Chapter 3

My former fiancé had brought me here to die.

Now he had to watch another man claim me instead.

"You call that a marriage proposal?" I asked.

Calian's gray eyes dropped to my mouth. His blade didn't move. "You have three heartbeats to answer."

"That's not a proposal. That's blackmail."

"You were convicted of treason. Your title is gone. Your family lands are being seized. Your execution starts when I lower this sword." His voice stayed calm. Almost bored. "Blackmail is the only reason you're still breathing."

The crowd roared below us.

Someone shouted, "Let the traitor hang!"

Another voice called Marcus's name, followed by a dozen cheers.

Marcus lifted his chin. "Don't do this, Seraphina. You know what he is."

I looked down at him. "You mean the part where he doesn't sell his fiancée to the council before their wedding day?"

His jaw tightened.

Good. At least one thing still hurt him.

"You betrayed the crown," Marcus snapped. "You handed military routes to the northern wolves. You killed your own guards. Everyone knows what you did."

"Everyone knows what you told them."

"I saw the letters."

"You forged them."

The crowd went quiet for half a second.

Marcus's face hardened. "Sign the confession, and I may be able to keep your name out of the records."

I laughed once. My throat scraped against the rope. "You still think I want your mercy?"

"You need me."

"No. You need my father's bloodline, my estate, and the northern trade routes. You never needed me. You just needed my signature."

His hand twitched against his sword.

Calian noticed. I saw it in the slight turn of his head.

"Your three heartbeats are passing," he said.

"Then stop counting like a nervous bride."

His mouth flattened. "One."

The executioner pulled the rope tighter.

Pain sparked under my jaw. My fingers curled against the iron cuffs biting into my wrists. The council had chained me for the hearing, but the chain on my left hand was already cracked from Calian's arrival. He had cut through half the scaffold guards to reach me. He could have killed every person in the square.

Instead, he had put a sword to my heart and offered me a cage with his name on it.

"Two," he said.

Marcus stepped closer to the scaffold. "Seraphina, listen to me. If you bind yourself to him, you won't be a duchess. You won't even be free. He'll drag you north as a hostage."

"And if I stay here?"

Marcus didn't answer.

He didn't have to.

The executioner pulled again.

My boots slipped across the wood.

"Three," Calian said.

I moved before he could lower the blade.

The broken chain snapped free. I threw myself forward, caught Calian's wrist, and sank my teeth into him.

He went still.

Not startled. Not angry.

Still.

His blood hit my tongue, hot and metallic. A sharp wolf scent filled my mouth, cold iron and pine smoke. His arm flexed under my teeth. The muscle jumped once.

The crowd screamed.

"She bit him!"

"Kill her!"

"Calian, cut her down!"

I tightened my bite until blood ran over my lips.

"You wanted an answer," I said against his skin. "Here's one."

Calian's free hand closed around the back of my neck.

His palm was warm. Too warm for a man who looked carved from ice.

He pulled me close enough that his breath touched my cheek. The sword stayed between us, but his body blocked the executioner from reaching me.

"You think biting me gives you control?" he murmured.

"No. I think it gives me your blood."

His gaze sharpened.

I twisted his wrist toward the black mark burned into my palm. The mark had appeared when he stepped onto the scaffold, a dark crescent under my skin. I had spent the last two days watching the council use it as proof that I was cursed.

Now it throbbed against his blood.

"Don't," Calian warned.

It was the first crack in his voice.

I pressed his bleeding wrist into my palm.

The mark drank.

Heat tore through my hand.

Calian's fingers dug into my neck. "Seraphina."

"You said marry me."

"I said choose."

"Then let me choose the terms."

The black mark spread across my palm in thin, burning lines. They climbed over my wrist, crossed my pulse, and reached for his skin.

The council speaker stumbled backward. "Stop the ritual! That clause requires consent from both bloodlines!"

"She gave it," Calian said.

"She was forced!"

"So was I."

His eyes stayed on mine.

That answer hit harder than it should have.

He wasn't pretending this was a gift. He wasn't kneeling and promising me a soft life. He was trapped too, though he wore his chains like weapons.

The mark tightened around my wrist.

"What happens if I say no now?" I asked.

Calian's thumb pressed against the side of my throat. His pulse beat against my teeth. "The pact rejects you. The rope takes you."

"And if I say yes?"

"You live under my protection."

"That wasn't what I asked."

His gaze dropped to my lips again. This time, he didn't hide it.

"You become my wife."

The words landed between us, too intimate for the screaming square.

My body reacted before my pride could stop it. His scent wrapped around me. My knees weakened, and the mark flared brighter.

Calian felt it.

Of course he did.

His mouth came close to my ear. "Your wolf knows me."

"My wolf has terrible taste."

"Your wolf is smarter than you."

"Keep talking, and I'll bite deeper."

His grip tightened. His thumb slid once over my pulse, slow enough to feel like a warning and a promise.

"Try it," he whispered.

For one hot second, the scaffold vanished. There was only his wrist in my mouth, his breath against my cheek, and the rough drag of his coat against my fingers.

Then Marcus shouted, "She's manipulating the trial!"

The moment broke.

Calian turned his head. "You have something else to say, Lord Thorne?"

Marcus pointed at my hand. "The clause cannot be completed with stolen blood. She attacked you. That is not consent."

"She took my blood in front of witnesses," Calian said. "She pressed it into the mark herself."

"She was desperate."

I pulled away from Calian's wrist. Blood stretched between my lips and his skin before it broke.

"Desperate doesn't mean stupid," I said. "You should know. You spent three years thinking I would marry you after you slept with my sister."

A murmur rolled through the crowd.

