Chapter 35 · On His Knees

The needle seated right at the hub, and Garrett Sterling’s scream died before it cleared his teeth.

Silvered neurotoxin. Six seconds to the jaw. Twelve to the knees.

"Ten," I said. "Say something worth hearing."

He couldn't. His jaw worked, spattering foam and gray spit against my knuckles.

Forty enforcers had scoped rifles leveled at my chest from the mezzanine. Not one clean shot. Theron Blackwood’s border crew had blown straight through the east doors with the blizzard still steaming off their pelts, and those doors sat dead behind the council chairs.

"Nobody twitch," Theron said, easy as a man passing the salt. "It’s been a long damn week."

Silence slammed down on the hall. The heavy, pressurized kind that makes your eardrums throb.

At twelve seconds, Garrett’s knees buckled. He hit the flagstones hard, and I went down with him, my left hand locked around the barrel of the syringe so the needle wouldn't snap in his jugular.

"Six years ago," I called out, pitching my voice straight to the rafters, "this bastard slid a blood-oath across the table to my mate. Sign it, or watch me burn.