The cut on Nico's palm was still wet. Cleo could feel it against her fingers, the warmth of his blood seeping between them, and the sensation was so intimate it made her want to pull away. She didn't. The oath had already bound them, and some part of her understood that pulling away now would be a kind of lie.
His amber eyes held hers, and she saw the faint glow there—the wolf beneath the skin, watching her with a wariness that mirrored her own. The torch flames hissed behind him, casting his scarred brow in sharp relief, and she noticed the way his jaw worked, the muscle ticking as he swallowed.
"You're bleeding," she said. Her voice came out steadier than she felt.
He looked down at their joined hands, at the red line still welling from his palm, and something flickered across his face. "So are you."
She followed his gaze. The cut on her own palm had mostly closed—witch's blood knitted faster than a wolf's, a fact she'd learned in a textbook and never expected to test—but the skin was still angry, still raw. A thin ribbon of red traced the lifeline she'd been born with, and she wondered if the scar would stay.
"It doesn't hurt," she said, and was surprised to find it was true.
"The oath." He said it like a curse. "It takes the pain. Makes you forget what it cost."
Something in his tone made her chest tighten. "You think I'll forget?"
"I think you'll wish you could." He released her hand, and the absence of his warmth was sudden, almost cold. He flexed his fingers, watching the blood well fresh, and she saw the wound was deeper than she'd realized—a clean cut, deliberate, made with purpose.
"You didn't have to cut so deep," she said.
"I didn't want it to close too fast." He looked at her then, and his eyes were unreadable. "I wanted to feel it."
The words landed somewhere between them, heavy with meaning she couldn't parse. She thought about asking—about demanding to know what he meant—but the oath pulled at her chest first, a pressure like silk and iron wrapping around her ribs, and the question died in her throat.
The magic was still there. She could feel it, coiled around her wrists like invisible chains, warm and insistent, a heartbeat that wasn't hers. It pulsed in time with her own pulse, a rhythm she hadn't chosen, and she realized with a start that she could feel him too—the faint echo of his breathing, the tension in his shoulders, the way his gaze kept drifting to the Great Hall's iron-bound doors.
A low growl echoed from within, and Nico's eyes narrowed.
"They're still arguing," he said.
"They've been arguing for hours." She pressed her palm against her thigh, the cut stinging now that the oath's numbing had begun to fade. "My father will want blood."
"He can have mine."
She looked at him sharply. "That's not—"
"It's what he wants, isn't it?" Nico's lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile. "A werewolf's blood to seal the bargain. To prove we can be trusted." He laughed, low and bitter. "Trust. Your people don't trust us, Cleo. They just want leverage."
"My people." She heard the echo of her own voice, the distance in it, and wondered when she'd started to sound like that. "You make it sound like I belong to them."
"Don't you?"
The question hung between them, sharp as the cut on his palm. She should have said yes. She should have reminded him that she was an Ashworth, that her family had hunted his kind for generations, that the oath they'd just sworn was a betrayal of everything she'd been raised to believe. But the words wouldn't come.
Instead, she said, "I don't know what I am anymore."
Something shifted in his expression. Not quite hostility, not quite softness—something in between that she couldn't name. He looked at her for a long moment, and she felt the weight of his gaze like a physical thing, pressing against her skin.
"That makes two of us," he said.
The torches spat and hissed, sending shadows dancing across the stone walls. Cleo became aware of how close they were standing—close enough that she could smell the smoke and sweat on his clothes, the faint copper of his blood. She should have stepped back. She didn't.
"What happened in there?" she asked. "Before I arrived. I heard shouting."
Nico's jaw tightened. "Your professor wanted to make sure I understood the terms."
"Vane."
"He's protective of you." It wasn't a question. "He made it clear what would happen if I hurt you."
Cleo felt her face heat. "I don't need protecting."
"I know." He said it simply, without argument, and she wasn't sure why that made her feel stranger. "I told him the same thing."
She looked at him, surprised. "You defended me?"
"I told him the truth." Nico's eyes met hers, and there was something raw in them now, something she hadn't seen before. "You're not the kind of person who needs protection. You're the kind who needs someone to stand beside her."
The words hit her like a blow. She opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came—no clever retort, no sharp deflection, nothing but the strange, hollow silence that had settled in her chest.
