"My body." Her voice is flat. Exhausted. "You can skip the speech. I know what I am. A payment." She tilts her head, and something flickers in her eyes—not defiance, just truth. "Though I'm curious what the interest rate is on a human being. Does my value depreciate with use, or do you calculate that differently?"
The chamber goes still.
Daiven's face doesn't change, but his thread spasms—Loss of control, not pure anger. He backhands her hard enough that the crack echoes off the marble.
Her head snaps to the side. Blood blooms at the corner of her mouth.
She doesn't fall.
She doesn't fucking fall.
Her feet shift to catch her balance, her shoulders square back up, and she turns her head to face him again with blood on her lips and absolutely nothing in her eyes that looks like submission.
My cock goes hard so fast it hurts.
I'm on my feet before I decide to move. The chair scrapes back against the stone floor, and the sound cuts through the chamber's shocked silence. Every head turns toward me. Every eye drops to the very obvious erection straining against my trousers.
I don't give a fuck.
Renan rises beside me, and I feel his attention sharpen—not trying to stop me, just ready for whatever comes next.
"This should be interesting," he murmurs.
Daiven's eyes flick between my face and my cock, and his thread goes pale with sudden fear. Good. He should be afraid. He should be terrified. He just put his hands on something that belongs to me, and he has no idea how close he is to dying on this sacred fucking ground.
"Discord." Faith's procurist speaks carefully into the silence. "Is there a... concern you wish to raise?"
I don't answer him. I'm looking at her.
She's looking back. Green eyes, sharp and clear, blood still wet on her mouth. She doesn't flinch from my attention. Doesn't look away from the obvious evidence of what watching her defiance did to me.
Her thread stays clean. Honest. She's confused—I can see that much—but she's not performing confusion. She's not performing anything.
"The ruling stands," Daiven says, voice tight. He's trying to regain control, to pretend the Mad God of Discord didn't just get hard watching a mortal take a hit. "The tribute is accepted. House Coin—"
"Careful." The word comes out low. Quiet. The kind of quiet that makes people step back without deciding to. "You touched something."
Daiven's throat works. "She belongs to Coin now. The Concord—"
"I don't give a fuck about the Concord."
More silence.
Renan leans in slightly. "Front door? Or through Coin's section?"
I want to say Coin's section. I want to cross this chamber and put a knife through Daiven's hand—the one he used to touch her—and watch him realize exactly how badly he miscalculated.
But that would start a war. Tonight. Right now. And I don't have her yet.
"Not yet," I say. The words scrape out.
"Okay." He shifts his weight. "Let me know when."
The handlers are pulling her toward the exit now, faster than before. Someone gave them a signal. Get the mortal out before Discord does something everyone will regret.
She doesn't look back at me.
I watch her until the doors close, blood still visible on her chin, spine still straight.
