"Hold still, or I'll slice your carotid," I snapped.
My fingers dug into the coarse fabric of his collar, pinning him against the rotting mahogany paneling of the old courthouse. Carson Rook didn't flinch. He was slumped, his breathing ragged and wet. He looked less like a disgraced heir and more like something dragged through a meat grinder.
"Just do it," he rasped. His voice sounded like broken glass in a blender. "Cut the chain and get your damn payout."
I hated that look. Like I was just another tool in a kit. I shifted my weight, jamming my knee into his thigh to keep him still. My hands were shaking—not fear, but the sheer amount of static magic humming in the air.
The contract binding him wasn't a spell. It was a parasite. I could see it: a jagged chain of obsidian light wrapped tight around his chest, sinking into his skin like rusted nails.
"This isn't a standard debt-bond," I muttered, leaning in.
Copper and cold. He smelled like a cellar that hadn't been opened in a century. "This is a Rook seal. If I trip a ward, we both blow up. You know that, right?"
Carson let out a sharp, jagged laugh that ended in a cough. A smear of dark blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. "Welcome to the family business, Vale. Now shut up and cut."
I didn't shut up. I couldn't. If I stopped talking, I'd start thinking about the price tag. Five figures. Enough to buy back my sister’s contract from the cartel. Enough to stop her from becoming another nameless battery in a mana-farm.
I pulled the severing blade from my kit. A sliver of void-glass. No reflection. No mercy.
As the edge touched the first link, the air curdled.
"Wait," Carson whispered.
His hand shot up, gripping my wrist. Strength that shouldn't have been possible for a dying man.
His skin was ice. Not just cold—freezing. The temperature plummeted, and my breath misted in the air between us.
"What the hell are you doing?" I yelled, wrenching my arm.
"It's waking up," he groaned. His grip tightened, bruising my skin. "The curse... it doesn't like being touched."
I didn't listen. I couldn't afford to. I jammed the void-glass into the center of the bond.
*Snap.*
It wasn't a sound. It was a shockwave.
A blinding flash of violet light exploded, throwing me backward. I hit a fallen marble pillar with a thud that knocked the wind out of my lungs. The world went silent. Then the scream hit—my own.
Something ripped through my chest. A hot iron brand pressed into my sternum, dragging a line of fire down to my gut. I gasped, clutching my shirt, feeling a phantom weight slam into place.
I blinked through the spots in my vision. Carson was staring at me. The obsidian chains were gone from his chest.
I looked at my own wrist. A thin, shimmering thread of violet light connected my skin to his.
"You idiot," he breathed. His voice was suddenly clearer. Stronger. "You didn't cut it. You transferred it."
"What?" I scrambled up, heart hammering. "I used a void-glass! It's supposed to erase the bond!"
"Not this one," he said, leaning back. Color was returning to his cheeks. The blood on his lip was already drying. "My family doesn't do 'erase.' We do 'share.'"
I tried to pull away. A sharp spike of agony shot through my heart. I collapsed to my knees, gasping for air.
"Stop!" I choked out. "Stop it!"
"I'm not doing anything!" Carson shouted. He didn't move to help. He just watched with a mix of curiosity and grim satisfaction. "We're synced now, Vale. Your heart beats because mine does. You feel my pain, and I feel yours. You just hitched your soul to a dead man walking."
"I'm going to kill you," I hissed.
"Get in line,"\ he replied.
He stood up. Fluid. Predatory. He stepped toward me, his shadow stretching long and distorted across the floor. He stopped inches away. The ice was gone, replaced by a simmering, dangerous warmth radiating off his body.
He reached down, fingers brushing my jaw. It wasn't a caress. It was a check—like he was seeing if I was real. The touch sent a jolt of static through my spine that had nothing to do with the curse.
"You're shaking," he noted, his voice a low, dangerous hum.
"Get your hands off me," I snapped, slapping his wrist away.
"We're bound, Evelyn. Get used to the proximity." He looked toward the shattered front doors. "And we need to move. Now."
"Why?"
"Because the people who paid you to find me don't want me freed," he said, a cold smile playing on his lips. "They want the vessel intact. And right now, the vessel is split between a disgraced heir and a very clumsy debt hunter."
Heavy boots echoed on the pavement outside.
"Sector 4! Seal the perimeter!"
Cartel hunters. They weren't here for a rescue. They were here for a retrieval.
"Can you fight?" I asked, trying to steady my breath.
"I can do a few things."
He didn't move to the door. He stood perfectly still. I watched as his shadow—the one on the dusty floor—began to move on its own. It grew. The edges sharpened into blades, rising like a living wall of ink.
"What the hell is that?" I whispered.
"The part of the curse you didn't inherit."
The courthouse doors exploded inward. Three men in tactical gear, wearing silver Spell Cartel sigils, stormed in. They didn't talk. They launched mana-shackles—glowing blue rings designed to neutralize any caster.
"Target acquired!" the lead hunter yelled, raising a containment rifle.
Carson didn't look at them. He looked at me.
"Run, Evelyn."
"I'm not leaving you!" I yelled back. The thought of the bond snapping while I ran made my chest ache.
"I didn't ask you to stay."
As the hunter pulled the trigger, Carson's shadow lunged. It didn't protect him—it wrapped around me, yanking me violently toward the back exit. A blast of energy scorched the spot where I'd been standing.
We hit the alleyway, rain slicking the cobblestones. I tripped, sliding across the wet ground. Carson caught me by the arm, hauling me up with a jerk that slammed my chest against his.
Frozen. I could hear his heart drumming—fast, heavy, echoing the rhythm of my own. The violet link between us pulsed in time with our breathing.
"You're a disaster," he whispered, face inches from mine.
"You're a walking corpse," I shot back.
He smirked, but his eyes stayed hard. He looked past me.
"Don't look now," he said, his voice turning ice-cold. "But I think your employers brought a Specialist."
I turned. A woman in a white coat stood at the mouth of the alley, holding a device like a tuning fork. She wasn't looking at Carson. She was staring at the link on my wrist.
"The transfer was successful," she said into her radio. "The girl is the new anchor. Kill the boy; the bond will collapse, and we can harvest the core from her."
She raised her hand. A jagged bolt of white lightning formed between her fingers.
"Wait!" I screamed.
She didn't wait. She launched the strike, and as it flew toward Carson's chest, I felt the electricity hit *me* instead.