"Cut it out, or I'll have your hands removed and fed to the dogs," Kane rasped. He didn't move, but the vein in his neck pulsed with a sickening, iridescent black light.
Cillian didn't flinch. He leaned in, the scent of expensive cologne and rotting meat hitting him in a wave. He held the obsidian scalpel an inch from Kane's chest. "You're paying for a miracle, not a conversation. Shut up and hold still."
"I don't pay for failures," Kane spat. He tried to shift, but a spasm racked his body, forcing a guttural groan from his throat. The 'Bone-Eater Curse' wasn't just killing him; it was rewriting his anatomy. Beneath the silk of his shirt, something shifted—something jagged and hungry.
Cillian gripped the man's shoulder, his fingers digging into the muscle. "You're rotting from the inside out, Kane. Every second you spend threatening me is a second your ribs turn into charcoal. Now, do we do this, or do I walk out that door and let you become a very expensive pile of ash?"
Kane’s eyes, sharp and predatory even in his agony, locked onto Cillian's. "You're a disgraced hack. Blacklisted from every clinic in the hemisphere. Why should I trust a man who’s more desperate than I am?"
"Because I'm the only one crazy enough to touch this thing," Cillian replied. He stepped closer, his chest nearly brushing Kane's. The temperature in the room dropped. "The other surgeons see a curse and they see a death sentence. I see a puzzle. And I'm very good at solving puzzles."
Kane let out a sharp, jagged laugh that turned into a cough. He leaned his head back against the cold leather of the operating chair, his breathing shallow. "Fine. But if you slip, I won't just kill you. I'll make sure your name is erased from every record that ever existed. You'll be a ghost before your body hits the floor."
"Threats are so boring," Cillian murmured. He reached for a vial of shimmering, silver fluid—the catalyst. "Now, this is going to feel like liquid glass pouring into your veins. Don't scream. It's embarrassing."
"Just do it," Kane hissed.
Cillian didn't hesitate. He drove the needle in. Kane’s entire body arched, his fingers clawing into the armrests of the chair. The silver fluid hit the black curse, and for a second, the room hissed with the sound of steam.
"Damn it," Cillian whispered, leaning over him, his face inches from Kane's. He could feel the heat radiating off the billionaire's skin, a feverish, unnatural burn. "Stay with me. Don't you dare pass out now."
"Get... out... of my head," Kane gasped, his voice a strained wreck.
Cillian ignored him. He switched to the scalpel. This was the part that got him blacklisted—the forbidden extraction. He wasn't just removing a curse; he was carving it out of the living tissue. He made the first incision. A thin, precise line across the sternum.
Instead of red blood, a thick, oily black sludge seeped out. It didn't drip; it writhed.
"Look at that," Cillian whispered, his voice laced with a dark, clinical fascination. "It's practically screaming. It doesn't want to leave you, Kane. It likes the taste of your blood."
"Stop... talking," Kane managed, his teeth gritted so hard Cillian feared they'd shatter.
Cillian reached into the wound with a pair of silver forceps. As he gripped the core of the curse—a pulsing, crystalline shard of shadow—he felt a sudden, violent jolt. It wasn't physical. It was a shock of raw, unadulterated agony that didn't belong to him.
He gasped, his hand trembling. The pain flared in his own chest, mirroring Kane's exactly.
"What the hell..." Cillian muttered. He tried to pull back, but the shard clung to Kane's bone like a parasite.
"What are you doing?" Kane roared, his eyes snapping open. "Why is it... why does it feel like you're cutting me twice?"
Cillian didn't answer. He couldn't. He was too busy staring at his own wrist. A thin, glowing red line was etching itself into his skin, mirroring the incision he'd just made on Kane.
"The Blood Pact," Cillian whispered, his heart hammering against his ribs. "It triggered. You idiot, your body is reacting to the catalyst. We're tethered."
"Tethered?" Kane gripped Cillian's forearm, his hold bruising. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Cillian said, his voice shaking as he fought to keep the scalpel steady, "that if you feel pain, I feel it. And if I slip... we both scream."
Kane stared at the red mark on Cillian's wrist, then back at the blade. A slow, dangerous smile touched his lips despite the agony. "So now you have a reason to be careful. My life is your life. How's that for job security?"
"Shut up," Cillian snapped. "I'm trying to save us both."
He dove back in, the forceps straining against the shadow-crystal. The tension in the room was thick, suffocating. Every time Kane winced, Cillian's breath hitched. It was an intimate, violent dance. He could feel Kane's pulse hammering through the connection—fast, erratic, terrified, and yet somehow arrogant.
Cillian shifted his weight, pressing his shoulder against Kane's to get a better angle. He could feel the heat of Kane's skin through the thin fabric of his scrubs. The proximity was dizzying. He was staring into the eyes of a man who could destroy him with a phone call, and yet, in this moment, they were sharing the same heartbeat.
"Almost... there," Cillian breathed.
He gave one final, brutal yank.
*Snap.*
The crystal didn't come out clean. It shattered.
A wave of blinding white pain exploded through both of them. Cillian screamed, the sound tearing from his throat as he felt his own chest be ripped open from the inside. He collapsed forward, his chest slamming into Kane's, the scalpel clattering to the floor.
They lay there, tangled together, gasping for air that felt like acid. The red line on Cillian's wrist flared a brilliant, angry crimson.
"You... you fucked up," Kane wheezed, his voice barely a whisper.
Cillian couldn't even find the strength to argue. He could feel it—the curse wasn't gone. It had split. Half of it was still buried in Kane's marrow, and the other half... the other half had just slid across the tether and lodged itself deep into Cillian's own soul.
"I didn't... it broke," Cillian gasped, clutching his chest.
Suddenly, the heavy double doors of the operating room slammed open. The sound echoed like a gunshot.
Lilith stood there, her white coat billowing like a shroud. She didn't look at the blood or the chaos. Her eyes went straight to the shattered crystal on the floor and then to the red mark on Cillian's wrist.
"I knew it," she said, her voice cold and sharp as a razor. She stepped forward, a handheld scanner already humming in her hand. "Illegal forbidden arts. Human experimentation. Cillian, you didn't just fail—you committed a crime that carries a life sentence in the Void."
She looked at Kane, then back to Cillian, a smirk playing on her lips. "And look at this. You've tied yourself to him. How pathetic. You're not his doctor anymore; you're his leash."
Cillian tried to push himself up, but his muscles failed. He looked up at Lilith, his vision blurring. "Get out, Lilith. This is... unfinished."
"Oh, I think it's perfectly finished," Lilith replied. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, black device. "I've already sent the footage to the Board. But before they come for you, I think I'll see just how much pain this pact can actually handle."
She pressed a button on the device.
Cillian's world exploded. A surge of artificial agony ripped through the tether, and beside him, Kane let out a sound that wasn't human.
As Cillian's head hit the floor, he saw Lilith leaning over them, her eyes gleaming with a hunger that had nothing to do with medicine.
"Tell me," she whispered, "who's going to scream first?"