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He yanked Lux’s head back to expose his throat.

My body went silent.

No breath. No pulse. No thought.

Only him.

Bound.

Bleeding.

And letting it happen.

Scarn smiled into the camera. “New Abaddon and all its northern territories belong to the South. Lux Draven is no longer in power.”

Sam’s hand tightened around mine.

Mandi whispered, “Oh my gods.”

Kalon swore under his breath.

The camera jolted away from Lux, catching boots, chains, the edge of a table, a smear of blood on stone.

Scarn’s voice carried off-screen. “And all for a woman.”

The camera swung back. Lux lifted his head as much as Scarn’s grip allowed. His eyes burned red through the feed, wild and furious and fixed on something beyond the room.

“You leave her out of this.”

The broadcast cut to black. Silence filled my apartment. My friends turned toward me. Sam’s eyes shone. Mandi’s face had gone hard. Kalon stood near the door, pale with rage and guilt.

“What are you going to do?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know,” I whispered. The answer fell out, honest and raw. My hands shook. My breath shook. My stupid new tail curled tight around my ankle like it was scared too.

“I don’t know,” I said again, and this time it came out angry. “I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t know how to use the bond. I don’t know how to be a succubus. I don’t know how to fight a war. I spent most of my life figuring out how to make rent and steam milk without crying into someone’s cappuccino.” My voice cracked. “I have been powerless my whole life.”

Sam’s face broke.

Mandi looked down.

Kalon took one step forward, then stopped himself.

“I have no army,” I said. “No training. No tower. No assassin mask. I grew a tail twenty minutes ago and nearly lost a fight with my own shower curtain.”

I thought about Lux on the floor, bleeding, and some instinct inside me started clawing at the bond like an animal. Finally, the bond split open. Pain rushed in first.

Lux’s pain, buried under silver, under rage, under restraint so brutal it made my knees tremble. Then fear.

Not for himself.

For me.

That bastard.

That beautiful, lying, controlling, furniture-buying bastard.

He’d been silent because he was chained. He hadn’t reached for me because someone had put silver around his throat. He’d told Scarn to leave me out of this while bleeding on his knees.