Chapter 28 · The Price of Protection

"Get your hands off me!" I shouted, but the words broke into a wheeze.

Kane didn't move.

He had both my wrists pinned against the sanctuary wall, his grip hard enough to leave marks. His eyes weren't on my face. They were locked on the wound beneath my collarbone—the jagged cut the obsidian blade had carved through our bond.

The mark pulsed purple.

Not the warm gold of our contract. This light was bruised. Wrong. Alive.

"Stop fighting me," Kane said.

"Then stop holding me down!"

"You want to die?"

"Not particularly."

"Good. Then listen. You're leaking energy through that breach, and if I don't seal it, you won't last the hour."

I jerked against him anyway. "I can handle it."

"No, you can't."

His answer came too fast. Too certain.

Kane leaned closer, crowding me against the cold stone. Heat rolled off him through his clothes. He smelled like ozone, old blood, and smoke. His breath brushed my cheek when he spoke.

"You're bleeding power into the wards," he said. "Every shadow-stalker in ten miles can smell you."

"Let them come."

His eyes snapped to mine. Gold flashed through them.

"Don't say things you can't survive.