Chapter 26 · The Signature He Wants

"Sign it, Rowan." Callum dropped the affidavit on my desk so hard the inkwell jumped. "Tonight. Before the council session."

I didn't touch it. "You reject me in front of two hundred people, and now you want my signature saying it never happened?"

"It says the bond was administrative. A filing error." His jaw was tight, that muscle jumping the way it did right before he lied to someone he actually respected. "That's all it says."

"It says the mark's void." I pushed the paper back an inch, just enough that he'd have to reach for it. "And it's not. You know it's not. You can feel it right now, can't you."

He didn't answer that. He didn't have to — his hand was already flat on the desk, knuckles white, like keeping it there was the only thing stopping him from putting it on me instead.

"Elara's family is downstairs," he said. "Silas is done being patient. If the port merger doesn't close by Friday, we lose the harbor rights to the Ashgrove pack entirely. That's forty jobs. That's my mother's territory."

"So marry her. You don't need my signature for that."

"I need the bond record gone.