KORO’S POV An hour later, we were already in the council room awaiting the damn syndicate.
I gritted my teeth in anger and felt the way my wolf was annoyed, but the funny thing was that my vampire had been silent since I landed in Rujin’s hands.
The council room reeked of richness and made my skin crawl, knowing well what we were up against.
I had not overcome the pack’s betrayal, as they had sold me out for damn heat packs.
I knew the Alpha was cunning, but I never expected that she would turn against me after all that I had done for the pack.
“You’re sweating, Koro,” Rujin remarked, interrupting my thoughts.
” For your information, that is unrefined; look for any member of the Marks household.” “I’m not a member of your household,” I spat out in irritation and annoyance.
“I am a hostage, and that is a damn difference.” “A semantic one,” Rujin countered.
He reached into a hidden compartment in the table and pulled out a scroll that looked ancient.
“Come here.” The command hit the Thermal Lock, and I felt a sharp, agonizing tug in the shifter beasts dragging me forward.
My boots skidded on the glass floor as the tether shortened, forcing me to stumble until I was standing directly over him.
The heat radiating from him was a physical assault.
It felt like standing in front of a burning volcanic mountain.
“This,” Rujin said, smoothing the scroll onto the table, “is a debt.
It is the formalization of our arrangement.
The Syndicate requires a record of the Asset’s consent, and in their world, a slave is a liability, but a contractor is an investment.” “Consent?” I laughed, a harsh, jagged sound.
“You have me on a leash, you’re slowly boiling my blood, and you’re talking about consent?
You really are as delusional and evil as they say.” Rujin’s eyes snapped to mine, and the boredom was gone, replaced by a flash of that toxic and glowing pride.
He walked over, wrapped a hand around the back of my neck, his fingers digging into the sensitive skin where my wolf instincts screamed danger.
“I don’t need your damn admiration, Koro,” he whispered, his breath smelling of expensive bourbon and smoke.
“I need your signature, and because you are a hybrid, an abomination without a legal identity.
He picked up a small, ornate dagger from the table, and the blade was made of frosted silver, a metal designed to hurt my shifter wolf beast.
“Sign,” he commanded, holding the dagger out.
“No.” I stared him down, my brown eyes meeting his glowing orange ones.
“Kill me or burn me.
I would rather be ash than a line-item in your ledger.” Rujin’s grip on my neck tightened, and I felt the heat spike a warning shot, and my skin began to burn, and I could bet that a blister formed where he touched me.
“You think you’re being brave,” Rujin crooned, his voice dropping to a terrifying low tone.
” But you’re just being selfish.
Do you think I don’t know about the little girl in the cryogenic camp?
Nara, isn’t it?
Such a pretty name for a pup who’s one power failure away from becoming an ice sculpture.” “If you touch her,” I growled back, and my eyes blazed at him.
“I don’t have to touch her,” Rujin interrupted.
“I just have to stop paying for her heat.
The moment you refuse me, Koro, the credits stop flowing, and she will be damn dead before you even finish your next breath.” Rujin then placed the hilt of the dagger in my hand.
“Now, are you going to be a good little asset and save your little sister?” My hand trembled, and the silver of the blade felt like a brand.
I looked at the scroll, the list of clauses that would legally turn me into his shadow, his filter, his property, and then back at Rujin, seeing the absolute certainty in his gaze.
He wasn’t just a man but a cold, calculating dragon that viewed everyone as fuel.
“I will kill you, Rujin, open my veins and let the cold take you, and you will die a cruel death.” My eyes blazed at him as I whispered the response through gritted teeth.
“Only when that time comes,” Rujin said, his twinkling.
“But for now…
bleed for me.” I didn’t hesitate this time, and I dragged the silver blade across my palm, and the pain was sharp and silvered, but it was nothing compared to the humiliation, and I pressed my bleeding hand onto the dragon-hide.
The runes flared a violent, sickly purple, the colour of my hybrid blood, and the scroll began to smoke as it absorbed the life-force.
The Thermal Lock on my wrists pulsed once, hard enough to bruise, signalling that the contract was sealed.
Rujin took my hand, his thumb tracing the cut I’d just made, and just watched the blood drip onto his glass table, his expression one of pure, dark satisfaction.
“There,” he said, and flickered a drop of my blood into his mouth.
“Was that so hard?
You belong to the Marks Dynasty now, Koro.
As long as you’re within ten feet of me, I’ll make sure you stay alive, whether you want to or not.
If you irritate me, you will discover the kind of monster you are tethered to.
” He sat back down, dismissing me with a wave of his hand as if I were a piece of furniture he’d just finished polishing.
“Now, stand by the door.
The other Dons will be arriving any time now.
Try to look grateful; you are the most expensive thing in the room.” Like an obedient prisoner, I stood by the door, my hand throbbing, my heart a block of ice in a room full of fire.
I watched him, the monster who owned the sun, and I started counting.
Ten feet.
Ten feet of hatred.
Ten feet of target.
Ten feet of death I had signed his paper, yes, but I hadn’t signed my soul, and Rujin Marks would die by my hands.