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His eyes take on a fascinated sheen. “Yes,” he says, almost to himself, “I bet you could.” He closes the distance between us. “I do miss the days when I thought you a simple slave. Perhaps when you are mine, I’ll pretend you still are one.” He catches one of my wrists. “You’ll wear metal cuffs and a collar like the slaves of old. And then you’ll be myenslavedenchantress, and together we’ll see just how close you can come to making someone like me feel affection.”

He dares to threaten us? Never again will we fall under his yoke.

“I hope you can manage it,” he continues, “more for your sake than mine. I’m not known for being gentle with my playthings. Just ask Mara.”

I stare at him for a long moment, my claws sharpening, barely staying my siren’s violent tendencies. Then, all at once, I release my hold on her.

My free hand moves almost without my noticing it. I strike, swiping at his face. My claw tips tear open the skin of his cheek in four evenly spaced lines.

Almost immediately, blood begins to drip from the wounds.

The Thief looks amused.

I don’t get any warning before he throws me against the tree he’d been toeing only minutes before.

I let out an angry shout as I hit the bloody trunk, my chest pressed up against the sleeping soldier, my eyes staring at the man’s bloody face. Behind me, the Thief pins me in.

“Normally I like my women docile,” he whispers against my ear, “but you—you I’ll enjoy fighting. Breaking.”

His words are decidedly sexual, and I remember all those female soldiers and the children he’d forced upon them.

I grit my teeth, my nails digging into the tree trunk.

Never,my siren vows.We will kill him first, and we willrelishit.

I hear a moan on the wind, and the trees shiver, their leaves beginning to fall from the branches like tears.

In front of me, the soldier’s eyes snap open.

Oh,shit.

The Thief leans into my ear again, his lips brushing the sensitive skin there. “Enjoy the carnage. I do hope you survive it …”

The screams ripme from sleep.

I jerk up in bed, wide awake in an instant, my breath coming in startled gasps.

Not in the queen’s oak forest. Not pinned to a rotting tree.

Not in the Thief’s clutches.

The dim lamps hanging above me illuminate the Bargainer’s Otherworld chambers.

I’m safe. For now.

The screams filter back through my awareness.

Then again …

Des stands at the foot of the bed, his talon-tipped wings spread out, looking like one of hell’s angels as he stares at a point above my head. I follow his gaze, but there’s nothing there.

My eyes meet his as more shrieks vibrate through the bones of the castle. There’s something about the sound … like it’s one voice coming through many mouths.

I remember my dream, the male soldier’s eyes opening. Something cold skitters up my spine.

There are no sleeping men here in the Night Kingdom, I try to reassure myself. And it’s true, there are no sleeping men here in Somnia. But a thousand feet beneath us an army’s worth of women lay sleeping.

The screams filter in through my thoughts.