Chapter 5

A knock at the door. "Miss Voss? Delivery — express courier. I'll need a signature."

I hesitated, calling out. "I didn't order anything. You're sure this is the right unit?"

"Sender listed it as a gift. Address is confirmed."

I unlatched the chain and signed for the flat white box.

I tore through the wrapping and lifted the lid.

Inside lay a blood-binding ceremonial gown.

Ivory silk, with nightshade blooms stitched in delicate silver thread along the bodice and sleeves — the motif reserved exclusively for the consort at a Ravencroft covenant ceremony. The fabric was hand-loomed shadow silk, so impossibly light it seemed to float beneath my fingertips, every seam and tuck shaped to my exact measurements.

He'd held my body too many times to need a dressmaker.

A card was pinned to the inside of the lid. Black cardstock, crimson foil lettering. Damien's handwriting.

Elara, you're the only one I want to see walking toward me beneath the chapel arches. Happy third anniversary.

I stared at those words until the ache in my chest swelled so wide I couldn't draw breath.

For three years I'd imagined it — wearing a gown like this, walking toward Damien through candlelight in the Crimson Chapel.

But not after he'd announced a covenant with another woman. Not after he'd publicly erased me at a press event. Not after he'd laid a hawthorn spike on my coffee table and then had the audacity to send me a consort's gown.

How absurd. How utterly pathetic.

I looked at the ivory silk draped across the couch. It was a mirror, reflecting back every last scrap of delusion I'd clung to for three years.

My phone buzzed. Damien.

Did you receive the gift?

I didn't reply.

I was about to fold the gown back into its box when a notification lit my screen. A direct message — from Vivienne Ashford.

Every instinct screamed at me not to open it.

I opened it anyway.

Elara, it's Vivienne. I hope you don't mind the direct message. Today is my blood-binding ceremony with Damien. I'm not reaching out to start trouble — I simply want you to understand a few things.

The second message arrived immediately.

Damien and I were raised in the same coven halls. We survived our first bloodlust together at sixteen, hunted together through the old cities, and have been the match both families expected since before either of us could remember.

Four years ago, we quarreled and spent some time apart. That's when he found you.

But it was only ever a pause, Elara. Everyone knew we'd find our way back. This isn't politics — it's destiny.

A third.

I'm not telling you this to be cruel. I just hope you'll make the wise choice and stop letting yourself drown.

And the last.

Because if it ever came down to choosing — he wouldn't choose you. I think, deep down, you already know that.

I set the phone on the cushion, fingers bloodless and numb, and mechanically swiped to the news feed.

The headline had changed. A live photograph — the Crimson Chapel, its stained-glass windows blazing with candlelight. Damien in a black ceremonial coat. Vivienne in white on his arm. His hand resting over hers, natural as breathing.

"Ravencroft-Ashford Blood Covenant Sealed in Grand Ceremony — Elders from Across the Eastern Seaboard in Attendance."

The Crimson Chapel.

The same Crimson Chapel where he'd pressed his lips to my throat and whispered, "One day, I'll mark you right here."

He'd marked her there instead.

The comments overflowed with congratulations. Not a single mention of my name. As though I had never existed at all.

I turned the phone face-down.

I'd already told myself to let go. But seeing it still felt like a hawthorn spike driven clean through my sternum. Even breathing tasted of blood.

His eternity had told me I was nothing but an intermission. And on the day of his covenant, he'd sent me a consort's gown I would never wear.

My mother's call came through.

"Elara, Cassian's sent a car for you. Black sedan, tinted windows, parked in the service lane behind your building. Can you leave now?"

"Today's Damien's blood-binding — he won't be able to break away." I was already on my feet. "Mom, I'm going now."

"Good. Call me the moment you're clear of the city." Her voice was steady, but I heard her breath hitch on the other end, as if she were holding something back. "Be careful, sweetheart."

After I hung up, I set the gown box outside the door in the hallway.

Then I stripped my luggage down to a single bag. One change of clothes, cash, my passport.

The dresses he'd chosen, the jewels, the life we'd built — all of it stayed in this penthouse.

I was leaving every trace of this wretched chapter behind.

I shouldered the bag and pushed through the fire exit into the back stairwell.

My footsteps echoed in the concrete shaft, each one loud as a heartbeat.

When I reached the twelfth floor, sounds rose from below.

Men. More than one. Moving fast — hard soles striking the steps, and the clipped murmur of a two-way radio.

"— Lord Ravencroft's orders — the penthouse —"

"— secure her before sundown —"

I froze.

I pressed myself flat against the wall, barely daring to breathe.

They were coming up. Damien's sentinels.