Another band snapped around my other wrist. Then, to my horror, cool metal closed around my throat—not tight enough to choke, but snug enough that I couldn’t forget it was there. Sigils brushed the sensitive skin at the base of my skull. The dragon snarled, pressing hard against my spine.
“Easy,” Hartshorne murmured, almost like he was talking to it instead of me.
My father stepped closer to the foot of the bed, coming into my line of sight whether I wanted him there or not. “The sooner this is done,” he said mildly, “the sooner we can address your other…distractions.”
The word snagged on something sharp inside me. “What distractions?”
He smiled, small and civilized. “The con man, for one. The potential league investigation.” He adjusted his cufflinks. “I’ve contained most of the immediate fallout, but nothing stays buried forever. Not if the wrong people keep digging.”
I blinked slowly. “Ignatius,” I breathed. “He wouldn’t just allow an investigation.”
“No,” my father agreed. “He’s being very loud about it, as a matter of fact. Calling in favors. Very tedious.”
A flicker of warmth that wasn’t fear rose in my chest. Ignatius wouldn’t give up. He’d burn everything down first.
Hartshorne drew another line of ink from my collarbone toward my heart. Cold raced behind it, making my muscles twitch. "No, stop." This was a bad idea.
“Hold still,” he said, expression sharpening. “If that sigil breaks, we’ll have to start again, and you won’t enjoy that.”
I clenched my teeth, my mind clearing. "This is wrong. I don't consent to this."I was ignored.
“He’ll find me,” I said, partly to my father, partly to myself.
“Perhaps he will,” Father said. “But it will be too late to change anything by then. Once the binding is complete, approval is academic. You’ll be stable. Controlled. No longer a danger to your teammates…or young rookies on the opposing team.”
My hand spasmed. The report flashed behind my eyes—the bolded “heat anomaly,” the words “high-force collision.”
My fault.
“I didn’t mean to…” My voice shook.
“You never do,” he replied. “That’s what makes you dangerous.”
The dragon flinched at that. Not at the word dangerous—dangerous it could accept—but at the implication:you hurt people and you can’t be trusted.But something was wrong. Very wrong.
Hartshorne’s brush reached the center of my chest. The sigils there burned cold, then hot, like someone pressing ice and fire into my sternum at the same time.
I gasped.
“Breathe,” the doctor ordered. “In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Let the construct settle.”
My father watched, something like satisfaction glinting in his eyes. “See?” he said softly. “Already better. Once this is done, you won’t have to worry about losing control. You can go back to what you’re good at—skating, shooting, winning. Leave the rest to me.”
Leave Phoenix to him. The thought slid in, thin and sharp as a blade. “What are you going to do to him?” I managed.
“To whom?” He knew. He wanted me to say it.
“Phoenix.”
My father’s smile thinned. “That depends on you,” he said. “If you cooperate, if the Council accepts my report and we demonstrate that you’re stable, then a discreet settlement, perhaps. An NDA. A relocation package.”
“Relocation?” The sedative pulled at my thoughts, but that cut through. “You can’t just—he’s not a piece on a board you can move—”
“He is precisely that,” my father said coolly. “A liability. A man with access to information that could ruin you. Ruin us.” He steepled his hands again. “Fortunately, men like him are simple. They want money. Safety. A fresh start. It’s easy enough to buy their silence and put them on a plane.”
An image slammed into me: Phoenix, shoulders hunched, disappearing into a crowd, his scent vanishing from my apartment, my life. Everything we’d started between us cheapened into a line item in my father’s budget.
“No,” I said. It came out hoarse and small. “He wouldn’t go.”
