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The Bargain (ao3)

People whisper about the god that lives in the forest, that grants wishes to the desolate and the desperate, but when Nesta Archeron takes it upon herself to enter the forest and ask the god to save her family, she gets much more than she bargained for. (For @cassianappreciationweek day 4)

In the darkness, something cracked.

Something snapped beneath her feet, and in the thin shafts of moonlight that broke through the stretching, reaching branches of the trees overhead, she caught sight of the forest floor, littered with sticks and stones— with things that glowed white, luminescent in the dark. Things that might have been teeth, might have been bones.

A shiver crawled down her spine, a cold touch that was light and terrible and enough to make her shudder. There was another crack, another splinter in the silence, and somehow the forest seemed to grow denser, the woods pressing in on all sides. The darkness was a shroud, thick and cloying and almost impenetrable, and yet still Nesta walked— one determined foot in front of another. The branches caught on her cloak as she went, like aged and crooked fingers— snatching, grasping, hungry.

Still— she walked, her stomach aching with hunger and her bones aching with cold. In her hand she clutched her mother’s iron pendant so hard it left marks in the soft skin of her palm, its bite a reminder, a warning. She hoped it would protect her— hoped it would save her. As she took each misbegotten step, inching her way deeper and deeper into the dark swell of trees where only the truly desperate dared venture, she recited her mother’s old warnings, too.

Always wear iron, Mama had said when Nesta was young. Hang rowan by the door. Never enter into a bargain with a stranger, and remember— the fae can’t lie.

Nesta had them memorised, clung to them as animal eyes glinted at her through the trees.

She shuddered. Monsters lurked in these woods— everyone knew that.

But the baker’s boy had told her of an altar hidden deep within, where the lost go to pray. The blacksmith’s wife had been so desperate for a babe, the boy had said, that she’d made the trip in the dark, when the moon was full. She’d found the altar and laid out an offering, begged on her knees for the gods to answer her prayers. Two months later, she knew she was with child. The baker’s boy had whispered it as Nesta had pleaded with him for his last loaf of bread, bartered for it with the last coin they had. The gods live there, he’d said, handing over a small, half-burnt loaf. They take pity on those who dare to find their alter— on the cold and the desperate and the hungry.

Nesta was all of those things.

And so she walked— through a blackness so thick she stumbled over tree roots breaking through the earth, through the branches that scraped her skin and the nettles that clawed her ankles as if in warning, bitter warning— an omen, not to take another step. Through the old graveyard, past the ivy devouring old tombstones; names and dates worn to dust. Vines snagged underfoot and yet still she walked, unable to face one more sunrise in the crumbling cottage she called home— unable to sit around an empty table with her sisters and their father, with empty plates and an empty hearth. It was dangerous, to go alone into a darkened forest filled with monsters, but dangerous too, to sit at home and starve. Maybe the gods would take pity on her. Maybe they’d listen to her.

After what felt like hours of walking, finally the forest thinned.

She emerged into a clearing bathed in the white light of the moon, and in the centre stood the ruins of a temple. Cold grey stone shone almost luminous beneath the starlight, and broken arches and vaulted ceilings spoke to a lost grandeur, a beauty in decay. Still it towered above her, walls stretching skywards even as they crumbled, and as Nesta stepped over the fallen stones that littered the clearing, she found the three steps that led to the remains of a door— beneath a sweeping, curved archway that might once have been grand.

And inside…

There was an altar.

In that, at least, the stories had been true,

A great slab of whitened stone, worn smooth with age, sat in the middle of the ruin, open to the air. The roof had collapsed, leaving the temple exposed to the elements, and a fine layer of moss coated the debris that lay abandoned, almost forgotten. Only almost— because Nesta spied the offerings left, clustered at the base of that alter. Pomegranates and flower petals were left scattered, coins and jewellery and all the tokens left behind by the desolate. Nesta felt unconsciously for the bag hung over her shoulder, carrying her own meagre offerings. She’d brought some wildflowers that Elain had grown, along with one of their father’s little wooden carvings. He couldn’t make any money with his work, but perhaps the little carved bat might be enough to earn the mercy of whatever deity lived inside these woods— called this deserted temple home.

