Chapter 10 · Open Claim

The bolt was still trembling when I got my eyes open. So was the hand holding it.

A kid. Nineteen, maybe twenty, one of Kaelen's frontier boys with rain running off his shoulders. He had me flat on wet rock with the steel tip pressed hard under my chin.

"Don't move."

"I'm not moving." My voice came out scraped raw. "You're the one shaking."

He didn't like that. The bolt dipped, dug in, and opened a hot line along my jaw. Warm blood spilled immediately, soaking into the collar of a coat that wasn't mine anymore.

"You cut the bond," he breathed. "Whole territory saw it. At the altar. You belong to nobody now."

"Which means you're standing in four inches of floodwater trying to murder an unbonded woman for pocket change," I said, keeping my palms flat on the freezing stone. "Kaelen won't pay you. He'll bury you to keep his hands clean."

"Patrol's paying double," the kid snapped, his voice cracking. "Road's shut. North ridge is crawling with dogs. You ain't walking out of—"

The temperature dropped.

I didn't hear Torin step out of the shadows.