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“I’m doing the Trials,” I say. “I’ll be Sovereign. What more do I have to do?”

“Think beyond duty.”

He comes to stand beside me and rests a hand on my shoulder. His grip is warm, still strong in his old age. Almost unbearable in a house that loves collecting death.

“Think about how you want to be remembered.”

The question feels foreign to me. I had expected to be gone before legacy became my concern. I own a hotel and a club because my father did, and his father before him. I belong to a secret society of rich assholes who turn ritual into sanctioned brutality because I was born in its shadow.

Who the fuck am I beneath all of it?

Nothing particularly noble. That much I know.

“You know I never wanted any of this,” I say. “I wanted to leave Shadow Bluff.”

He turns towards the hall with a sigh, then stops.

“I don’t care anymore, Edwin. I’ve lost too much to care what becomes of the throne. If the Order dies with Harold, let it die. If you don’t want it, walk away.”

He pauses, glancing back at me. “Shame about your girl, though. She’s quite lovely.”

Then he disappears down the hallway.

And there it is. The hook.

Walk away. How beautifully simple he makes it sound. Forfeit the title of Sovereign to Patrick and let him choke on it. Finally, permission to abandon the life I spent years trying to escape, only after leaving became impossible.

Because now there’s Zaiya. Her name is written into this mess beside mine. She knelt before the Order and offered herself to me because I let her believe I would carry her safely through it. There is no version of walking away where she simply walks away with me.

My eyes return to the knife block. Eleven days since I needed pain badly enough to manufacture it myself. Practically inspirational.

I pull the knife free again. It’s an addiction. The quickest way I know to punish myself for every expectation I fail to meet. I want to press it to my arm, to open that familiar red mouth in my skin and let it speak for me.

Before the blade can touch me, Zaiya forces her way into my thoughts. Those wide stormy eyes in the firelight. The way she keeps giving me her trust no matter what I do with it.

I brace the knife on the counter and jam my thumb against the point until blood rises. The pain is immediate and centered. Something I can see.

A cupboard door trembles on its hinges. I don’t bother looking.

This house makes me insane, and still I’m bound to it. Part of the curse of the Crotavere family is never leaving the goddamn home.

The drawer beside me rattles, silverware clicking together like nervous teeth.

The manor can watch all it wants. Let it judge me. I don’t care.

I let blood drip onto the counter and stare at it until nothing else exists. I can suffer through anything. Truly, I have a talent for it. What I can’t tolerate is watching it reach her.

Her softness is not the problem.

Exposure is.

I’ve been treating her like a private fixation, when she’s rapidly becoming a public vulnerability. The Trials have already made people curious. And curiosity in this town becomes appetite with revolting speed.

The knife clatters into the sink when I drop it. I grab my phone. Blood smears across the screen as I pull up Zaiya’s location.

I need to toughen her up.

I need to break her in.