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I take the tooth from him, rolling it between my fingers. I close my eyes for a moment, hearing an echo of this man’s screams.

“Human trafficker.” I can still see his crisp white shirt and the smoke that curled from his cigarette. He looked at me like I was livestock. The memory still gives me chills.

But I’m also proudest of that particular case. I ended up saving over a hundred men, women, and children.

“I left him alone in a room with his victims and their families.”

“Did he die?”

I shake my head. “He begged for it … but no.”

I never said I was a good person, but I came pretty close to the devil with this one. The tooth is proof enough of that.

“I brought all of these men close to death,” I say, looking down at the tooth.

For several seconds, the Bargainer doesn’t say anything. Finally, “How close?”

Close enough to feel that ancient power move through me, the same power that compelled my ancestors to kill.

I clear my throat. “Close enough to know I should feel ashamed.”

… Close enough to really enjoy it.

Des huffs out a laugh. “But you’re not.” It isn’t a question.

“No.”

Not at all. The box is full of mementos of the cruelest, most sinister people in the world. People who hurt children, who abused loved ones, who tried to get away with murder.

Not even prison or death can atone for the atrocities they’ve committed. I might be the closest they ever come to a true reckoning on earth.

Des shakes his head. “Godsdamnit but we’re similar. Did I make you this way?”

“Youdidn’t do anything,”—except maybe give me a template on how to work with criminals—“I was this way before you met me.”

At the reminder, the edges of the room darken. It’s actually pretty heartening, seeing Des get upset for me even after all this time.

He toes the box. “Think I should pay these guys a visit?”

I doubt they’d survive it. The Bargainer doesn’t have the same issue with death that I do.

Still, I smile at the thought of the King of Night in his leather pants and vintage T-shirts, dropping in on these men so that he can wreak a little havoc—and all because they pissed his mate off at one point in time.

I thread my fingers through his. “Marriage with you is going to befun.”

Chapter 23

“…Enchantress…”

I suck in a breath at the voice. It comes from everywhere all at once.

“Enjoying your time on earth?”

I swivel in a circle, my feet digging into sand.

Sand … ?

That’s when my surroundings come into focus. There’s a beach, and the ocean, and a cliff—a very familiar cliff.