Page 38 of Caging Darling (The Lost Girl #3)

CHAPTER 38

P heonix advises that I leave my shawl back in the muses’ quarters.

As she leads me back into Vulcan’s entertaining room, I make the mistake of scanning the crowd for Astor first. He’s not difficult to find, sulking in the corner as he is.

Upon seeing me in the scant gown the Nomad picked out for this occasion, he blanches, his color receding then returning as quick as it left in scarlet blotches up his neck. He blinks, swallows, then straightens, turning to examine the hourglass perched on the bookcase next to him.

“Ah, there’s my little prize,” says Vulcan, peering at me from behind a goblet. He’s perched on a chaise, his boots propped on the bare legs of the muse lounging next to him. He tips back his drink, gulps, then pounces from his seat, striding toward me as he adjusts his jacket. “You know,” he says, examining my body with what a more naive version of myself would have mistaken for lovesick eyes, “I was torn to shreds the night you were taken from me. Bothered by the incident for months. I’d thought our story was tragic. But now as I’m considering how the events unfolded, I’m wondering if the Fates were looking down on me with favor after all. You see, never in my life have I wanted something I couldn’t have. Not with the flash of a smile or my parents’ coin purse. I’m afraid I’ve never been fulfilled because of it. But you, Nova. I’ve been waiting on you.”

With that, Vulcan slides a finger down the neckline of my gown, caressing the top of my breast. My skin goes clammy.

Footsteps pound on the floor, louder than the chatter of the party guests. Astor appears next to me, taking my arm in his.

Vulcan’s eyes turn to ice. “I don’t take well to my things being touched,” he says.

“Fine,” says Astor. “Then I’ll buy her back.”

Vulcan laughs. Then looks around the room, as if he’s gauging his response based on how many people are listening. Finally, he settles on, “I’m afraid I value my muses too much to consider parting with them.”

“That’s because you haven’t been offered a high enough price,” says Astor.

Vulcan’s smile turns acidic. “Have you not looked around, my friend? What sum of money could you possibly offer me that would make me any richer?”

Astor smiles. “We both know that’s not how riches work. They’re the gift that kept taking. The mouth that kept begging for more.”

“No,” says Vulcan, drawing it out. “Now take your hands off my muse.”

“Or what?” says Astor. “Are you going to send your muses after me?”

“Unnecessary,” says Vulcan, snapping his fingers. Every bookcase in the room swivels open, and out of the hidden doors pour eight guards, each with a glinting sword at his side.

I tense, but Astor doesn’t acknowledge our new company.

“What if it’s not money I’m willing to deal in?” says Astor.

“My last name isn’t Carlisle,” says Vulcan. “I don’t deal in secrets.”

“But you’ll want this one,” says Astor. “Because I know where the Nomad is.”

I try not to let my thoughts show on my face. My hope that Vulcan will take the bait. This was our plan—have Astor act jealous once he saw me with Vulcan, then try to buy me back. Give up the Nomad’s location as a bartering chip.

“Many have claimed to know the location of the Gathers. Seldom have they been correct,” says Vulcan, looking bored, though the fact that he’s no longer steaming gives away that he’s interested.

“Probably because none of them have been currently in the Nomad’s employ.”

Vulcan raises his brow.

“Have to know where he’s going to turn up next if I’m going to deliver his money, don’t I?” says Astor, lifting his coat and letting the envelope of money peek out from his inner pocket.

“I thought you said the girl belonged to you,” Vulcan says.

“Well, let’s just say she was acquired at the same time I was.”

“The dreaded Captain Astor, a slave?” asks Vulcan. “Now, how did that come about?”

“It’s a rather long and personal story,” says Astor, flashing his teeth.

“Regardless of how you ended up in your situation, it rarely ends well—slaves betraying their masters.” Vulcan’s eyes flit toward the muses in the room, his warning received based on the demure but plastered smiles on their faces.

“I rather enjoy pressing my luck.”

Vulcan sighs, tapping his fingers together. “Even so, one has to wonder—if you’re so willing to hand over your master, why not do it to begin with?”

Astor smiles. Then nods toward the money in his pocket again.

“Ah,” says Vulcan. “But you have to know I’ll be wanting that back now. The price of the girl went up as soon as she entered my possession.”

Astor doesn’t move. He simply stares at Vulcan, an unreadable smile on his face. Still, I’m relieved at Vulcan’s last words. If there’s a price on me, that means he’s willing to sell.

“Fine,” says Astor after a droning minute. “You can have your money back and the location of the Nomad in exchange for the girl.”

“Is that why you’re doing this?” asks Vulcan, glancing between me and Astor. “Because you developed an affinity for your pet and now you don’t like that your employer is forcing you to let her go?”

Astor’s jaw ticks.

“Don’t worry. I’m familiar with your vice, as it is my own,” says Vulcan.

“I very much doubt that,” says Astor, but Vulcan seems altogether unfazed. “The money,” he says, holding his hand out.

Astor takes it from his jacket pocket and hands it to him.

