Chapter 41 · Bloodstained Crown & Eternal Vow

"Tear up the paper, Bianca. Now."

His mouth is on my pulse. The lights are dead. The only glow in the penthouse is orange, bleeding up from the harbor fires and sliding across the ceiling.

The contract is crushed in my fist. Three hundred sixty-five nights. My signature sits at the bottom in black ink, and his is next to it in a hand like a knife.

I could do it in two seconds. I don't.

"You first," I say. My voice comes out wrecked. "You want it gone? Say why."

He goes still against my throat. I feel his breath, hot and uneven, and under it a wet rasp from the lung that almost killed him.

"Lucian."

"Don't use that tone."

"What tone?"

"The one that makes me want to confess." He lifts his head. In the orange light his face is gray under the stubble, and his eyes are the only thing about him that looks alive. "I'm not good at it, Bia."

"Then do it badly."

A laugh cracks out of him, and he flinches. His hand flattens over the thick bandage under his open shirt. I put my palm over his, and the gauze is warm.