Chapter 3 · Broken Spike

His hand was still on my waist. Hot as a brand. Hot enough to burn through my shirt.

"Answer me," Vane said. His voice was gravel and smoke. "Why does your scent calm him?"

Him. Like the beast was a third person in the room.

Honestly, it kind of was.

"How should I know?" I kept my chin up. The iron cuff on my ankle dragged against the stone when I shifted. "You're the one who cut me loose. Ask yourself."

His fingers flexed. Not a squeeze. Worse. Like he was holding something he wasn't allowed to keep.

He didn't say a word.

Of course he didn't. Two years ago he stood on that bloody altar with the whole pack watching and said *I reject you* without blinking. Now I got silence. Same cold mouth, same dead eyes.

Except his eyes weren't dead. They were molten gold, and they kept dropping to my throat.

The old mark itched under my collar. A ghost-burn. It always flared when he got close, and I hated that most of all.

The fire popped. Pine smoke, sweat, hot leather. The room was an oven. My shirt stuck to my spine and my braid was wet with melted snow.

And tucked inside my left cuff, sharp against my wrist bone, was my one lucky break.

A broken spike from the silver net. It snapped off when they dragged me, and I'd palmed it while Garrick was busy sneering. Three inches long. It had already blistered a stripe across my skin, but I'd wrapped the end in a strip of my sleeve.

Silver hurts wolves. Everybody knows that.

It could pick a lock, too, if I had time.

I didn't have time. Not with his breath on my neck.

Vane leaned in. His nose grazed the hinge of my jaw, right over my pulse, and he inhaled like a man coming up from the bottom of a lake.

A shudder ran through his whole body. I felt it in my ribs.

"Don't," I said.

"Quiet."

"Vane."

"I said quiet." His lips almost touched my skin. His whole body was a drawn bow, every muscle shaking with how hard he held back. "Just breathe. Let me."

Let him. Like I owed him that.

Like the girl who cried herself sick in a ditch two winters ago owed him a damn thing.

Something in my chest cracked and turned hot, and it wasn't desire. I told myself it wasn't.

I slid the spike down into my palm.

His other hand came up and cupped the back of my skull, thumb pressing under my ear, and my knees went soft. Traitors. My body remembered. It remembered everything.

So I stabbed him.

I jammed the spike into the inside of his forearm, right through the sleeve, and twisted.

The hiss that came out of him wasn't human. Smoke curled off the wound. The smell of burned meat hit me, and I almost gagged.

He should have let go. Any wolf would have let go.

Vane looked at his arm. Then at me.

"Silver," he said, almost conversational.

His grip on my head tightened.

I yanked the spike back and it snapped. Half of it stayed in his flesh, a bright sliver glinting in the blood. My hand slipped, wet and shaking.

"Let me go," I said. "Let me go or I swear I'll put the other half in your throat."

"You won't."

"Try me."

"You had my throat." He bared his teeth, and they were too long. "Right there. Your hand was there. And you went for my arm."

I hated that he was right.

He pulled the broken piece out with two fingers like it was a splinter. Dropped it into the fire. The flames spat green.

Blood ran down his wrist and over my knuckles. The wound was already trying to close, black veins crawling away from it. His pupils blew wide, swallowing the gold, then shrank again.

The fever was swinging back. I could see it.

"Seraphina." My name sounded wrecked in his mouth. "If you do that again, I'll chain your wrists too."

"Do it. Add them to the collection."

He made a low sound in his chest. Half laugh, half growl. Not a nice one.

Then he lifted me.

Just like that. One arm behind my knees, one across my back, and my boots left the floor. The cuff chain scraped, screaming over stone, until it ran out of slack and yanked at my ankle.

He didn't care. He took one step toward the bed, and the chain pulled tight, and he stopped.

His chest was heaving against mine. I could feel his heartbeat slamming like a fist on a door.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," he said into my hair.

"Good," I said. My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "Because I won't."

"Good."

He didn't sound like it was good.

His forehead dropped against mine. We stood there in the heat, breathing the same air, my bloody hand flat on his chest. I should have pushed. I should have kicked. I should have done any of the things I swore I'd do the second I saw his face again.

I didn't move.

His thumb stroked once along my ribs, slow, like he was memorizing me.

"Tell me to stop," he whispered.

My mouth opened.

The lock on the chamber door clanked.

Vane went rigid. The whole room seemed to freeze.

The heavy door swung open an inch. Just enough. Cold air knifed in, and the fire guttered low. Beyond the gap there was only black corridor, and a shape standing inside it, so still I'd almost missed him.

Garrick.

He didn't step into the light. His voice came out of the dark, flat and bright with hate.

"Take her to your bed," he spat, "and the Elders brand you a traitor tonight!"