“And the location,” says Vulcan.

“When we’re walking free of your manor, you’ll have it. I assure you,” says Astor.

“Clever,” says Vulcan. “I’ll see you come morning then.”

Astor actually raises a brow, blinking once, but rapidly enough to give away his confusion.

Vulcan’s smile cuts through my soul, and he’s not even looking at me. “You didn’t think I was going to hand her back over without taking a bite first, now did you?” He takes me by the arm, spinning me around to face the vanishing door while at the same time summoning another muse with a flick of his wrist. “Venus, take the newest muse to my chambers, won’t you, love? I’ll be with you shortly,” he adds with a whisper in my ear.

Panic suffuses my veins. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. The Nomad’s location was supposed to be enough, and it is.

But we’d underestimated Vulcan’s desire for me. His need to flex his power over Astor for daring to challenge him.

I turn over my shoulder for just one glimpse of Astor. I’m not thinking as I do it, and the look I toss at him—I’m not sure if it conveys I’ll be okay for a night , or Please. Please, not again.

Whatever it looks like, it seems to pierce Astor straight through the ribs. His countenance is stricken, his chest looking as if it’s about to cave in with the force with which he exhales.

I can’t bear to look at him. Can’t bear to feel his pain on top of mine. Not when I need more than anything to remember that he’s the one who betrayed me. Cast me aside. So I let Venus take me by the arm, and with the room slowing around me, I turn toward the vanishing door.

Not again, not again, not again.

The men in the parlor. Vulcan in the cab of the carriage. Peter.

Peter. Peter. Peter.

So many times.

The black corner in the back of my mind is waiting for me, arms open.

“Wendy.”

It’s the captain’s voice, and it has me abandoning all pretense. I whip around to face him, arm still interlocked with Venus’s at the elbow.

He so rarely calls me by my given name.

“Nothing bad,” he says again, and it’s with the most sincere smile I’ve ever seen. Faint. Barely at the edges of his mouth.

It’s the type of reassuring I imagine a father is supposed to be, and in that flash of an instant, the vision assaults me. Astor comforting a trembling child with just the flick of the sides of his mouth. The promise he rarely makes because he knows he’ll keep it.

Astor lunges for Vulcan’s shoulder first.

His blade, drawn and gleaming from his scabbard, comes down just above the man’s clavicle, cleaving sinew from bone. Blood gushes from Vulcan’s shoulder, spilling over his silk jacket and dribbling down his coat onto the ornate rug.

There’s a look of shock on Vulcan’s face. Like even with all the enemies he’s made, all the women he’s abused, he’s never been struck before. Not once in his life.

Venus screams, yanking me across the room with her, trying to get to the vanishing door. I twist, still being dragged by the muse, and watch the horror unfold.

Astor removes his blade with a sickening squelch, then goes for Vulcan’s neck. This time, Vulcan’s guard is ready. Metal clangs with its twin as swords collide, saving Vulcan from the fatal blow, though I’m unsure his original wound isn’t.

Relieved that Astor is still alive, I turn back to the problem at hand.

Venus pulls at the trigger for the door, but it’s stuck. She screams, slamming her open palms at the door, begging to be let in.

“It’s okay. The captain won’t hurt you,” I say, trying to appease the hysterical girl.

She turns to me, watery eyes bloodshot and crazed. “He already has,” she seethes.

I blink, slightly dizzy. “No, it’s alright. Vulcan can’t hurt you anymore.”

The girl beats against the door harder, wailing now. Another muse joins her, pulling her from the door and trying to fiddle with the trigger to get it to work. She’s crying too, tears smearing her mascara against her cheek.

Something tastes like bile in the back of my mouth.

“We’re dead,” says Venus, who’s curled onto her knees now, weeping through her fingers covering her face. “We’re dead. I wasn’t ready…”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“Should have just taken my chances running away. At least that would have been a faster death. At least I wouldn’t have had to…” Venus is still muttering, hardly able to hear me apparently, so I turn instead to Pheonix, who’s just run up to us and is fidgeting with the jammed door.

“What’s going on?” I ask her.

“Vulcan put out a contract on us like he did for most of his major enemies. If he dies, the muses are to die too.”

I almost choke. “Why?” I spit out, though as soon as I do, I realize how naive it makes me sound.

You would think that by this point in my life, after all I’ve been through, I would have come to expect evil rather than be shocked by it.

“Incentive for us not to kill him ourselves,” says Phoenix. “But I think part of him couldn’t stand the idea of us ever being with another man, even if he was already dead.”

My stomach churns, but I nod. I’m about to speak, when a hand grabs me from behind.

I kick and jab with my elbows to fight whoever’s dragging me from the parlor, but then a voice tickles my ear. “Just me, Darling.” His voice is gravelly, breathless from his recent fight.

I scan the room to find limbless bodies scattered across the floor, staining the rug. The body count includes Vulcan, whose corpse is still bleeding through his shirt. They’re not all dead, though. There are still more guards filing in through the hidden doors in the side of the room. Even if there weren’t, there’ll be a bounty on Astor’s head now, as large as the sum of Vulcan’s stash of wealth in the bank.

