Chapter 2

I smiled through the pressure. "Still charming. I see the near-death experience didn't fix your manners."

His fingers tightened.

Kaiser stood behind him with one hand resting on the hilt of his knife. He looked cleaner than his brother, but his lips had gone gray, and black veins crawled up the side of his neck.

"You walked into our fortress with a false name," Kaiser said. "You knew exactly what our cores were doing. You knew how to stop it. Then you used your blood on Varan and disappeared before we could question you."

"I didn't disappear. Your guards threw me into a cell."

"A very comfortable cell."

"It had no mattress."

"You still slept."

Varan shoved me against the stone wall. My skull knocked hard enough to make my teeth click.

"Enough," Kaiser said.

"No." Varan's eyes stayed on mine. Pale gold. Wild. "She knew."

I could feel the crack in his chest through his shirt. A thin, ugly pulse beat beneath his ribs, too fast and too deep. The first charge of living marrow I'd given him had held for less than a day.

That meant I had one chance left.

And both brothers knew it.

"Take your hand off me," I said.

Varan leaned closer. His breath touched my cheek, hot and sharp with iron. "Make me."

"You want to know who sent me? Fine. Your own stupidity did. Anyone with eyes can see you're dying."

His jaw flexed.

"And you," I added, looking past him at Kaiser, "are worse. You're poisoning from the inside, and you're still pretending you can stand straight."

Kaiser's fingers left his knife.

That small movement told me I had struck the right place.

Varan pressed his forearm across my collarbones. "You think naming our wounds gives you power?"

"No. Your wounds give me power. I just have the decency to point at them."

Kaiser came forward. His boots stopped inches from mine. He smelled like bitter herbs, leather, and the copper stink of blood trapped under his skin.

"The marrow you used on Varan was not ordinary healing work," he said. "It sealed the split for three hours. Then your hands started bleeding. Why?"

"Because I put my bone into his."

Varan's eyes narrowed.

I tapped his chest with two fingers. His muscles jumped beneath my touch. "Your core is cracked. Mine isn't. I lend you a piece, and it burns through me to keep you standing."

"Then lend it again," Varan said.

There it was. Not a request. An order.

I laughed once. "You really are used to people obeying you."

His forearm pressed harder. Pain pinched across my throat.

"You need me," I whispered. "Try saying it without choking me."

For one second, his grip stopped.

Kaiser noticed. Of course he did.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Safe passage out."

Varan's mouth twisted. "No."

"I wasn't asking you."

"You don't walk out of here after touching my core."

"Then stop dying."

His gaze dropped to my mouth. The pause lasted only a breath, but I felt it. His hand was still at my throat. My back was still against the wall. We were too close, his heat mixing with mine, his thumb resting beside my pulse.

The bastard knew exactly how dangerous that distance was.

So did I.

Kaiser broke the silence. "You came here to bargain, not escape."

I looked at him. "You finally caught up."

"What is your price?"

"A contract."

Varan gave a harsh laugh. "You think I'll marry a spy?"

"I think you'll die without me."

His eyes flashed.

I shoved at his chest. He didn't move, but the contact sent a sharp jolt through my fingers. His core answered from under the skin, cracking like ice under a boot.

Varan staggered.

Kaiser caught his shoulder. "Varan."

The warlord ripped away from him and dropped to one knee.

Black lines spread beneath his collarbone. His hand clamped over his chest, and blood leaked between his fingers.

I moved before either of them could stop me.

"Get him on the table."

Varan snarled. "Don't touch me."

"Then crawl to it."

He tried to stand. His left leg buckled.

I grabbed his arm. Heat slammed into my palm. His skin was burning, but the tremor under it was worse. He was seconds from another break.

Kaiser drew his knife. "Step away from my brother."

"Put that thing down unless you plan to cut his chest open."

"I plan to cut you open if you try anything."

"Then watch him die while you hold the knife. Your choice."

Kaiser stared at me.

Varan's fingers dug into my wrist. "You enjoy this."

"No. I enjoy being right. There's a difference."

He pulled me closer, using my arm to drag himself upright. His chest hit mine. The rough fabric of his shirt scraped my knuckles. His mouth hovered near my ear.

"If you save me," he said, voice low, "you don't leave this fortress."

"If I save you, you don't own me."

"We'll see."

"No. We won't."

I shoved him toward the table.

This time, he let me.

Kaiser followed, knife still raised. "What kind of contract?"

"A bloodbound marriage. Three terms."

Varan braced both hands on the table. His shoulders shook. "You want to marry both of us?"

"I want access to your fortress, your soldiers, and protection from the Morton family. You want my marrow. That's the trade."

Kaiser gave a humorless smile. "And what do we get besides your healing?"

"A wife who won't poison you, betray you, or run the first time you bare your teeth."

"You don't know us."

"I know enough. Varan threatens everyone he can't control. You lie before you breathe. Neither of you trusts anyone because you've given people every reason to fear you."

Varan looked over his shoulder. "Keep talking."

"Gladly. Your soldiers are loyal because they're terrified. Your council is waiting for you to collapse. The Mortons are already moving north. And you two are standing here arguing over whether to kill the only person who can keep your cores from splitting."

Kaiser lowered the knife by an inch.

That was all I needed.

I pulled the bone seal from the chain around my neck and slapped it onto the table. The carved piece was no larger than my thumb. Old blood darkened its grooves.

Varan stared at it. "Where did you get that?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"Then put your hand on the table and find out."

