He pressed his fingers to the cut on his arm, and the wound knit shut beneath them. In the same breath, the gash on my own arm sealed itself closed under Aelindor’s handkerchief. He’d made his point for the whole room to see. Slaughter him, and I died with him. A chain forged in blood ran from his life straight into mine.
He let the ward fall and spread his arms wide.
“Good news, gentlemen.” His amber eyes glittered. “I’ll make my alliance with the Zodiac Covenant gladly, on one condition—let me carry home my treasure—Princess Morningstar.” A beat. “That, or war. The choice is yours, Highnesses.”
Chapter 38
Max
The Collector walked in through our gate, grinning, a blood contract in his hand with my life signed into it.
Rage and something darker poured off the heirs like a volcano splitting open, and not one of them could do a thing about it. Hurt Xander, and they hurt me. Kill him, and I died with him. That was the trap, and it had closed around our necks like a noose.
We’d meant to set a snare. I was the one who ended up in it.
For one whole breath, the floor wasn’t there.
The power of the contract was nowinme. Blood magic, ancient and cold, a hook sunk past skin and bone into my soul, knotting my life to the man I’d hated on sight. I clawed at it on instinct and found nothing to grip. It wasn’t on me—it wasthroughme, and all my rage did was rattle the chain without loosening a single link.
No blade could cut this out. No fire, not even the heirs’. Only the Oracle might be able to help me—another reason to reach the Haven, another reason to hurry.
The blood contract had locked a chastity belt on me; it hadn’t chained my body to Xander’s side. I could still walk out of that ballroom on my own two feet. So I leashed the rage down tosomething I could carry and put on the face of a woman undone by a long night.
“Forgive me.” I touched two fingers to my temple. “It’s been a great deal to take in, and my head is splitting. I’d like to retire.”
Xander’s amber eyes moved over me, unconvinced and untroubled either way. “Then retire with me. My carriage is warm and my people discreet. Rest on the road, and wake to your sister’s face.”
“No.” I kept my tone quiet, even, giving him nothing to push against. “I’m not leaving tonight. I need time to weigh all of this. Three days. Alone, in prayer.”
Displeasure crossed his face and smoothed itself away. “Three days is a long while to keep a betrothed waiting.”
“It’s a short while to weigh the rest of a life.”
Aelindor was between us before Xander could draw breath to argue.
“The lady has asked for three days.” His voice was velvet drawn over a blade, courteous all the way to the edge of insult. “You will grant them.” The cold smile he offered went no deeper than his teeth. “You are the Saint, are you not? Then surely you understand the meaning of prayer.”
Xander’s jaw set. No one had said no to him until tonight.
“Whatever that parchment says,” Aelindor went on, cool and lethal, “Max Morning is her own woman. Her fate is hers to weigh, not yours to collect. She requested three days in solitude, and three days she will have. And if the Saint of the Haven cannot grant a grieving woman so much as that”—he spread his hands—“then bring your war to the gates of the Zodiac Covenant. We would be glad to meet it.”
For a long moment Xander said nothing, and the room seemed to draw a breath and hold it. Then he inclined his head, all generosity, the cost of it showing only in his eyes.
“Three days,” he said. “For my queen, I can be patient.” That cruel gaze turned back on me, his voice dropping to the tone a man uses to gentle a horse he already owns. “Pray, Max. Think. But think on this while you do.” A weighted pause. “Missy sleeps so much easier these nights, knowing her sister will be coming home to her.”
He left the words there to rot in me and turned away.
Fury ranhot through my veins and burned the night’s chill clean out of me.
At the rendezvous I pulled the necklace from my throat, stripped out of the gown, and buckled into my battle gear. Nikolai and Caspian were changing too, silent, both of them shaking with a rage they had nowhere to put until I set a hand on each of their arms and felt it simmer down a little under my touch.
“We get my sister out first,” I said, cinching the last strap tight. “We deal with the contract after.”
As long as its blood magic held, I didn’t belong to the four heirs who would go to war for me. I belonged to a monster who’d bought me before I could walk.
“A blood contract doesn’t break,” Nikolai said, sliding a blade home without looking up, his voice flat. “Not by law. Not by fire.”
“So we find another way.” Caspian’s green eyes burned. “No lock was ever forged that someone, somewhere, couldn’t cut a key for. We find the key—or we make one.”
