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“You want her?” I growl, voice low and venomous. “Then you’ll have to go through me.”

The enforcers go still, their glowing eyes glinting in the half-light. Dust floats through broken beams of moonlight like ash from a fire not yet started.

This is the match.

The woman—Aria’s mother—tilts her head. “You’re bold for a mortal,” she says, voice cool and lilting. “Bold and very, very foolish.”

Behind me, the door hangs crooked, cracked from where I forced it open with my boot. I’m bleeding—shoulder, thigh, somewhere on my ribs. Doesn’t matter. I’ve fought through worse. And this time, I have something to fight for.

Aria gasps, twisting against the enforcers’ hold. “Roan…” her voice breaks on my name.

That’s all I need.

I shift forward, jaw clenched, sword raised, breath ragged in my chest. I don’t care if they outnumber me five to one. Ten to one.

I’ll bury them all.

“Kill her,” the woman says, voice like breaking glass.

The enforcersmove.A blur of speed—unnatural, fast, lethal.

I catch the first blade mid-swing and shove it aside, pivoting into the attacker with a slash across his chest. Blood sprays warm and thick, and he collapses. But the next one is already on me, something sharp raking across my shoulder. Pain tears through me, white-hot and blinding.

Ibarelydodge the third, feeling the edge of steel graze my ribs. The fourth slams into me like a battering ram, and we go down in a tangle of limbs and snarls.

I twist beneath him, using my momentum to flip him over, pinning him with my weight. He thrashes, wild and fast, and when I drive my elbow into his throat, he chokes—but not before his lips peel back in a feral snarl.

His fangs flash—too long, too sharp—and he lunges, trying to bite.

I don’t hesitate.

I catch the glint of my blade and drag it across his throat in one clean, practiced motion. His body jerks once, then stills beneath me. Then I’m up again as the next two swing at me.

Every breath feels like a firebrand in my lungs. My sword arm screams in protest, but I don’t stop swinging. Can’t.

I catch a glimpse—Aria, straining, thrashing—her captor's knee slamming into her ribs to keep her down. Her voice rises above the din, sharp and shaking: “Stop—please!”

I look up—blood in my eyes—and she kicks one of them. He stumbles. She twists—

“Roan, I—I love you!” she shouts.

The world narrows.

The words slam into me harder than any blade, flooding my chest with a desperate, aching warmth.She loves me.

And that’s it.

The next enforcer gets a pommel to the jaw and collapses like a sack of meat. I spin, blood flying from my blade, and take down another before he can lunge.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see her mother move, her dark silhouette crossing the debris-littered floor. She picks up a fallen sword and test-swings it with chilling poise, like she’s done this a thousand times. Maybe she has.

“Hold her,” she snaps at the others.

They obey. A second enforcer grabs Aria, keeping her down, and she screams my name. It guts me.

Lysara lifts her sword and levels it at me with a smug little smile. “You think you’re worthy of my daughter’s defiance? Of herlove?”

My breath burns in my throat, but I raise my sword, refusing to kneel. “I think,” I rasp, blood dripping down my arm, “that I won’t let you take her.”