Page 147 of His Ruthless Match

When the sensation faded, I blinked at the mirror. The face staring back at me wasn’t mine. My hair was now a deep, fiery red and cascaded over my shoulders. My nose was slightly longer, my cheekbones sharper. My body was fuller, my height reduced by a few inches. I gasped as I stepped closer to the glass.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, touching my face. It felt the same, but the reflection was entirely different. “You’re… really good at this.”

Raffaele snorted. “I’ve had practice.”

“Thank you, Raffy.”

“Don’t make me regret this, Eva,” he warned. “Jareth needs to be by your side at all times. And don’t forget—this is temporary. Don’t get comfortable, and never become complacent. If you let your guard down, you might do or say something that gives your true identity away.”

“Got it,” I said quickly as I tamped down the guilt in my chest. If he knew the truth about where I was going, he never would have agreed.

The door opened behind me, and Jareth strode in. He froze when he saw me.

“Well,” he said after a beat, his eyes raking over my altered appearance. “I guess he agreed.”

“He did.” My pulse quickened under his sharp gaze. If Jareth knew I’d lied to Raffaele, he’d call the whole thing off.

“Don’t let her out of your sight, Jareth. If anything happens to her?—”

“Nothing will happen to her, boss man,” Jareth said.

Raffaele studied him for a moment before nodding. “Make it fast. The longer she’s out there, the more risk she’s in.”

Guilt flared again, but I shoved it down.This is my life, my work, and my case.I followed Jareth out the door.I can’t let anyone be a white knight for me. I’ve worked too hard to build this.

Jareth’s hand brushed the small of my back as we walked to the car. His touch felt protective, almost possessive, though tension radiated off him in waves.

“You’re lucky he agreed,” Jareth muttered as we approached the car.

“Yeah.”

Luck has nothing to do with it.

The secondI stepped out of the car, I regretted everything.

The Crimson Dominion black market was the kind of place that crawled under your skin and stayed there. The air was thick with a stench I couldn’t quite place—burning metal mixed with something cloyingly sweet, like rotting fruit. My stomach churned as I looked around, the dim, uneven lanterns barely lighting the cobblestone streets slick with grime.

I tugged my jacket tighter, willing myself not to gag at the sight of the crowd. Creatures and beings I’d only seenin nightmares milled about: shifters with distorted animal features, fae with twisted, insect-like wings, and cloaked figures that floated silently down the street. Whispers filled the air. Strange words in languages I didn’t recognize brushed against my ears like ghostly fingers.

“Stay close,” Jareth muttered over his shoulder, his voice low and commanding.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” I said, trying to sound braver than I felt. My voice trembled anyway, betraying the nerves twisting my insides. I resisted the urge to grab his hand, but every fiber of my being wanted to cling to him like a lifeline.

Jareth moved with ease, his broad frame cutting a path through the chaos, while I felt like I was one wrong look away from being swallowed whole. Every step deeper into the market made my skin crawl.

Stalls lined the streets, each one worse than the last. One displayed rows of glowing jars filled with disembodied eyes that followed us as we passed. Another had racks of jagged weapons humming with what I assumed was dark energy. Then there were the cages—small, cramped things packed with hissing creatures that snarled and snapped at passersby.

I froze when I saw one of the cages. Small, humanoid figures pressed their malformed faces against the bars, their glowing eyes filled with desperation and hatred.

“Jareth.” I clutched his sleeve. “Are those?—”

“Don’t look too hard,” he cut me off, his tone curt but not unkind. “You’ll sleep better if you don’t know.”

I swallowed hard, forcing my gaze forward. Sleep better. That was laughable. I was already teetering on the edge of losing it, and this place wasn’t helping. Every instinct screamed at me to turn around, to run back to the car and lock myself inside, but I forced my feet to keep moving. If Jareth could navigate thisplace like it was nothing, then I could handle it. Or at least pretend to.

We turned a corner, and Jareth stopped in front of a stall that made my stomach drop. It was horrifying—a nightmare in patchwork form. Jars of glowing eyes and skeletal hands lined the table. Behind the vendor, a cauldron bubbled with something thick and noxious, sending trails of greenish smoke curling into the air. But the worst part was the glass case at the center of the display. Inside, a creature stitched together from mismatched limbs twitched faintly, its too-large eyes rolling in its head.

The man behind the stall looked like he belonged there. His pale skin was crisscrossed with scars that glowed faintly in the dim light. When he smiled, sharp teeth flashed, the expression not reaching his gleaming, predator-like eyes.