Nico looked away first, his gaze dropping to their hands, to the blood still drying on his palm. "It's a strange thing," he said, "to swear an oath to someone you've been raised to hate."
"Is that what you feel?" she asked. "Hate?"
He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was low, almost reluctant. "I don't know what I feel." He looked at her again, and his eyes were dark, unreadable. "That's the worst part."
The oath pulled at her chest again, a sharp, insistent tug, and she felt the echo of his heartbeat in her own veins. It was disorienting, this closeness—like being inside his skin, feeling his uncertainty as if it were her own.
"I can feel you," she said, and the admission felt like a confession. "When you're—when you're upset. I can feel it."
His eyes widened, just slightly. "You can?"
"It's like a pressure. Behind my ribs." She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the pulse there. "I didn't know it would be like this."
"Neither did I." He was watching her with a new intensity now, his head tilted slightly, like a wolf catching a scent. "What else do you feel?"
She should have lied. She should have said nothing, given him nothing, kept the walls she'd spent years building. But the oath had already broken them down, and she was too tired to rebuild.
"I feel like I'm standing on the edge of something," she said. "Like I've made a choice I can't take back."
"You have."
"And I don't know if it was the right one."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Neither do I."
The honesty of it startled her. She'd expected him to be certain, to have some wolfish conviction that this was the right path, the only path. Instead, he was as lost as she was, standing in the flickering torchlight with blood on his hands and doubt in his eyes.
"But I don't think it matters," he continued, "whether it was right. We're bound now. We have to make it work."
"Or die trying."
His lips twitched. "That's the spirit."
She laughed—a short, surprised sound that echoed off the stone walls. It felt foreign, that laugh, like a thing she hadn't used in years. "I can't believe I'm laughing. I just swore a blood oath to a werewolf."
"To the enemy," he agreed.
"To the enemy," she echoed, and the words tasted strange in her mouth.
Nico looked at her, and there was something almost warm in his expression now. "You know, you're not what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"Someone colder. More certain." He shrugged. "A hunter, through and through."
"I was raised to be."
"But you're not."
She didn't answer. She couldn't. Because he was right, and admitting it felt like giving up something she'd held for years—the certainty, the purpose, the clean lines of a life she'd never questioned.
"Neither are you," she said finally. "A killer, I mean. You're not what I expected either."
His eyes flickered. "What did you expect?"
"Someone—" She struggled for the word. "Someone simpler. A monster."
"And I'm not?"
"No." She looked at him, really looked, at the scarred brow and the callused hands and the careful way he held himself, like he was always bracing for a blow. "You're just a person. Trying to survive."
Something crossed his face—something raw and unguarded, there and gone in an instant. He looked away, and she saw his throat work as he swallowed.
"That's the kindest thing anyone's said to me in years," he said, and his voice was rough.
She didn't know what to say to that. So she said nothing, just stood there in the flickering torchlight, feeling the oath pulse between them like a living thing.
The growl from the Great Hall rose again, louder this time, and Nico tensed. "They're getting louder."
"The negotiations are breaking down." She could hear it too—voices raised, furniture scraping against stone. "My father won't accept terms he doesn't control."
"And your professor?"
"Vane will try to mediate. He always does." She pressed her fingers to her temple, feeling the beginning of a headache. "But he's not—he doesn't understand what's at stake."
"What is at stake?"
She looked at him, at the uncertainty in his amber eyes, and felt the weight of the question like a stone in her chest. "Everything."
He held her gaze for a long moment, and she saw something in his expression shift—a recognition, perhaps, of the same fear she carried. Then he said, "We'll figure it out."
"How do you know?"
"Because we don't have a choice."
It wasn't comfort, exactly. But it was honest, and somehow that was enough.
She looked down at her palm, at the cut that was already beginning to scar. The oath's magic hummed beneath her skin, a constant reminder of what she'd done. She'd bound herself to a werewolf, to the enemy of her people, and she couldn't take it back.
"What happens now?" she asked.
Nico was quiet for a moment. "Now we survive."
"And then?"
"And then we figure out what this means." He gestured between them, at the invisible chains that bound them. "What we are to each other."
Cleo opened her mouth to answer, but the words wouldn't come. What were they to each other? Enemies bound by blood. Strangers who had just sworn their lives to one another. She had no name for it, no category that fit, and the silence stretched between them like a taut thread.