A soft breeze ran through the ruins as Nesta kneeled by that altar, and a chill ran through her as she delved into her bag and pulled out the flowers, carefully wrapped in a length of cotton she’d cut off the bottom of an old dress. The scent was sweet, and even though the stems were a little crumpled, the petals were intact, all muted pinks and purples in the low light. She breathed it in, almost saccharine in the darkness of the temple, and willed herself to think of sunlight and bright places as she pulled out the tiny wooden bat next, setting it down on the white stone of the altar steps. It was stark against it, and as another - colder, much more ominous - breeze brushed the back of her neck, Nesta swallowed. Her every nerve screeched to a half as ice clustered along her spine, freezing the air in her lungs. The silence in temple shifted, making her hair stand on end, and that breeze didn’t feel pleasant, didn’t feel natural. Still, she forced her hands to steady as she set about arranging the flowers on the altar, surrounding the little wooden bat. She kept her eyes down, but she knew, somehow, that she wasn’t alone— that someone, or something, was watching her from the shadows.

Tentatively, Nesta looked up.

Her fingers stilled over the petals, her hand trembling. Behind the altar, close to the ruined temple walls, there was a shadow. A large shadow, lurking in the dark corners the moonlight couldn’t reach— the corners the light seemed to shy away from. She heard the whisper of a breath, saw a glint of silver, and as Nesta’s heart began to race hard in her chest, the last of Elain’s flowers dropped from her fingers, lying in the dust as the shadow moved.

It was nothing but a shifting of the darkness, a movement so smooth it was imperceptible, but as Nesta fixed her eyes on that dark, dark corner…

Footsteps sounded against the stone, slow and steady and purposeful, and she caught the scent of cinnamon and leather and something… other, carried to her on that strange breeze. It was something like petrichor, like the earth after a heavy rain— something ancient, something dark, that made her think of tales and myths and legends, something that made her every hair stand on end.

Was this the deity rumoured to live in these woods?

Was he here to bless her— to grant her wish?

The shape in the darkness emerged slowly from the shadows, becoming more discernible, and still Nesta kneeled. She looked up, tried to see the god’s face, but the darkness still masked it so completely that all she could see was a broad outline. It was vaguely human— she could see two arms, two legs, but nothing else. A dark hum echoed on the stone, deep and low and entirely male, and it had something inside her coiling tight, a shiver running through her as the sound skittered across her skin. It was smooth and dark and weighted somehow, decadent, and it had her looking up, searching in vain for his face, desperate to find his eyes… but he was still cloaked by the dark, and as that hum died away, an echo fading into nothing, something stirred inside her. Some ancient instinct began to awaken, some primal sense that something was… wrong here.

He took another step, a single move that resounded on the stone.

The silence was suffocating, pressing, and still the god hid his face, lingering in the shadows until Nesta was convinced he was borne of them, at one with the dark. She couldn’t speak, the words trapped in her throat, and as her heart pounded in her chest, unease sluicing through her, the god took another deliberate step forwards, purposefully slow and almost mockingly meandering, as if he had all the time in the world.

Nesta knew then that he was toying with her— playing with her, with the fear that hammered through her veins. She thought she heard a low chuckle, but it was stolen by the wind, and as a shaft of moonlight at last touched the edges of that shadow…

A talon glinted in the silver light, right above his shoulders.

Brutally sharp, it shone like an onyx and Nesta knew, suddenly, that this wasn’t a deity at all.

He took another step forward, and Nesta could suddenly make out wings spreading behind his shoulders, as black as the night itself. The great membranous things stretched out, and the scream got caught in her throat as she blinked, her heart thundering and her breath falling short. She couldn’t move, couldn’t look away, and oh, his face. Her mouth turned dry as she watched the moonlight filter across sharp cheekbones, glinting in eyes that gleamed with menace. She took in the swell of his mouth, generous lips parting as he gave her a wicked smirk, and her skin erupted in gooseflesh, something inside her seeming to shrink, to shirk, as she felt his presence swallowing the space between them, devouring it. The air began to thrum, and Nesta’s pulse raced as warning bells begun to ring and ring and ring out in her head, clamouring and clanging through her as every single sense she had begged her to run.

“You’re not a god,” she whispered.

Her voice was a whisper in the darkness, soft on old stone. The creature took another step forward, all predatory grace and terrifying, rugged beauty, and suddenly he was close enough to reach out and touch the flowers she’d left scattered across the altar.