His expression turned murderous.

Kaiser stepped between us. "You said three terms."

"First, no one touches me without permission. Not in anger. Not in punishment. Not because one of you thinks a marriage gives you the right."

Varan's eyes dropped to my wrist, where his fingers had left red marks.

I lifted my chin. "That includes choking."

His thumb rubbed once over the mark. The touch was slower than it needed to be. His skin burned against mine.

"Second," I said, pulling my wrist away, "I get access to your records, your armory, and every prisoner taken from Morton territory."

Kaiser went still.

"Why the prisoners?" he asked.

"Because I need names."

"For what?"

"For my own reasons."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the one you're getting."

His eyes sharpened. He suspected something. Not the truth. Not yet. But suspicion was a knife, and Kaiser knew how to use one.

"Third term?" he asked.

I looked at Varan. His breathing had turned ragged. A thin line of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

"You both keep me alive. No cages. No forced marks. No handing me back to the Mortons if they come asking."

Varan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "And if we refuse?"

"You die."

"You won't let that happen."

"Watch me."

His stare locked on mine.

I could see the choice tearing at him. Pride on one side. Pain on the other. He hated that I had found the leash around his throat, and I hated how much I liked being the one holding it.

Kaiser moved first. He cut his palm with his own knife and pressed the blood against the seal.

"Kaiser," Varan warned.

"We need time." His eyes stayed on me. "If she betrays us, the contract will expose her name and bind her marrow to ours."

I smiled without warmth. "You slipped that part in very quietly."

"You noticed."

"I notice everything."

"Then you know the contract can also lock your body inside this fortress if either of us commands it."

Varan looked at him. "That wasn't one of the terms."

"It's protection."

"It's a cage."

"For her, yes."

I grabbed the seal before he could pull it away. "Add one more condition. If you use that command against me, the contract breaks and both your cores open."

Kaiser stared at my hand around the bone. "You can't threaten us with a clause you don't know how to carve."

I turned the seal over and dragged my bleeding thumb across the blank side.

Lines appeared beneath my skin. Not ink. Bone dust. The seal drank from me, and pain shot up my arm.

Kaiser went pale. "What are you?"

"Your only chance."

The marrow charge tore out of my hand before I was ready.

I slammed my palm against Varan's chest.

His body jerked. His hand closed around my waist, hard enough to bruise. Heat blasted through my arm, up my shoulder, and into the center of my ribs. The air left my lungs.

"Hold him still," I gasped.

"You hold him," Kaiser snapped.

Varan's head dropped beside mine. His breath scorched my neck. "Get off me."

"Stop fighting the marrow."

"It burns."

"Good. That means it's working."

His fingers tightened at my waist. "You enjoy hurting me."

"I enjoy you staying alive long enough to sign."

The split in his core widened under my palm. I felt every jagged edge. My bones answered, sending living threads through the break.

My knees weakened.

Kaiser caught my elbow. "Sula."

The name hit me harder than the pain.

He had not called me that before.

His grip steadied me, but his thumb pressed against the pulse in my arm. He felt the marrow moving under my skin.

"Don't let go," he said.

"I wasn't planning to."

"You are bleeding."

"Then stop staring and help."

He placed two fingers over the seal between us. His blood joined mine.

The contract flared.

Varan roared. The sound shook dust from the ceiling. His hand crushed my waist, and his mouth brushed the side of my neck as his body convulsed.

I sucked in a breath.

His head lifted. For one dangerous second, we were face-to-face. His pupils had swallowed the gold in his eyes. His lips were close enough that one careless movement would have put them on mine.

"Don't," I whispered.

"You said no touching without permission."

"I said don't."

His thumb stopped beneath my ribs.

Then Kaiser grabbed the back of my collar and pulled me away from him.

"The core is sealed," he said.

Varan slammed one fist into the table. The wood split beneath it.

"You pulled her away from me."

"You were about to make this personal."

"It is personal. She has her hand inside my chest."

"Your lack of restraint is not my problem."

I pressed my bleeding palm against the seal again. The bone drank one last drop.

The contract snapped shut.

A ring of red-white light burned around my wrist, then around Varan's and Kaiser's. The mark tightened like a chain under my skin.

Varan looked down.

Kaiser did too.

Neither brother spoke.

I pulled my arm free and forced myself upright. "There. Now you need me, and you can't sell me back to the Mortons."

Varan's gaze lifted slowly. "You just tied yourself to two dying men."

"I tied two dying men to me. Learn the difference."

A violent crash blasted through the chamber doors.

Wood splintered. Guards shouted outside. Steel struck stone.

Kaiser turned toward the noise. His face lost what little color remained.

"Those aren't our men," he said.

A second impact shook the hinges.

Varan stepped in front of me, one hand reaching for his sword. The new mark around his wrist flared, and pain punched through my arm at the same time.

I grabbed his sleeve. "Don't move too far."

He looked down at my hand. "Already giving orders, wife?"

"Already regretting the contract, husband."

The doors burst inward.

Morton soldiers flooded the threshold, their blades pointed at my chest. Behind them, a man in the black armor of my family's execution guard raised a blood-stained warrant.

"Sula Morton," he shouted. "By order of the Morton clan, surrender yourself, or the Gault brothers die where they stand—"

The contract mark tightened around my wrist, and Varan's core cracked beneath my palm as Kaiser stepped behind me, his knife touching my throat while he whispered, "Choose now, little liar, because if you refuse—"