Chapter 2
THE OATH
Vorak's POV
I didn't come here for her.
That's what I tell myself as I carry her through the shadowed corridor, her weight almost nothing in my arms. I came because the crown's auctions are a disease, and tonight's offering—this "witch bride" they're so eager to be rid of—won't survive an hour if one of their polished dogs claims her.
I came to stop a murder.
That's all.
Her scent drifts up again—soft and herbal, like meadow grass after rain—and my jaw clenches hard enough that bone grinds against bone.
Liar.
The curse stirs beneath my skin, purring its approval.
I ignore it. I've had years of practice.
"Lord Vorak."
The Auction Mistress appears at my elbow like a summoned spirit, all silk and ceremony and the kind of smile that's meant to soothe dangerous animals. "If you'll follow me to complete the contract—"
"Now." The word comes out rougher than I intend, edged in the growl I can't quite suppress after violence. The girl in my arms flinches.
I loosen my grip. Fractionally.
The Mistress's smile thins to something more genuine: irritation, barely masked. "Of course, my lord. This way."
She leads us deeper into the amphitheater's underbelly, through passages that reek of old magic and older blood. Torches gutter in their brackets, throwing shadows that twist wrong. The girl's breathing quickens.
I tighten my hold. Just slightly.
"Breathe," I murmur, low enough that only she can hear. "Nothing here will touch you."
She doesn't respond, but her rigid shoulders ease. Barely.
It's enough.
The contract chamber opens before us like a stone throat. The Pact Stone dominates the center—a massive slab of black rock carved with runes that pulse sickly red in the firelight, drinking the shadows.
I hate this room.
I hate everything it represents.
The crown's leash. Their control. Their pretty lie that we're partners in this "compact" when really we're just monsters on chains, useful for guarding their borders and nothing more.
"Set her down, please."
I don't want to.
The thought startles me enough that I nearly miss my footing. I force myself to lower her carefully, keeping one hand on her arm until I'm certain she's steady. She sways anyway—exhaustion or fear, probably both—and doesn't look at me.
Smart girl.
A clerk materializes from the shadows—soft hands, ink-stained fingers, exactly the kind of man who's never had to kill anything—and unfurls a scroll covered in dense script.
"The terms," he intones, his voice flat with boredom. "Lord Vorak of Blackwood claims the bride Annora Vale for a term of thirty days, after which she will be returned to crown custody unharmed. Failure to comply will result in immediate forfeiture of territory and—"
"I know the terms." I step toward the stone, rolling my shoulders. The runes along my forearms are already heating, responding to the violence still singing in my veins.
Not now. Control it. Not in front of her.
The clerk's eyes flick to my arms, then away. He clears his throat. "Your hand, my lord."
I bare my palm. He produces a ceremonial blade—enchanted silver, I can smell the magic on it—and draws it across my skin in one practiced stroke.
Blood wells up, looks black in the bad light, and drips onto the stone.
The runes flare.
Magic crawls up my arm like cold fire, wrapping around bone and muscle, sinking hooks deep into marrow. The oath settles into place with a weight I can feel in my chest, a chain I've just locked around my own throat.
Thirty days. Then return her.
I'll die first.
But I don't say that out loud. Instead I force out the words of the binding, each syllable tasting like ash and iron: "By blood and stone, I bind myself to the terms of the Compact. Thirty days. No harm. Return upon the crown's demand."
A clerk clamps a silver chain around my wrist. The magic bites—cold fire sinking into bone.
The magic twists, locks tight, and settles beneath my skin like a brand.
Done.
The clerk nods, satisfied in that smug way bureaucrats have when they think they've won something. "Witnessed and sealed. The bride is yours, Lord Vorak." His gaze slides to Annora, and something oily moves behind his eyes. "Use her well."
My hand moves before I think. I have him by the throat, lifted onto his toes, claws pricking the soft skin of his neck.
"If I see you again," I say quietly, "I will remove your tongue. Am I clear?"