“No, sweetheart,” he said, in a voice so delectably smooth that Nesta could almost feel it melting into her skin. He ran one long fingertip across Elain’s petals before lifting his head. His lips curved into a menacing smirk, making her shiver as he tilted his head and added, slowly, “I’m better.”

His lips split, revealing rows of white teeth— elongated canines, so sharp they could sink through skin as easily as a hot knife through butter. He was grinning now, in a way that threatened to devour her, and though fear ran rampant through Nesta’s chest, she found herself frozen on the steps of his altar, unable to run, unable to look away.

He was beautiful.

Monstrously, terrifyingly beautiful.

“Pretty,” he murmured, dragging his thumb across the petals she’d left— but his eyes weren’t on the flowers. They were on her, on her face. His gaze dropped to her lips, hungry as that smirk continued to curve a mouth crafted of pure sin, and Nesta felt her heart kick an unsteady beat as she studied him.

Dark eyes looked back at her, reflecting the silver light of the moon. Equally dark hair hung in waves to his shoulders, framing a face so ruggedly handsome Nesta almost thought it was a pity that he lived in the woods. A scar cut through his eyebrow, but his bronze skin was otherwise smooth. She swallowed again, taking in the bulk of him, the languid spread of muscle that corded his arms, his chest. He was wearing a simple black tunic but it clung to his chest, leaving little to the imagination. He tilted his head, almost cat-like, and as his hair fell forwards, Nesta caught sight of his ears. They rose to a sharp point, small tufts of fur crowning the tips. Silver glinted there, a chain earring crossing that pointed tip, shining almost sinister in the dark. He was the most brutal and beautiful thing she’d ever seen, and as his broad hands stroked the petals of Elain’s flowers, she knew that he could break her neck in a heartbeat if he wanted.

Fae, she thought, suddenly cold all over. He’s fae.

“Tell me, love,” he purred. “What brings someone like you out into the deep, dark wood on a night like this?”

Nesta swallowed. “Isn’t this your shrine?” she asked, looking at the offerings left. The creature snorted and rounded the alter, suddenly close enough to brush her skin with one of those large hands, those fingers that might have been claws.

“No,” he answered. “But perhaps it could be.” He hummed again, low and dangerous, the sound seeming louder than it should, echoing on the expanse of empty, desecrated stone. “Perhaps it should be.”

“Why are you here then?” Nesta asked sharply, and distantly she realised it was probably incredibly stupid to be rude to a creature that could kill her with no effort at all but— she had walked for so long in the hopes that she would find a god to answer her prayers, and all she’d found was an empty sanctuary and a creature that looked like he might devour her.

The smile he gave her was cruel and cunning, chilling her blood even as his beauty threatened to steal her breath. Those wickedly sharp teeth bit down into his bottom lip as he dragged his gaze over her, assessing. His wings flared, sharp talons winking in the moonlight, and when he blinked, it was with all the practiced study of a predator sizing up its prey. She was nothing but a rabbit to this creature— a doe that had wandered too far into the dark parts of the forest.

He didn’t answer her question.

Instead, the creature plucked up the little wooden bat, stroking one long finger over its wings.

“You need something,” he observed. “Perhaps I can give it to you.”

Nesta hesitated.

It was a moment of reckless stupidity, a moment that could cost her her life— you didn’t make a deal with the fae, everybody knew that. But she was desperate, and well…

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

In the silence, she could hear the wind drifting through the ruins of the temple, whistling through crumbling arches. Her heart stuttered. She had come in the hopes of finding somebody to answer her prayers, and though this creature wasn’t at all what she’d been looking for… perhaps he would do for now.

Slowly, she asked, “what would you want in exchange?”

He dropped the bat back onto the altar, against the bed of flower petals. He waved a hand.

“Oh, nothing you won’t want to give.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Nesta said curtly, and he laughed— so loudly the sound bounced on the cracked and broken stone.

“Well, aren’t you a fiery little thing.” He laughed again, and in a blink he had moved closer, so close that he was right beside her now, towering above where she remained on her knees. She hadn’t even seen him move, but he was there nonetheless, almost pressed against her, and before she could move away, he dropped into a crouch beside her.

“I like it,” he added in a low murmur.

Nesta felt her blood rise to her cheeks, her breathing become laboured. She should be running, should be screaming, and yet… she didn’t have it in her to rise to her feet, to draw away from the creature with the wings and sharp teeth and piercing eyes.

