“Eve.”

It’s agony to watch the expressions that play across her face. Shock, fear, uncertainty. She buttons it all up in seconds, but it’s clear that she recognizes my voice, and it’s equally clear that she doesn’t know what to think of me in this form.

She clears her throat. “Azazel? I thought you sounded familiar in the other room, but . . .”

But I look nothing like the man she’s known for years. “I’m sorry for how things occurred. You’re safe here.” Necessary words, for all that they feel inadequate.

She blinks, her uncertainty melting away to reveal pure rage. “You kidnapped me.”

“You signed the contract.” I register that it’s the wrong thing to say immediately and hold up my hands. “I understand that⁠—”

“I signed a contract you led me to believe was role-play!” She clenches her fists. “Did you kidnap the others too? Did you fuck them before they signed their lives away? And now you sold them. You’re a monster.” She flicks a derisive glance over my body, for all that I tower over her in my true form. “And it has nothing to do with how you look.”

I flinch. I can’t help it. “I haven’t fucked anyone but you in years.” I don’t intend to speak that truth, but it lands in the space between us. I watch her discard my words as lies, and I have no one to blame but myself. Because I did lie to her.

Just not about this.

“Even if that were true, what do you want? A cookie?” With every word, she draws her composure tighter around herself, closing me out. “I am not, and never was, your girlfriend. You were a client.”

It’s the truth. There’s no reason for it to sting. I’m no lovestruck fool to think that she shares my feelings, no matter how much she seemed to enjoy our time together. I clear my throat. “And I didn’t sell the others. The contracts were renegotiated.”

“Renegotiated.” She snorts. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say.” She crosses her arms under her generous chest. “Are we done? Being in your presence is making me sick to my stomach.”

I want to roar my frustration, but I haven’t gotten to where I am today by letting my anger flare outward. Control is everything, and control is all I currently have to help me deal with Eve. I take a measured step back. “You’re free to explore the castle as you like. No one here will harm you.”

She narrows her eyes. “And if I want to leave?”

“You’ll find the doors locked to you.” I open my mouth to continue, to explain that it’s not safe, even in this territory, that I have enemies who don’t like the changes I’ve made, that those enemies are more than eager to take advantage of any perceived weakness, that she is my only perceived weakness . . .

But Eve slams the door in my face before I can get a word out.

I sigh. “Fuck.”

EVE

I strip out of the yellow gown and dig through the wardrobe until I come up with clothing better suited to my needs. My mind still whirls with everything I’ve seen since yesterday. Monsters of every variety and yet still seeming so human seeming. Women handed over to them without a single hesitation. And . . . Azazel.

I pause, my hands on the buttons of my gown. He lied to me in so many ways. The contract, his history, even his appearance. Because the . . . being . . . who came to my door just now is the very same one who presided over the auction. He was tall as a human, but now he’s got to be more than seven feet, and his shoulders explain why the doors here are so wide: any narrower and he’d have to go through them sideways. His skin is several shades darker than Ramanu’s, and his horns are downright majestic, jutting from either side of his bald head and up. He’s even handsome in a rough-cut way, though I’m not currently in the mood to admit it.

But for all that, his eyes are the same: a deep brown that veers close to black even in the bright light. Filled with too many things when he looks at me.

I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter.” I can’t stay here, but I’ve seen enough today to understand that I’m out of my element in a way that’s almost laughable.

So, first order of business—gather information and see if there are allies to exploit. Judging by how things went earlier, Azazel is something of a king here. That complicates things, because I can’t go over his head to someone more powerful. Still, there are other ways. There are always other ways.

I drop the dress on the ground and pull out another dress, one shorter and easier to move in. Just like the first—and all the others I tried on—it fits me perfectly.

It’s enough to make me wonder how long Azazel has been planning this: to trick me, to take me away from everything I’ve ever known. He may have seemed tormented when we spoke just now, but I don’t care about his feelings currently. I could shove him out a window with how furious I am.

I yank on a pair of shoes—another perfect fit—and march to the door. He said I have free rein of the castle, but we’ll see. I try the door and am actually surprised when the handle twists easily in my hand.

The hallway looks different from the last time I stepped out of my room, when I joined the other women also being herded to the auction. I frown and peer around. There are no doors lining the walls here, and the hall turns in a sharp right angle instead of ending in a door. “What the fuck?”

It’s possible I am misremembering things in the chaos or I somehow ended up in a different room than the one I started in . . . but I don’t think so. I press my fingers to the wall. It’s solid, not some magical illusion.

Funny that my mind hardly stumbles over the idea of magic and monsters, but what am I supposed to do? From the moment I woke up, evidence of both has been shoved in my face. Either I’m in a coma and dreaming all this . . . or monsters are real and so are magical bargains and the whole lot.

I pick a direction at random and start walking. The stone underfoot is polished to a gleam but not slippery in the least. The walls are equally polished and bare except for sconces that must be magic because their flames give off no heat or scent. Neat trick.

I’m not really thinking about my path, just taking the only route available to me—left, left, right, left again, right, right, right—until my legs start to ache. Only then do I frown and look around. I haven’t seen a single door or staircase. “What kind of building plan is this?”

It doesn’t make any sense. No builder would make a hallway like this. I’m hardly an expert at architecture and the like, but hallways exist for a purpose—to transition from one space to another. Often from one place to several others. To have one so long and strange without a single exit defies belief.

Magic, again. It has to be.

While glaring at the hallway, I press my fingers to the wall. Surely there’s some illusion in place hiding alternate paths from me. I just have to figure out the trick. “I want to find the kitchen, damn it.” With my hand dragging lightly along the wall, I set off walking again.

Except when I turn the next corner, I find a familiar door with a covered tray in front of it. Somehow, despite all logic, I’m back at my room again.

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CHAPTER 5

“The castle is fucking with her. It has been for days.”

I press my fingers to my eyes and spend a fruitless moment wishing circumstances were anything but what they are. “The castle fucks with everyone.” It’s not, strictly speaking, the truth. I’m not in the mood for the truth. Just like I’m not in the mood to have what promises to be an uncomfortable conversation. “Leave it alone, Ramanu.”

Ramanu saunters over and perches a hip on my desk. “When were you going to tell me that you signed a lifetime contract with her?”