Chapter 13 · The Brass Oath - Chapter 13: Blood Debt

"Don't touch me again." Cain's hand locked around Mara's wrist before she could drive her knife into his throat.

The movement pulled them chest to chest. His coat scraped her knuckles. His breath hit the side of her face, hot and sharp, while the brass oath under her skin answered with a vicious twist of pain.

Mara's knees buckled.

Cain caught her against the tunnel wall. "Stand still."

"Go to hell."

"Already been there. You dragged me with you."

The pain punched through both of them at once. Mara felt it in her ribs, in the pulse under her jaw, in the hand crushing her wrist. Cain felt it too. His fingers tightened, then eased by half an inch.

That tiny bit of mercy made her angrier.

She slammed her forehead into his.

Cain grunted and stepped back. Mara ripped free, but the oath pulled hard between them. A bright brass line flashed under the skin of her wrist and vanished into his palm.

He looked down at it.

Mara lifted her knife. "Try that again and I cut the hand off."

"You can't cut what the oath has joined."

"Watch me."

"Mara.