“I’ll give you whatever you want, princess,” he continued. “All I want from you is one word in return.”

“…A word?”

He hummed again, rising to his feet in one smooth, lethal movement. He extended a hand to bring her up too, an assortment of rings glinting on his fingers. She wondered if they had been offerings once, too. If he had plucked them from the altar as easily as he now looked to pluck her, his fingers stretching towards hers in a silent offer that Nesta knew she shouldn’t take.

She hesitated.

He grinned, teeth gleaming sharp and wicked, his hand lingering in the space between them for a moment more before—

Nesta took it.

His fingers curled around hers, her hand so small within his own. It dwarfed her, made her feel as though her life were the most fragile thing in the world, the most tremulous and brittle piece of glass. She forced herself to remain calm, steady, and his dark eyes glimmered. With mischief or something darker, she wasn’t sure.

“Just one little word,” he promised smoothly, squeezing her fingers within his palm— like he owned her already, had laid claim to a piece of her soul.

Nesta frowned. “Any word?”

He shook his head, dark hair falling over his forehead as he did. The talons at his back winked, and when he tilted his head to the side, he looked more like an animal than anything even remotely human. Like a cat, his eyes glinted in the darkness, green and gold when the moonlight touched them.

“No, sweetheart. A word of my choosing.”

“What could you possibly want with that?”

He grinned again, a smile that said he would ruin her. Trepidation crawled through her, her blood turning sluggish in her veins, and he didn’t answer her question.

Never enter into a bargain with a stranger.

Her mother’s warning rang through her, a warning bell, but Nesta shook her head and chased it away. Mama was gone— dead, long ago. Papa might as well be gone too, with all the effort he made to keep them alive, and with Feyre out hunting in the forest for their meals, there was nothing Nesta could do to make sure they didn’t have to spend one more night in that cottage. If a bargain with this creature would save them— she’d pay the price, whatever it was.

Still, she hesitated.

“You can’t lie,” she said carefully, remembering her mother’s warnings. “So tell me— is this a trick?”

The creature only smiled in the darkness, that generous mouth parting in a slash of white, wicked teeth. The fae can’t lie— she’d had it drilled into her since before she could walk. The fae can’t lie. She held onto it now, clutched it like it might keep her safe as the creature before her, this false god, looked at her with eyes that suddenly seemed… hungry.

“Can’t I?” he purred, his voice a low rumble through the night. He tilted his head, cat-eyes sparking like embers. “Tell me, sweetheart. Who’s been filling that pretty little head with such tales?”

He laughed then, and ice bloomed in her chest, spreading until every inch of her was cold. His eyes dragged over her, and she felt every place his attention lingered. Over her neck, her collarbone, down her arms until he reached her waist. Something thawed— something heated, the ice within her turning warm and curling deep in her stomach as those predatory eyes lingered, snagged at her hips.

“So you can lie?” she asked, her voice hard even as she began to feel a little breathless. He grinned again.

“Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it?”

Silence followed, where he looked at her with that predatory gaze. Nesta had always been stubborn, always been able to hold her own with her sharp tongue and sharper nature, but now she felt like little more than a mouse writhing beneath the claws of a wolf. He grinned still, revealing the teeth all too equipped to tear her apart.

But as she turned her face away, her eyes alighted on Elain’s flower petals.

“What word?” she asked.

The creature tsked, dragging a thumb across his lips as his eyes turned molten in the darkness. “Ah, ah.” He shook his head. “Not before you agree.”

“So I’m supposed to go into this blind?” Nesta asked flatly, and though wariness still cloaked her like a second skin, the fear was beginning to subside, beginning to be replaced by… something else. His teeth shone white through the black, sharp and menacing and oh, so delectably dangerous.

“Not blind,” he said with a shrug. The movement shifted the wings behind him, catching in the moonlight and reflecting silver on those sharp, sharp talons. “You know exactly what I want from you. A word.”

“But not what word.”

The beast shrugged again. “Life is full of surprises sweetheart. You can’t ever know everything. That would leave no place for…” He grinned, his eyes sparking as he looked at her like he was about to eat her alive. She felt his attention, his gaze like a physical touch he dragged languid over every single inch of her. “…Fun.”