Minus whatever sum he’s paid to take out the muses, of course.

Astor’s shoving me through the front door, the cold night’s air slapping my face, renewing my lungs with invigoration, when my senses return to me. “Astor, stop.”

“Now’s not the time to pause and make a plan,” he says. “Though I do so know how you love to overthink.”

I shake my head, gripping at the hand he has sutured to my waist. “No. Astor, we have to go back.”

“That’s not happening.”

“The muses,” I say, breathless as Astor picks me up by the waist and carries me down the stairs. “Astor, stop. We can’t leave them.”

“I guarantee they’re scrappy enough to make a new life for themselves, though your generosity is charming.”

I grit my teeth, half-yelling, “Vulcan took out a bounty on them.”

Astor halts, with me still kicking at the air. He sets me on the cobblestone and then spins me around to face him. His hand grips my shoulders, clinging to me. “I’m not putting you at risk,” he says, his eyes piercing me.

“Astor, please. We can’t just leave them.”

Like Astor left me. Like Astor’s mother left him.

Astor takes one hand off my shoulder, runs it down his face with his eyes closed, and groans. “Why must you always have a death wish?”

My heart ignites.

Astor opens his eyes, his face going hard. “If I go in there, you have to promise me you’ll stay out here. Hidden,” he says.

I open my mouth to agree, but suddenly the words get caught in my throat. Adrenaline and fear of danger for the muses propelled me to a spontaneous bravery, but I’d thought I’d be going back in for them. Not sending Astor in, waiting in the alley on the possibility he wouldn’t return to me.

My throat bobs, and panic sets in on my chest. I grip it with my fingers, like I feel like if I don’t, my ribs will pop out of place.

“No, I have to go in with you.”

“You’ll just slow me down. Distract me.”

I shake my head. I can’t…I can’t wait out here.

Astor places his palm on the side of my face, the blunt edge of his hook on my other cheek. “Look at me, Darling.”

I do.

“I’ll come back for you.”

Tears sting at my eyes as the panic crawls up my esophagus and reaches my throat. “Promise?”

Astor’s eyes soften with something that looks like grief. “Promise.”

Astor turns and is gone. I make my way into the alley, hiding behind a pile of trash that stinks of rotten vegetables.

I have to press my back against the wall and slide down it to support my weight, my legs are shaking so. Shivers lance through me, running like frigid lightning bolts through my bones.

When I reach the ground, I hug my knees to my chest, rocking back and forth.

He’s coming. He’s coming for me. He’ll come back for me.

As the wind picks up, carrying into my ears the counterargument, I cover my ears with my hands and rock harder. He’s coming. Astor’s coming back for me.

He promised he’d come.

My heart pounds against my chest until it’s bruised and bloodied, like knuckles against a brick wall.

“Please come back,” I whisper into the darkness, my tears rivers of ice down my cheek.

I have no way of keeping the time, but when I feel as if half an hour has passed, my stomach churns, and I have to fight to keep down the contents instead of releasing them into the trash heap. Astor and I could be back in the Nomad’s carriage, on our way to the Gathers now. We could be close to safety, but no. I had to tell him to go back in and get those girls I’d only known for a few minutes.

Astor’s dead. Astor’s dead, and it’s my fault.

Anger races through my heart, directed at the muses for not escaping earlier. For sitting around and waiting for their fate to come upon them instead of fighting for themselves earlier. Then they wouldn’t have been there to save.

No. No. I breathe, reminding myself none of this is their fault.

None of this is my fault.

None of this is my fault.

I repeat it to myself like an anthem.

I repeat it to myself until I lull myself to sleep.

“Darling, you didn’t just fall asleep in the middle of a mission in which we’re soon to be pursued by all the bounty hunters west of the Shifting Sea, did you?”

I snap my neck up, yanked out of my sleep by his voice.

Astor is standing above me, arms crossed. In the dark, I can’t tell if he’s annoyed or amused.

Though it wouldn’t be unlike him to be both.

“You came back for me,” I let out, my grogginess still upon me and preventing me from restraining my tongue.

Astor’s jaw ticks. He clears his throat, glancing to his left, drawing my attention to the two women standing next to him. Phoenix stands tall, Venus clinging to her arm, head tucked into her shoulder, still muttering to herself incoherently.

“The others?” I ask, my mind racing.

“Star and Halo are dead,” says Phoenix, voice void of emotion, but not in a callous way. “Heaven refused to come.” She pauses, her eyes glassy.

“There was nothing we could do,” says Astor.

She blinks, nodding. “The others parted ways as soon as we got out of the manor.”

“They weren’t all that trusting of the man who brought another muse into the house to sell,” explains Astor.

“But you were?” I ask Phoenix.

“I saw the way he looked at you in the parlor. Not like he owned you. Like he would die if you died.”

Astor keeps his arms crossed, tapping his finger against his forearm and examining it thoroughly.