Page 125 of Rage

My mischievous and sometimes irksome raccoon who’s bound to the grounds as much as I.

“You could always strike a bargain with him,” Ryx says, standing on his hind legs and plucking an apple from the tree above him.

I quirk my brows. “Strike a deal?”

Biting into the apple, he says, “Yes. Give him money to send home as long as he stays here with you on the grounds.” Bits of apple fly out of his mouth as he speaks.

“What good would that do? What would that give me?”

His mouth quirks up in a smirk. “Companionship, m’lady. And dick.”

I nearly choke on my own spit. I grab him by the tuft of fur behind his neck and wing him up to face me. “No man in their right mind would ever have sex with a beast like me,” I snarl.

He tosses the apple and pets the side of my face. “Oh my dear sweet Reverie.” He leans in close to my ear to whisper the next part. “If you get him to see the beauty within the beast, our curse will forever be broken.”

I think on that thought for a few seconds before setting him back down.

He’s right.

This could be my chance to break the curse for good.

I amble back over to him and kneel down. “Okay, I have a proposition for you.”

His rich, amber-colored eyes set behind dark lashes peer up at me.“Anything.”

“Stay here with me. I’ll give you money and food to send home. But there’s one condition.”

His nose crinkles as he scrunches his eyebrows together. “What?”

“You can never leave.”

He blinks slowly, pondering his choice. “What’s the other option?”

A wicked smile seeps between my teeth. “Death.”

Chapter Three

Steele

“You must say the words before I release you,” Reverie tells Steele, circling the man lying in the trap.

“What words?” he asks, a pained groan grating up his throat as he tries to move his legs.

“Submit to never leaving. You must say the words so the magick takes hold. Lest you wish to stay here and die of blood loss, starvation, and hypothermia.”

The pain in his leg has morphed into something in an entirely new realm of agony, one without a word for it yet. His head is pounding, yet he feels light-headed and woozy, and the soaking wet clothes sticking to his skin feel like a thousand pounds.

He’ll do anything just to get somewhere warm with something to eat.

“Yes, I submit. I agree to never leave the grounds.”

With the words uttered through his lips, the trap snaps open and fades back into the ground. The lotus flower rises up again with the fountain, and Steele rolls to the side to avoid being stuck atop it. The light from the flower gleams so brightly that the rain falling in his eyes turns to bright glowing orbs. Pain in his legs from the trap's teeth fades, and in a blast of shockingly warm and intense light, he shields his eyes lest he goes blind.

When he opens them again, he’s in a black four-poster bed with black furnishings and drapes that are closed, yet soft light sneaks in through the cracks.

Shoving the fluffy black comforter off, he examines his legs—which are bare—in search of any sign of the awful wound the trap left.

Nothing.

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