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My brows scrunch.

“I know you’re scared, but I won’t let him kill you.”

“Whatever secret conversation you are both having, can you stop? I can feel your presence in my bond, Eagan, and it’s not helping.” I gasp, looking at Kylian as he stops at the bedroom door.

“I’m sorry, my king.” Eagan gives a slight bow as he opens the door and forces me over the threshold. When he steps inside behind the king, I hold a hand out for him to stop.

“It’s fine, Eagan. He won’t kill me,” I say, though when I turn to search Kylian’s face, he seems unsure of himself.

“My king?” Eagan asks worriedly.

“The bond will stop me,” he says, but he sounds like he is trying to convince himself. Eagan reluctantly leaves, and relief floods me. It’s embarrassing enough to endure the king’s wrath without witnesses, and I certainly don’t want anyone to watch my reaction to him feeding from me, especially with the memory of the blood bank so fresh in my mind.

My cheeks warm, thinking of how good it felt to have his hands on my body. Remembering the euphoric feeling of his teeth sinking into me brings a wave of arousal. It’s confusing because, up until this point, the prospect of him feeding on me has been terrifying.

He shuts the door, turning slowly, and the way his gaze lands on me makes my stomach twist. It isn’t the same anger I’ve seen from guards or cruel men on the farms. It isn’t loud or explosive. This is the cold fury of someone who has never been disobeyed in his life and cannot decide whether to punish me or simply break me until I never try again. When he finally moves, he stalks like a predator, closing the distance between him and his prey.

“You don’t get to do that,” he snaps. I swallow hard as I force myself not to back away, because I know he would notice, and I know he would use my fear like a weapon.

“Do what,” I question, my voice thin and brittle. The bravado I conjured back at the warehouse has died somewhere between those basement stairs and this door. I am left with nothing but the sick reality that I am alone in a room with the Vampire King who is hungry, furious, and bound to me in a way I still don’t understand.

He stops close enough that I can feel his heat, the unnatural intensity of his presence filling the space until it feels like there is no air left for me. His gaze slides down my face, lingering at my mouth, then at the pulse in my throat and the way my chest rises too quickly.

“You don’t get to challenge kings. Has my bond to you really made you brazen enough to think such actions will go without punishment?” he asks. “You fucked me over. I warned you about the sun weakening me. I fucking warned you, and you still disobeyed me. You ran into enemy territory and forced me to retrieve you. You put my entire crew in danger!” he sneers.

My jaw tightens, my pride flaring uselessly. I want to argue. I want to scream that Sable is all I have left in this world, but I can’t, because he isn’t wrong. The worst part is that he knows it. What I did was stupid and reckless. Now I’ve made Kylian look weak and exposed myself to another king.

“And just so we are perfectly clear,” he continues, voice dropping even lower. “The fact that you are willing to offer your blood does not mean you’ve earned my forgiveness. You and I both know my bite isn’t a punishment, at least not for you.”

My cheeks heat, anger and shame warring. He’s right, just like he knows my body is already responding to him, and I hate myself for it. I hate him for it, and I hate how my skin tingles under his gaze as if my fear and my need are tangled together so tightly they can’t be separated.

“I didn’t ask for forgiveness, and I’m not just a servant. If I were, you’d have killed me by now.” I have to force the words past the knot in my throat, hoping the bond he speaks of is enough to keep me alive for being so blunt. “We had a deal for my compliance, and you broke it when you gave away my sister!”

Something flashes in his eyes, and I barely have time to inhale before his hand closes around my throat, not enough to truly hurt, but enough to make the message unmistakable. He shoves me back until my spine hits the wall, rattling my teeth as the impact steals the air from my lungs.

“You do not speak to me like that.” His lips are barely a breath away from mine, his fangs visible behind them, and I can smell him so strongly it makes my thoughts blur and my heart race.

My hands fly up to his wrist instinctively, nails digging into the hard tendons beneath his skin, and he watches me do it with a look that makes my stomach drop. He isn’t even angry at the contact, he looks almost pleased that I am touching him at all.

“You’ve grown bold,” he says softly. “So tell me, little bond, what was your plan, because I would love to hear it from your mouth before I am forced to carve it out of you.”

I glare up at him, refusing to let my fear show more than it already has.

He leans in, nose brushing the side of my throat, inhaling slowly like he is savoring me. The sensation makes my knees threaten to buckle, because my body is a traitor, and my skin wakes under his attention.

Even now, with his hand gripping my jaw and his rage pressing into me, I feel the same awful pull, that hateful curiosity, the same warmth curling low in my belly.

“Answer me,” he says, lips brushing my skin just below my ear.

“Let me guess . . . You were going to find your sister,” he murmurs, thumb dragging slowly along the column of my throat. Both a caress and a threat. “Then you were going to run.”

My breath catches. The truth is so obvious, but I hadn’t thought it through. I acted irrationally. I had clung to the desperate idea that if I could just get Sable back, we could disappear.

His gaze hardens. “Tell me I’m wrong. You thought you could escape me,” he says, his voice so calm it chills me.

My throat tightens, not just from his grip as it slides back to my neck, but from the weight of what he is saying. The way he looks at me now isn’t just anger, it’s possessive. Certainty. It’s the absolute terrifying conviction that my life belongs to him whether I accept it or not.

“Say it,” he orders, and the shift in his tone makes my entire body go rigid, because his restraint is splintering. His pointed nails dig into my soft flesh.