Elsa stood behind Marcus in a white court gown, one hand covering her mouth. Her eyes were red, but her face was dry.

"That isn't true," she said.

I looked at her. "You told me he loved me. Then you showed up in his bed wearing my mother's necklace."

Marcus spun toward her. "Elsa, don't."

Too late.

The crowd had started whispering. The council speaker leaned toward the guards. The executioner loosened his hold on the rope just enough for me to breathe.

Calian moved between me and the square.

The side of his body brushed mine. His shoulder blocked Marcus from view, but not his voice.

"You want the trial clause," Calian said quietly.

"I want to live."

"No. You want revenge."

"I want both."

His eyes held mine. "Then understand the price."

He turned my palm upward and pressed his bleeding wrist into it again.

The contact shot heat up my arm.

"Once the pact seals, you cannot leave my territory without my permission," he said. "You cannot testify against me. You cannot break the bond without damaging your own bloodline."

"And you?"

"I cannot execute you. I cannot surrender you. I cannot let another male claim you."

The last words came out rough.

I stared at him. "That sounds less like protection and more like ownership."

"It is both."

At least he didn't lie.

"What do you get?"

His fingers closed around mine. "Your blood quiets the thing inside me. Your name gives me a legal claim over the northern border. Your enemies become mine to kill."

"There it is. You don't want a wife. You want a key."

"I want what you can give me."

"And if I refuse to give it?"

Calian leaned close. His mouth nearly touched my ear.

"Then I will still take you north."

My breath caught.

He felt that too. His gaze dropped to my throat, right where the rope had left a red line.

"You really are a bastard," I whispered.

"You knew that before you bit me."

"I knew you were ruthless. I didn't know you were honest about it."

"Honesty is expensive."

"So is my blood."

His expression changed by half an inch. Not softness. Nothing that kind.

But his thumb stopped pressing into my wrist.

The mark burned hotter.

The council speaker shouted, "The pact must be witnessed by the crown!"

"The crown condemned her," Calian replied. "The old law recognizes blood before crowns."

"You can't invoke a dead law to steal a noblewoman!"

"She's no longer yours to judge."

Calian lifted our joined hands.

The square saw his blood on my palm.

The square saw my teeth marks on his wrist.

The square saw him standing between me and the rope.

Marcus saw something else.

Fear.

It flashed across his face before he covered it with rage.

"Seraphina," he said, "if you seal that bond, I will hunt you down myself."

I smiled without warmth. "You couldn't protect me from your bedmate. Don't promise me a hunt."

Elsa stepped forward. "Marcus, stop. She's confused. She's being controlled."

"Don't call me confused," I snapped. "You knew about the forged letters."

Her face went pale.

The crowd shifted.

Marcus grabbed her arm. "What is she talking about?"

Elsa looked at me over his shoulder.

For one second, her eyes weren't scared.

They were warning me.

Then she whispered, "You should have died quietly."

Calian's hand went to his sword.

I caught his sleeve. "Wait."

"She just threatened you."

"She just admitted it."

"You want her alive?"

"For now."

His gaze cut back to mine. "You are already giving orders."

"Get used to disappointment."

The mark pulsed.

One line of black turned silver.

Calian's breathing changed. His fingers closed around my waist to keep me upright as another wave of heat ran through my bones.

I hated how easily he caught me.

I hated more that I didn't pull away.

"Say it," he ordered.

"Say what?"

"The final vow."

"You didn't tell me the vow."

"You know it."

"I know nothing about your old northern blood games."

His mouth brushed the shell of my ear. "Say, 'My blood is yours, and your blade is mine.'"

I turned my face toward his. We were close enough that one small movement would put his mouth on mine.

His eyes dropped to my lips.

Mine dropped to his.

The crowd waited.

Marcus cursed below us.

The rope hung behind my neck.

Calian's hand held my waist. His sword guarded my heart. His blood marked my palm.

I could refuse and die.

I could agree and become the most feared warlord's hostage bride.

So I lifted my chin.

"My blood is mine," I said.

His eyes narrowed.

"Seraphina—"

"And your blade is mine."

The mark flashed.

Calian's grip locked around me. "You changed the vow."

"I improved it."

For one breath, neither of us moved.

Then the pact answered.

White light exploded from my palm.

The scaffold shook under our feet. The rope snapped apart. Every torch in the square went out at once.

People screamed.

Calian dragged me against his chest, one arm hard around my waist, his sword sweeping up toward the dark.

"Down!" he roared.

The first crossbow bolt punched through the railing beside my head.

A second shattered the executioner's blade.

A third tore through Calian's shoulder guard and spun him half around.

His body slammed into mine. His breath hit my neck.

"Calian!"

"Stay behind me."

"You have a bolt in your—"

"I said stay behind me."

More bolts flew from the rooftops.

The white light around our joined hands flared wider, wrapping our wrists in burning threads. I tried to pull free, but the pact yanked me back into him.

"Let go!"

"I can't."

His answer came too fast.

Another bolt struck the scaffold post. Wood splintered across my cheek.

Calian shoved me down and covered me with his body. His heart hammered against my ribs. His blood ran warm beneath his torn armor.

Below us, guards drew steel. Marcus shouted orders. Elsa disappeared into the crush of nobles.

I caught a glimpse of her white sleeve near the stairs.

Behind her stood a masked crossbowman.

He wasn't aiming at Calian.

He was aiming at me.

No. Not me.

At the hand holding mine.

At the glowing mark that had just bound us.

"Calian," I gasped, grabbing his collar. "Behind Elsa, there's someone—"

The crossbowman released the string, and the bolt tore through the air toward our joined hands as Calian turned to—