Chapter 3

Aria's POV

Three months later, Joren came to Prehnite in person to hand me his wedding invitation.

Heavy cream paper. The Zircon seal pressed into dark green wax. My name written in his own hand.

I took it from him without opening it and tossed it into the hearth.

The paper curled, blackened, and went up in one bright little flare.

Joren's jaw tightened. "What the hell is that supposed to mean, Aria?"

"It means I didn't like it," I said flatly. "And I'm sick of looking at your face."

Color climbed up his neck.

"Feelings have to go both ways," he said. "I never wanted you. Why can't you just let this go?"

I laughed in his face.

"Please. Who do you think you are, Joren? There are better men than you in every pack in the Territories. I've had so many Alphas' sons ride up to my father's door these past three months, we've had to rehang it twice."

Most of them I'd sent home. One of them, I hadn't—yet.

"You brought me your wedding invitation with your own two hands. What could you possibly want here, except to rub my nose in it?"

He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice had gone softer.

"Aria. I need something from you."

"Myrna's delicate. She caught a chill a few weeks ago, and the cough hasn't left her since. The wedding is in seven days." He hesitated, then said it. "I need three vials of your blood. For her medicine. So she can get well."

My blood carries the healing gift of the Ashcroft line.

Every time Joren came off a battlefield torn open, I bled for him. I'd slice my own forearm, fill the cup, and hold it to his lips until his wounds closed. A healer's bloodletting never heals clean—the gift goes out with the blood, and the cut remembers. By the end of the war, the insides of both my arms were laddered with pale scars, one for every time I'd dragged him back.

And now he wanted it for Myrna.

Was that all I had ever been to him? A tool to pick up whenever he needed one?

Goddess, it still hurt. Like he'd taken a knife to a scar that had only just closed and opened it right back up.

"I'm not your blood bag, Joren," I said. "Don't even think about it."

He looked at me as if I were being unreasonable.

"It's three vials. I'm not asking for free." He nodded toward the window, where a Zircon wagon stood in the courtyard. "I brought payment. Moonpetal, ironroot, a chest of gold. If that's not enough, I'll add more."

It's three vials. Just like that. As if he were asking to borrow a horse.

Everyone knows what it costs a healer to bleed. A single vial means weeks of weakness—of being cold to the bone no matter how high the fire burns. Give too much, too often, and the gift starts eating the healer alive.

I'd bled for him so many times that by the end of the war I could barely stand without help. Only after I came home did my father set every healer in Prehnite to rebuilding me. Only now was I whole again.

And he'd come to bleed me for a rogue.

Not three vials. Not one drop.

I had no idea where he'd gotten the idea that I'd say yes.

"You could hand me every herb in Zircon's storerooms," I said, "and you still wouldn't get a single drop of my blood."

Before he could say another word, I called for the guards to show him out.

He was still shouting as they hustled him toward the door. "Do you really hate seeing me happy that much? Name your price, Aria! What will it take?"

I turned around slowly.

"It's simple," I said. "Step down as Alpha. Then the blood is yours."

Since his Ascension, Joren had done nothing but indulge Myrna and himself.

He was building her a manor on Crescent Ridge, high above the river. Moonhaven, he called it. White marble hauled in from three territories. Windows two stories tall. To finish it in time for the wedding, he'd conscripted laborers from every pack in the Accord—warriors who had fought the rogues at his side, omegas who had never had a choice about anything.

They worked from dawn until long past dark. Anyone who fell behind was whipped with silver-braided lashes, the kind of wounds that wouldn't close for weeks. A few had lost hands for dropping a stone.

Every pack in the Territories had bled to buy a little peace from the rogues. Now that Joren had his title, he was tearing that peace apart with his own hands—all to build one woman a house.

His face twisted with rage.

"Three days, Aria. You have three days to send me that blood. If you don't, don't blame me when I come and take it myself."

There's a kind of anger so deep it starts to feel like laughter.

This was the man I had loved for seven years.

He was ready to make an enemy of me—for a rogue spy.

He'd certainly opened my eyes.

"Then come and take it," I said, my face perfectly blank. "If you can."