safer then.” She drops her hand and sits back. “You know, if you’d come to me with honesty, I probably would have signed the contract.”
I stare. “No, you wouldn’t have. You were happy in your life.”
Her smile dims. “Not happy.”
“Content, then. You’ve said before that you liked your job. You have Pope. You . . .”
Eve clears her throat. “You know I grew up in foster care.” She continues before I have a chance to respond. “I was one of the privileged ones. Nothing bad ever happened to me.” Her eyes shine in the fading light streaking through the trees around us. “But no one ever chose me.”
I choose you.
I know better than to say it aloud. It’s not the right time. She won’t welcome it.
“That’s part of what I like about the sex work. My clients choose me. They do more than choose me. They go out of their way to have me. They pay extravagant amounts of money, they beg Pope for the privilege, they do their best to ensure I never have cause to turn them away.”
“Eve.”
“So, yes, I like my job. I like the challenge of providing their perfect fantasy. I like the money—gods, I like the money. I love the freedom my life allows me. Or what it allowed me.” Her lower lip quivers. “But what I really like—what I crave—is being chosen.”
Gods, she’s tearing my heart right out of my chest. “I’ll make it right. I swear I will.”
It’s like she doesn’t hear me. “You were my favorite. Did you know that? All those years ago, you picked me out of a lineup, and then afterward, you only wanted me.” A single tear slips free. “I asked Pope, you know. If you were contracting any of the others. I was jealous.” Her laugh is a little wet. “But you never did. You chose me that night and then you kept choosing me.”
“I only ever wanted you,” I whisper. I remember that first night. Pope is particular about their clientele and their people, and so they hosted an event. A trial run for both new clients and new sex workers on their staff. I had gone, sure that I saw my opportunity to make a deal with Eve slipping away. That’s all that was supposed to happen that night. An offer.
Instead, I saw her standing in that line of people, proud and beautiful and a tiny bit unsure but trying not to show it. And I knew I wouldn’t be offering a contract. I knew she was beyond me, but I wanted her in whatever way she’d allow. Becoming her client was the simplest and most honest way forward. Until I lied and ruined everything.
“I know.” She wipes away her tear and visibly pulls herself together. “That’s a heady thing, Azazel. So, yeah, if you’d come to me with a contract and an explanation . . . I might not have believed you at first, but I can’t pretend I would have turned you away entirely.”
“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. Bargainers may be able to jump realms, may be able to manipulate the timing of such jumps, but we can’t actually time travel. I can’t go back and do things differently. I can’t fix anything.
“Me too.”
CHAPTER 19
EVE
Ilie in bed next to Azazel each night, tucked against his strong, warm body, only to wake up alone each morning. When we have sex, it’s frenzied, as if each time is our last. We share meals, the conversation stilted and filled with things unsaid.
It feels like we’re saying goodbye in slow motion. Truly, this time.
I love him, but how can I let myself sink fully into something that should be a joy when the circumstances make it a horror? I’m still trapped in the castle, still knitting away as if I’m the miller’s daughter, trying to spin yarn into forgetting my reality. In the weeks that follow, I finish both sleeves of the sweater and complete the ribbing of the hem.
I’m weaving in the last end when the entire castle shudders. In my time here, we’ve never had anything resembling an earthquake, and from the way the floor suddenly angles beneath my feet, that’s not what’s happening now. “I’m going!”