He makes a strangled sound that might be agreement.
I drop him.
He scuttles backward, and the Auction Mistress moves between us with the kind of false calm that speaks to long practice managing volatile lords.
"We're done here," I say, turning to Annora. She's watching me with those too-wide eyes, trying to decide if I'm her salvation or just a different kind of monster. "Come."
She follows.
Of course she does. She's terrified.
The question is: of what?
The journey to Blackwood takes hours.
I put her on a horse—a steady bay mare that won't spook at shadows—and tell my men to form up around us. Six soldiers, all handpicked, all aware that if anyone so much as looks at the girl wrong, I'll remove their eyes.
They keep their distance.
Smart men.
We ride through the night, following roads that become paths that become little more than game trails. The capital falls away behind us, all its pretty lights and prettier lies, and the forest rises up to swallow us whole.
Annora rides in silence, hands white-knuckled on the reins, shoulders hunched against the cold. Every time a branch snaps or an owl calls or the wind whispers through the pines, she flinches.
I watch her.
Can't help it.
She's too small for this. Too breakable. The kind of fragile that makes something in my chest tighten and my hands itch to cover her, hide her, keep—
No.
I drag my focus back to the road. The curse is still simmering from the arena fight, a low burn in my veins that wants a second taste. It always does. Violence begets violence, and I've learned the hard way that the only way to fight it is rigid control.
Control and distance.
But she's right there, barely ten feet away, and I can hear every breath she takes.
"Drink." I toss her a waterskin without looking.
She catches it clumsily, fumbles with the strap, and takes a careful sip. Her throat works, and I force myself to look away from the collar gleaming dully at her neck.
I need to remove that. Soon.
When I can trust my hands.
"Eat." I pass her dried rations wrapped in waxed cloth.
She takes them with a mumbled "thank you" that's barely audible, nibbles at the edge of hardtack like a mouse testing for poison.
"Stay close to the group."
That one's not necessary—she's surrounded by armed men, there's nowhere for her to go even if she tried—but I say it anyway because the alternative is silence, and silence leaves too much room for thinking.
She nods without looking at me.
And I catch something in her profile. Not just fear. Something sharper.
She's thinking.
Calculating.
Trying to figure out if she's safer with me than she would have been with the Inquisitor, or alone, or dead.
Good. Fear makes prey. Thinking makes survivors.
I don't know why that pleases me, but it does.
We reach Blackwood just before dawn.
The fortress rises out of the mist like a scar on the landscape—all dark stone and iron portcullis and walls built thick enough to withstand siege from things far worse than armies. It's not beautiful. It's not meant to be.
This is a border hold, the last line between the kingdom's soft lands and the things that live in the deep forest.
My men relax as we pass through the outer gates, shoulders dropping, hands leaving sword hilts. This is home. This is safe.
Annora goes rigid.
Right. To her, this is a prison.
The thought bothers me more than it should.
Servants appear in the courtyard as we dismount—Matron Eska first, iron-haired and sharp-eyed, followed by Captain Rurik and a handful of others. They stare at Annora with poorly concealed curiosity.
I've never brought anyone here before. Never claimed an auction bride. The beast lords don't do that—we take our tributes and leave civilized folk alone. That's the arrangement.
They don't know what to make of this.
Neither do I.
"Prepare a room," I tell Eska, pitching my voice low. "East tower. Near mine." I pause. "Not in mine."
Eska's eyebrows climb toward her hairline, but she knows better than to question. "Yes, my lord. I'll see it's made ready."
I turn back to Annora. She's still mounted, frozen like she's forgotten how to dismount. Or maybe she's hoping if she stays still enough, I'll forget she's there.
Not likely.
"Down."
She slides off gracelessly, lands hard, and her knees buckle. I catch her elbow before she can fall.
Her skin is warm beneath my palm.
Impossibly soft.
I let go like I've been burned, curling my fingers into a fist.
"Follow me."