A crash echoed from the Great Hall—something heavy hitting stone—and Nico's hand shot out, grabbing her wrist. His grip was firm, urgent, and she felt the oath flare at the contact, a pulse of heat that raced up her arm and settled behind her ribs.
"We need to move," he said, his voice low and quick. "Now."
She didn't argue. The sound of splintering wood followed the crash, and she could hear her father's voice rising above the din, sharp with fury. She let Nico pull her down the corridor, her boots scraping against the rough cobbles as they rounded a corner.
The torchlight grew dimmer here, the flames fewer and further between. Shadows pooled in the alcoves, and Nico pressed her against the cold stone wall, his body blocking her from view. His breath was warm against her ear, his voice barely a whisper.
"They can't see us together."
The oath pulled at her chest, a sharp, insistent tug that made her gasp. She could feel his heart beating through the thin fabric of his shirt, a rapid rhythm that matched her own. His hand was still on her wrist, his thumb pressing against the pulse point, and she wondered if he could feel how fast it raced.
"Your father," he continued, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. "He can't know about the oath. Not yet."
"He'll find out." Her voice was barely audible. "He always finds out."
"Then we make sure he doesn't." Nico pulled back just enough to meet her eyes. The amber glow was brighter now, the wolf close to the surface, and she saw the calculation in his gaze—the hunter assessing exits, threats, the weight of every choice. "Can you do that? Lie to him?"
She thought of her father's face, the way his eyes narrowed when he suspected deception, the way his voice dropped to something cold and quiet when he was disappointed. She had lied to him before—small lies, harmless ones—but this was different. This was a betrayal that could get her killed.
"I can try," she said.
Nico's jaw tightened. "That's not good enough."
"It's all I have." She met his gaze, refusing to look away. "I'm not like you. I wasn't raised to deceive. I was raised to be honest, to be loyal, to—" She stopped, the words catching in her throat.
"To what?"
"To be good." She laughed, the sound hollow and bitter. "I was raised to be good, and I just swore a blood oath to a werewolf behind my father's back. There's nothing good about that."
Nico was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Good is overrated."
"Easy for you to say. You've never had to be it."
"No." His voice was rough, almost raw. "I've never had the chance."
The words landed somewhere deep in her chest, and she felt the oath pulse in response—a warmth that spread through her veins, unwelcome and undeniable. She could feel his loneliness, she realized. It was like a bruise he carried beneath his skin, tender and unacknowledged, and the bond let her press against it without meaning to.
"Nico," she started, but she didn't know what she wanted to say.
His eyes flickered to the corridor behind her, and his body went taut. "Someone's coming."
She heard it then—the measured fall of footsteps, steady and deliberate, the kind of footsteps that belonged to someone who expected the world to move out of their way. Professor Vane. She would have known that gait anywhere.
Nico released her wrist and stepped back, putting distance between them. His face smoothed into something neutral, careful, the mask of a wolf who had learned to walk among enemies. But his eyes were still bright, still watchful, and she saw the warning in them before he turned away.
She pressed her back against the cold stone, trying to slow her breathing, trying to look like she had every right to be standing alone in a shadowed corridor. The oath hummed beneath her skin, a constant reminder of what she'd done, and she curled her fingers into her palm, feeling the cut pull.
Vane rounded the corner, his immaculate robes catching the torchlight. His blue eyes swept the corridor, missing nothing—the flush on her cheeks, the way she was pressed against the wall, the faint trace of blood still drying on her hand. He stopped a few feet away, his expression unreadable.
"Cleo." His voice was calm, measured, the voice of a man who had seen too much to be surprised by anything. "I was looking for you."
"I needed air." She kept her voice steady, her posture relaxed. "The negotiations—"
"Are over." Vane's eyes flickered to the shadows behind her, where Nico had disappeared. "Your father has withdrawn his terms."
She felt the words like a blow to the stomach. "What?"
"He's leaving. Taking his delegation with him." Vane's gaze sharpened. "He asked me to find you. He wants you to come with him."
The oath pulled at her chest, sharp and insistent, and she felt a surge of something that wasn't quite her own—fear, maybe, or anger, or both. She pressed a hand to her sternum, trying to steady herself.
"I can't," she said. "I have classes. My studies—"
"He's not asking, Cleo." Vane's voice was gentle, but there was steel beneath it. "He's telling."