Silence followed— one where the world seemed entirely too quiet, not even the trees rustling in the breeze, like nature itself was holding its breath, waiting to see which way she would fall. The creature in the darkness was so close— he was all she could see, all she could hear, all she could breathe, and he was like the most potent kind of poison, the most delicious. She was losing her mind, slowly falling into madness, but he smiled at her, and Nesta felt something inside her shiver, but not at all from fear this time.

“Tell me princess,” he murmured. “Are you going to take my offer, or are you going to break my heart and turn me down?”

His smile was menacing, feral. Nesta scowled.

“Do you even have a heart?”

He tipped his head forward, lips brushing her ear. “Why don’t you come closer and find out?”

Her heart stuttered, and she drew back an inch. It was impossible to come closer— he was so close to her already, she could feel his heat. But she couldn’t go back to that cottage— she couldn’t go back and watch her sister starve. She could embrace death here, in his arms, feeling its bite as he sank his claws into her skin, or she could meet her end in that cottage, slow and drawn out and aching as starvation took them all. Either way, Nesta figured, she would end up damned— so she swallowed, steeled herself, and found her resolve.

“Alright,” she said at last. “Alright.”

Cat-eyes glinted through the dark, a low hum reverberating through his chest and echoing in Nesta’s very bones as he dipped his head, the tip of his nose brushing her jaw. There was a scrape of teeth, a hand winding possessively around her waist as he stepped behind her.

“What is it that you want from me then, princess?” he asked, his mouth at her throat. “What have you come to take?”

“I don’t want my family to starve,” she began slowly, ignoring the hand that splayed over her stomach, drifting towards her hips. Beneath his teeth, her pulse fluttered. “I want my father’s lost ships to be found, with all his treasure and gold intact. I want us to be able to leave that cottage in the woods and live the way we did before, with no need to worry about where our next meal will be coming from. I want…” She paused, swallowed. “I don’t ever want to go back to that cottage again.”

She looked up over her shoulder and saw the creature grin, an almost feral look in his eyes. A hollow feeling spread in her chest, and briefly Nesta wondered if she ought to have been more careful with her wording— if she not had just unwittingly signed away her soul. She watched his wings spread behind him, so large she feared he was going to enclose her in them and suffocate her, but after a moment he closed them again, tucking them back against his spine, and when he looked at her Nesta forgot that she was supposed to be afraid.

“Done,” he purred.

Nesta blinked— as if it were that simple, all of their troubles erased, just like that. She let out a breath of relief, feeling it wash over her as she turned to face him, studying the lines of him that melted into the darkness. In her hand, she still held her mother’s pendant, the one she’d been clutching tight ever since she’d left the cottage.

“And now for my half of the bargain,” he whispered, and his voice set her on edge, made her hair stand on end. Using one broad hand, he dragged his touch across her neck, over her collarbone, claws at her neck edging pain with the most beautiful kind of pleasure. Shivers erupted in his wake as he brushed her hair back over her shoulder, baring more of her skin, and Nesta felt herself grow dizzy. She should run— should have been running ever since he’d opened his mouth and spoken, but she couldn’t move.

Didn’t want to move.

Something about him was alluring, drawing her to him, and she didn’t know if it was some spell he’d worked on her or whether it was just something about him that spoke to her— the way he looked at her like he appreciated her sharp tongue and stubborn nature.

“Just one word,” he said, his voice deep and low and seductive.

“What word?” she asked once more, tipping her head back as his thumb skated up from her collarbone and rested beneath her jaw. He smirked again, dipping his head to whisper against her skin. With warm lips he pressed a kiss to her jaw, dragging his mouth up to her ear. She shivered, and one large hand came to rest at her waist, a firm presence that held her in place. Almost unconsciously she leaned into it, her chest brushing his as he let out a low rumble of approval, of appreciation.

“Tell me your name, princess.”

“That’s what you want from me?” she asked, breathless as his hand began to skate over her hips. With those lethally sharp teeth, he nipped lightly at her ear. She let out a small whimper, but as a warmth ignited deep within, she couldn’t say for certain that it was a sound of pain rather than pleasure.

“No, that’s not the word I want,” he said idly, almost lazily, as his tongue danced across her neck. “But I’d like to have it all the same.”

And Nesta knew she should have lied, should have given him a false name, but she found herself opening her mouth as his hand went to the small of her back, pulling her more fully against him as she breathed,

“Nesta.”

