Chapter 14 · Thirteen Deaths

"Don't touch me."

Cade stopped with his hand inches from my shoulder.

The broken bell behind him groaned, and every black tooth of metal shivered against the chains. The sound punched straight through my skull. My knees nearly gave out.

Cade caught my elbow before I hit the floor.

I jerked away. "I said don't touch me."

"You were falling."

"Then let me fall."

His jaw tightened. "Not while the ring is locked to both of us."

The obsidian band around my wrist pulsed once. A thin red line lit beneath my skin, crawling toward my palm. Cade's matching mark burned across his hand.

The vault had trapped us inside its circle of dead clocks. Broken gears covered the stone floor. The final bell hung above us, split from rim to center, but it still had enough power to pull at memory.

And it had just shown me Cade standing over my body.

Again.

Not once. Not twice.

Thirteen times.

I shoved my sleeve over the ring. "How many?"

Cade didn't answer.

I stepped closer. "How many times did you kill me?"

His eyes stayed on mine. Gray. Cold. Too steady.

That steadiness had fooled me before.

"Evelyn—"

"No.