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His fingers clamp around Ivy’s wrist before she can pull away.
The man’s eyes open.
Not slowly. Not confused. They snap open like he’s been awake the whole time and has finally decided to stop pretending.
Ivy’s palm is still pressed to his chest. The glow beneath it dies, and the contract mark on her wrist turns cold. She jerks back, but the silver lines stay wrapped around her skin.
“Seven days,” he says.
His voice is rough, but steady. Too steady for someone who was dying on her floor two minutes ago.
“Glad you’re counting.” Ivy grabs a towel and wipes the blood from her hands. “Now tell me who killed my family.”
He sits up. The wound across his chest has closed, though the edges are still red and angry. He studies her like he’s choosing between several bad answers.
“You don’t know who I am.”
“I know you’re bleeding on my equipment, and you owe me an answer.” She folds her arms. “Start talking.”
A crooked smile touches his mouth. “Silas Vane.”
The name hits her like a fist to the throat.
“Silas Vane?”
“Apparently, you’ve heard of me.”
“Everyone has.” Ivy takes one step back. “Heir to the Night Court. Last person seen near the Moore house the night it burned.”
“Last person seen,” he repeats. “Not the person who started the fire.”
“You’re the one they blamed.”
“Blamed is an interesting word.”
“Get out.”
“I can’t.” He taps the inside of his wrist.
A silver mark glows beneath his skin. It matches hers.
“For seven days, if I die, you die,” Silas says. “If I leave you for more than an hour, the bond breaks. We both die.”
Ivy’s stomach drops. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“You didn’t ask.”
He swings his legs off the table and stands.
He’s taller than she expected. Taller, steadier, and far too calm for a man with a split chest. Every movement carries the careless precision of someone who’s survived too many fights to fear one more.
“You signed the contract,” he says. “Pain, power, proximity. You wanted answers. Now you’re stuck with me until the clock runs out.”
“I wanted a dying stranger to keep breathing. I didn’t agree to babysit a royal murder suspect.”
“Then stop calling yourself generous.”
Her hand twitches.
“My family burned because of you.”
“No.” His voice loses its edge and turns cold. “Your family burned because someone wanted me to take the fall. You just bound yourself to the man everyone thinks did it.”
“That’s your defense?”
“It’s the truth.”
“Convenient.”
“So was using my blood to save me.”
Ivy steps closer. “You knew my name before I told you. You knew why I got fired. How?”
“I know a lot of things.” Silas walks toward the window. “Your mother told me you’d be here.”
Ivy stops breathing.
“My mother died six years ago.”
“I know.” He looks back at her. “I was there.”
She crosses the room before she can think better of it. Her hands hit his chest and slam him against the wall.
The wound tears open.
Blood spreads across his shirt.
Silas doesn’t fight her. His breath catches, but his hands stay at his sides.
“You don’t get to talk about her,” Ivy says. “You don’t get to stand here and pretend you knew her.”
“She told me to find you.”
“Liar.”
“She said you’d be angry.”
“Shut up.”
“She said you’d try to kill me.” His eyes stay locked on hers. “She also said to tell you the music box wasn’t empty.”
Ivy’s grip loosens.
The music box.
No one knows about it. Not her aunt. Not the police. Not the lawyers who sealed the case before Ivy could ask why.
Her mother’s small wooden box had sat on the kitchen counter for years. The hinge was broken. The tune always came out wrong. Ivy opened it the day after the funeral and found nothing inside but dust and the faint smell of roses.
“How do you know about that?” she whispers.
Silas pushes away from the wall. He presses one hand to his chest, and fresh blood slips between his fingers.
“Because your mother gave it to me three days before she died.”
“Where is it?”
“Safe.”
“Where?”
“You’ll get it when you stop trying to kill me.”
Ivy shoves him again. “Give it to me now.”
“You’re proving my point.”
“If you’re lying—”
“Then the bond breaks, and we both die.” He catches her wrist before she can strike him. His palm is hot against her skin. “I’m not lying.”
The touch lasts one second too long.
His thumb rests over the silver mark. Heat travels up her arm, sharp and intimate, and Ivy yanks free.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Then don’t attack me.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I’m bleeding.”
“You sound pleased about it.”
Before he can answer, the ER doors slam open.
Three figures enter in black, moving in tight formation. Their boots strike the floor together. Their eyes sweep over the room, the equipment, the blood, and finally Silas.
The lead hunter stops.
He doesn’t kneel.
Instead, he raises a thin silver chain from his belt and points it at Ivy’s wrist.
“Silas Vane,” he says. “Step away from the human.”
Silas moves in front of her. “You’re late.”
“We’ve been looking for you since the fire.”
“Then you should’ve looked harder.”
The hunter’s gaze drops to the matching marks on their wrists. “You made a moon contract.”
“She saved my life.”
“She bound herself to the heir of the Night Court.”
Ivy looks at Silas. “Heir?”
His jaw tightens.
The hunter smiles without warmth. “He didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
Silas’s voice cuts in. “Don’t.”
“Your Highness,” the hunter says, “the Court isn’t calling you home to punish you.”
Silas’s hand closes around Ivy’s arm. “We’re leaving.”
The hunter flicks his wrist.
The silver chain snaps around Ivy’s wrist before she can move. Cold floods her bones. Her knees buckle, and Silas catches her against him.
“Don’t fight it,” he says near her ear. “You’ll make it worse.”
“What is this?” Ivy gasps.
“A leash.”
“Get it off me.”
“I can’t.”
The hunter takes one step closer. “You’re both coming to Court.”
“No,” Silas says.
The chain tightens.
Pain flashes through Ivy’s arm. Silas stiffens beside her, as if the same pain has cut into him.
The hunter watches them carefully. “You have two choices. Walk in under your own power, or let the contract tear itself apart.”
Ivy turns toward Silas. “You said we’d both die.”
“We will.”
“And you still want to run?”
His eyes drop to her mouth, then lift again. His grip shifts from her arm to her waist, holding her upright while the chain burns colder.
“I want you alive,” he says.
The words land harder than they should.
The hunter’s expression changes. “That’s the problem, Your Highness. The Court doesn’t want you back.”
Silas goes still.
Ivy feels his heartbeat jump beneath her hand.
The hunter leans closer, the chain humming between them. “It wants the human who woke the dead heir. So, Ivy Moore, tell me—did he explain why your mother left you to him?”