Chapter 13 · The Dead Heiress

"Drop the knife, Ivy."

The hunter pressed a silver blade under my jaw.

"Or I open your throat and let the beast watch you bleed."

Cain moved before I could.

One second, his hand was locked around my wrist. The next, he had the hunter slammed against the stone wall. The blade skittered across the floor.

Cain's forearm pinned the man's chest. His eyes had gone black around the edges.

"Touch her again," Cain said, "and I'll pull your hands off."

The hunter laughed through clenched teeth. "You think the bond makes her yours? She isn't even alive anymore."

My stomach dropped.

Cain's head turned a fraction. "What did you say?"

The hunter looked at me instead.

He wore my family's gray crest on his collar. The same crest my father had pressed into my palm before sending me into the Forbidden Wilds—with a smile and a kiss to my forehead.

The crest of House Vale.

"I said you're guarding a corpse," the hunter said. "Ivy Vale died three nights ago. Her family already held the funeral."

I drove my knee into his ribs.

Cain's grip tightened before I could hit him again.

"Don't."

"Get your hand off me.