“Nesta,” he repeated, his thumb rubbing circles along her spine. His other hand was still at her hip, but he grew daring, drifting lower with a touch so maddening Nesta understood, now, why there were so many warnings of the fair folk. He was going to be the death of her, and when he slowly bit down once more on the skin beneath her ear, Nesta fought back a moan, and the hand that she’d had clenched ever since she arrived suddenly slackened. The iron pendant she’d held onto like a lifeline tumbled to the ground, and against her skin she felt him smirk.

“You won’t be needing that,” he whispered.

Once more, a bolt of caution ran through her. He was fae, a monster lurking in the woods, but still Nesta didn’t leave, and as he kissed his way down her neck, his hands bunched in the fabric of her dress, she found she really didn’t want to run, as stupid and as reckless as it was. She wanted to let him carry on kissing her, wanted to find herself drunk on the pleasure he could give her, and as she tilted her head back even further, he hummed again.

“Good girl,” he said as she melted into him, the angle of her neck giving him better access as his teeth scraped across the skin at her throat.

A breathless, disbelieving laugh left her as she looked up at the sky littered with stars. Her hands came to rest on his wide chest, hard and firm beneath her fingers.

“What word?” she asked again.

He nipped at her skin once more, his hands finding the hem of her skirt and dipping beneath, fingertips ghosting over the bare skin of her legs, her thighs. She gasped.

“Yes.”

Nesta blinked, swallowed. Some of the elation, the ecstasy, dimmed as she shook her head.

“I don’t understand,” she managed, but her breathing was more laboured than ever, because she was pressed so fully against him that he engulfed her, and his hands were at her thighs, his teeth at her neck, and his wings had spread above them, blocking out the sky above.

“I’m going to ask you a question,” he said lowly, his voice almost sultry. “And you will say yes. That’s the bargain.”

Nesta blinked again, but something other than horror ran through her— in the places where fear should be, in the gaps between terror, there was something else, something distinctly different, something thrilling. Even though her stomach twisted and her heartbeat tripped, she looked up into those luminous eyes, caught sight of the talons and the wings and the lightly-furred ears, and found herself nodding.

“You said you don’t ever want to go back to that cottage. I have made it so.” He pulled back just enough so that she could see his face in the moonlight, his devastating smirk. “I will take you away from here and make you mine. Neither you nor your family will want for anything again if I take you here and now, if I claim you as mine. All you have to do is fulfil your half— let that one word fall from those pretty little lips.”

“Why?” Nesta breathed.

“Because,” he said simply. “I want to keep you.” His head dipped to her neck again, teeth grazing across her skin. “Let me have you.”

And Nesta thought of the cottage waiting for her— and the life waiting for her when the cottage was gone. She thought of the dreary life set out, winding before her, the one her mother had wanted— balls and society gatherings and polite conversation that would kill her soul long before death stopped her heart. And then she turned her attention to the monster in the dark, the stretching wings and sharp talons and pointed ears with soft patches of fur. She looked at his big hands and long fingers, almost like claws, and all of it belonging to a creature with a face so beautiful it made her heart ache.

“Let me have you,” he repeated, bringing his mouth lower.

Nesta couldn’t catch her breath, but she let herself lean more fully into his arms, letting him take her weight entirely. He hummed, satisfied, and the sound of it rumbled through her. His hands wandered, finding their way back to her hips, down— dipping once more beneath her skirts. Her skin suddenly felt tight, too hot, and when those damned claws dragged over sensitive flesh, her breathing stopped, her mind emptied. His hands rose higher, her back arched, and at her neck his breath danced, his lips pressing against the curve where her neck met her shoulder.

“Let me have you,” he said once more. “Let me keep you.”

His fingers skirted the very centre of her, right where she was suddenly aching, burning. He hummed against her once more, a sound of approval as she pressed against his chest, and oh gods— he was overpowering, overwhelming, and her entire world had shrunk, encompassed within the space between his wings. She could practically taste him on the wind, and as his hands grew more daring, roaming across the bare skin beneath her dress and sliding up her stomach, she felt herself falling, felt herself losing whatever grip it was that bound her to reality.

“Nesta,” the beast chided, nipping at her ear. “Answer me.”

And this time, Nesta gasped and breathed at last, a desperate, aching,

“Yes.”

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