She looked past him, down the corridor where Nico had vanished, and felt the weight of the oath like a chain around her throat. She had bound herself to a werewolf, to the enemy of her people, and now her father wanted to take her home.
"I understand," she said, and the words tasted like ash.
Vane studied her for a long moment, his blue eyes searching her face. She felt the weight of his gaze, the suspicion lurking beneath his calm exterior, and she knew he was testing her, waiting for her to slip.
"You've changed," he said finally. "Since the oath."
Her heart stuttered. "What do you mean?"
"You're different. Quieter." He tilted his head, considering her. "The Cleo I know would have argued with me by now."
She forced a smile. "Maybe I'm just tired."
"Maybe." He didn't sound convinced. But he turned, gesturing for her to follow. "Come. Your father is waiting."
She took a step after him, then stopped. The oath pulled at her chest again, stronger this time, and she felt a flash of something—not her own emotion, but Nico's. Panic. Urgency. A warning.
She turned, just in time to see a shadow detach itself from the wall behind Vane. Nico moved with the silent grace of a predator, his hand reaching for something at his belt, and she saw the glint of steel before she understood what was happening.
"Nico, no—"
But the word was too late. Nico's hand closed around Vane's shoulder, spinning him around, and the blade in his other hand pressed against the professor's throat.
"Don't move," Nico said, his voice low and dangerous. "Don't make a sound."
Vane's eyes widened, then narrowed. "Blackwood. I should have known."
"You should have known a lot of things." Nico's grip tightened. "Like the fact that your precious student is bound to me now. That she swore an oath to a wolf."
Cleo's blood ran cold. "Nico, stop—"
"He was going to take you away." Nico's gaze flickered to her, and she saw something raw in his eyes—desperation, maybe, or fear. "I couldn't let him."
"You don't get to decide that." She stepped forward, her hands raised. "You don't get to choose for me."
"I'm not choosing." His voice cracked. "I'm protecting you."
"By threatening my professor?" She shook her head. "That's not protection. That's—"
"It's what I know." He lowered the blade, just slightly. "It's all I know."
Vane took advantage of the moment, twisting free of Nico's grip and stepping back. His hand went to his wand, but he didn't draw it. Instead, he looked at Cleo, his blue eyes cold and assessing.
"You swore an oath," he said. It wasn't a question.
She met his gaze, her heart pounding. "Yes."
"To him."
"Yes."
Vane was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "You've made a dangerous enemy of your father."
"I know."
"And you've bound yourself to a creature who will never be accepted by your people."
"I know."
"And yet you stand here, defending him." Vane's voice was soft, almost sad. "Why?"
She looked at Nico—at the blood still drying on his palm, at the desperation in his amber eyes, at the way he held himself like he was bracing for a blow. She thought about the oath, the invisible chains that bound them, the heartbeat she could feel in her own chest.
"Because he's mine," she said. "And I'm his. That's what the oath means."
Vane's expression flickered—surprise, maybe, or something like respect. He looked at Nico, then back at her, and slowly, deliberately, he lowered his hand.
"Then you'd better hope," he said, "that you're both strong enough to survive it."
He turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing down the corridor until they faded into silence.
Cleo stood there, her heart pounding, the oath pulsing beneath her skin. Nico was still watching her, his breathing uneven, his hand still gripping the blade.
"You shouldn't have done that," she said.
"I know."
"He could have killed you."
"He could have taken you." Nico sheathed the blade, his jaw tight. "I couldn't let that happen."
She looked at him, at the fear he was trying to hide, and felt something shift in her chest. The oath pulled at her, warm and insistent, and she took a step toward him.
"We need to be careful," she said. "Vane knows now. He won't keep it secret."
"I know." Nico's eyes met hers. "But we'll figure it out."
"How?"
"Together." He reached out, his hand finding hers, and she felt the cut on his palm press against her own. The blood mingled, warm and alive, and the oath flared bright between them. "That's what we are now. Together."
She looked down at their joined hands, at the red line that bound them, and felt the weight of his words settle over her. She had sworn an oath to a werewolf, to the enemy of her people, and she couldn't take it back.
But standing there, with his hand in hers and his heartbeat echoing in her chest, she wasn't sure she wanted to.
"Together," she repeated, and the word tasted like a promise.