Chapter 20 · Blood Pact

“Don't touch me with those claws unless you want them ripped off,” Vera spat, her voice shaking despite the venom. She was pressed hard against the cold, damp wall of the corridor, her breathing ragged.

I didn't pull back. I leaned in, my chest nearly brushing hers, the scent of her adrenaline and cheap gunpowder filling my nostrils. I could feel the heat radiating off her skin, a sharp contrast to the unnatural chill of my own stitched flesh.

“We’re in a hole in the ground with three dozen hungry things between us and the surface,” I rasped, my voice sounding like gravel grinding together. “You want to play the ‘I hate monsters’ game now? Bad timing, Hunter.”

She glared at me, her eyes scanning my face—or what was left of it. Her gaze lingered on the jagged seam running down my cheek, then flicked to the mark on my shoulder. She knew what that mark meant. She’d been hunting it for months.

“You’re one of them,” she whispered, her hand instinctively reaching for the combat knife at her thigh. “A high-grade graft. You aren't just some accident. Who made you?”

I grabbed her wrist.