I lead her through corridors of stone and shadow, up two flights of stairs worn smooth by centuries of boots. Servants press themselves against walls as we pass, and I can feel their stares following us.
Let them look. Let them wonder.
They'll learn to mind their business.
The room I give her is in the east tower—small but defensible, with thick walls and a heavy door. A bed, a chest, a narrow window that overlooks the inner courtyard. It's the safest room in the fortress aside from my own chambers.
That's not an accident.
"You'll stay here," I tell her, keeping to the doorway because I don't trust myself to go further. The curse is still too close to the surface, and she smells like meadow grass and I need distance. "Food will be brought three times a day. Matron Eska will see to anything you need."
Annora nods, silent.
Always silent.
I need to set the rules now, before the curse frays my control any thinner.
"Listen carefully." I grip the doorframe, feel wood creak under my fingers. "If I tell you to leave a room, you leave. Immediately. No questions. No hesitation. Understand?"
Her eyes widen slightly. "Why—"
"No questions." The words come out harder than I intend, edged in growl. I force myself to breathe, to pull the curse back down. "This isn't negotiable."
She swallows. Nods.
"If you see the runes on my arms start to glow—" I hold up my forearm so she can see the dark marks etched into my skin, "—don't touch me. Don't come near me. Lock yourself in here if you have to."
"I don't understand—"
"You don't need to understand." The wood groans in my grip. "You just need to obey. It's for your safety."
A pause. Then: "And if I don't?"
Bold. Stupid, but bold.
I meet her eyes. "Then I might kill you. And I'd rather not."
The truth lands between us like a stone.
She goes very still, processing this. Then, so quietly I almost miss it:
"Will you hurt me?"
The question hits like a blade between my ribs, sharp and unexpected and gods, the way she asks it—like she already knows the answer but needs to hear me say it anyway. Like she's been hurt so many times that the question is reflex.
This girl has been broken by her own people, branded and sold and stripped of everything, and she's standing in a monster's fortress asking if I'm going to add to the damage.
I look at her—really look at her—and see the burn scar on her shoulder, half-hidden by torn fabric. The blood-collar at her throat. The way she's holding herself together through sheer will and nothing else.
"No." The word comes out rough. Certain. "I will die before I let that happen."
Her breath catches.
Something shifts behind her eyes—not trust, not yet, but maybe the first fragile possibility of it.
"Okay," she whispers.
I leave before I can do something monumentally stupid.
Like promise her things I have no right to promise.
Like touch her.
Like make her mine in more than name.
Alone in my chambers, I strip off my armor piece by piece and scrub the blood from my hands.
It doesn't help.
The curse is still there, burning under my skin like coals, turning my thoughts sharp and violent and hungry. The runes along my forearms pulse hot enough to ache, and I grip the edge of the washbasin until stone cracks under my fingers.
I should be thinking about the oath. About the thirty-day deadline and the crown's inevitable demands when I refuse to return her. About what happens when they realize I never intended to honor the contract.
I should be planning my next move.
Instead, all I can think about is the way she felt in my arms—small and warm and trembling. The scent of her, soft and clean under the arena's filth. The sound of her voice asking will you hurt me like the answer mattered more than anything.
I want her.
Not just to protect. Not just to keep safe from the crown's machinations and the Inquisitor's cold eyes.
I want her in ways that have nothing to do with duty and everything to do with the most dangerous parts of me. The parts the curse feeds on. The parts I've spent decades learning to control.
And wanting—wanting is how I lose control.
Wanting is how I become the monster they all think I am.
I slam my fist into the wall and welcome the pain, the crunch of stone, the bright sharp clarity it brings.
It doesn't help.
Nothing helps.
She's here now. In my fortress. Under my protection. Sleeping thirty feet away with nothing but walls and a door between us.
Mine.
And I'm already damned.
The curse purrs its agreement, sinking deeper into my bones, patient as death.
Thirty days, the oath says.
We'll see.