Frozen vows

SIENNA'S POV The letter arrived on a Tuesday, though letter was too elegant a word for it. It was a notice. A final warning printed on cheap paper, informing me that if I didn't settle the remaining balance of Andrew's debts within thirty days, his former associates would settle it for me. The last time they'd tried that, I'd ended up in an alley with a knife at my throat. That was the night Kael Blackwood saved my life. I still didn't know if I should thank him or curse him for it. My apartment was the same as it had been for three years,cramped, crumbling, and haunted. The water-stained ceiling. The rusted pipes that groaned whenever someone in the building flushed a toilet. The mattress on the floor that served as both bed and couch because Andrew had sold our real furniture for gambling money six months before he died. I'd learned to live without comfort. Comfort was a luxury for people who hadn't buried three babies in a garden. I folded the notice and shoved it into the drawer with the others. There were seven of them now. Seven warnings. Seven counts of interest accruing on debts I hadn't created. Andrew had been dead for three years, and somehow he was still bleeding me dry. A knock at the door made me freeze. No one visited me. Mira was out of town with her fiancé. The landlord never bothered me as long as rent wasn't late. And the men who'd cornered me in that alley wouldn't have knocked. I rose slowly, my bare feet silent on the worn floorboards. Through the peephole, I saw him. Kael Blackwood. He stood in the dim hallway like he owned it, like he owned the whole building and everyone in it. His long white hair was pulled back today, tied at the nape of his neck, which only made the sharp angles of his face more severe. His suit was charcoal gray, perfectly tailored, undoubtedly worth more than six months of my rent. His eyes were the color of winter storms. I hadn't seen him in three weeks. Not since the night of the gala. Not since he'd made me an offer that had been rotting in my mind ever since. I opened the door. "Good evening, Sienna," he said. His voice was low, controlled. Everything about him was controlled. "Mr. Blackwood." I didn't step aside to let him in. "I didn't expect to see you again." "I said I'd return." "You said a lot of things." His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "May I come in?" I considered saying no. I considered slamming the door in his face and barricading myself inside with my debts and my ghosts. But curiosity or stupidity won out. I stepped aside. He moved past me, and the scent of him filled my small apartment. Expensive cologne. Winter air. Something darker underneath that I couldn't name. He glanced around the space, his expression unreadable, and I felt a hot flush of shame creep up my neck. The peeling paint. The single chair with the broken leg. The mattress on the floor. "Charming," he said flatly. "It's a shithole. You don't have to pretend." He turned to face me. "I don't pretend. It's one of my few virtues." "Is that what you came here to tell me? That you're virtuous?" "No." He reached into his jacket and withdrew a document, thick, bound in leather, with the Blackwood Industries emblem embossed on the front. "I came to apologize." I blinked. "For what?" "The way I presented my offer at the gala. It was... crude. Disrespectful." He said the words like they cost him something. "I shouldn't have reduced it to a transaction." "But it is a transaction." "It is." He met my eyes. "But you deserve to be spoken to with more dignity than I showed you." I didn't know what to do with that. Andrew had never apologized for anything in six years of marriage. Not the beatings, not the isolation, not the babies he'd killed. I'd learned that apologies were fairy tales,pretty stories people told to make themselves feel better. "I've revised the terms," Kael continued, setting the document on my tiny kitchen counter. "Marry me. Give me an heir. In exchange, I'll eliminate your debts and provide full protection from anyone who wishes you harm. You'll want for nothing. You'll be safe. You'll be respected." "Respected." I let out a hollow laugh. "You want me to be your breeding cow, and you call that respect?" Something flickered in his gray eyes, not anger, but something closer to pain. "I want you to be my wife." "In name only." "In name only," he agreed. "But I won't hurt you, Sienna. I won't touch you in anger. I won't isolate you or control you or make you feel like you're nothing. I'm not him." I'm not Andrew. He'd said that to me three weeks ago, in the car after saving my life. I'd dismissed it then. I wanted to dismiss it now. But there was something in his voice,a roughness, a barely concealed wound that made me pause. "Why do you even need an heir?" I asked. "You're young. You're wealthy. You could find someone who actually wants to marry you." "The pact requires it." "The pact." I shook my head. "You keep mentioning this pact, but I don't know what it is. I don't know anything about my family. I grew up in foster care." "I know." He stepped closer, and I fought the urge to step back. "The MacQuoid bloodline was hidden for a reason. Your parents,your real parents weren't the people who raised you. They were descendants of an ancient dynasty. A dynasty that's been bound to mine for centuries. You and I were promised to each other before either of us was born." The words didn't make sense. They couldn't make sense. I was nobody. A foster kid. A victim. A woman so broken she'd forgotten how to hope. "I don't believe you," I whispered. "You don't have to believe me. You just have to sign the contract." He gestured toward the document on the counter. "Read it. Have a lawyer review it. Take your time. But Sienna," He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer. "The men who attacked you in that alley aren't going to stop. They know where you live. They know you can't pay. If you stay here, they'll come back. Next time, I might not be there to stop them." I stared at the contract. The leather binding. The gold lettering. It looked like something out of another world, a world of penthouses and private jets and power I couldn't imagine. "You're asking me to trade my freedom for safety," I said. "I'm asking you to survive." The word hit me harder than it should have. Survive. That was all I'd been doing for three years. Surviving. Barely. Scraping by on waitressing shifts and Mira's generosity. Jumping at every shadow. Waiting for the next blow to fall. I was so tired of surviving. "What happens if I say no?" I asked. Kael's expression didn't change. "Then I walk away. The contract is void. You'll never see me again." "And you'll find someone else to bear your heir?" "No." He held my gaze. "There is no one else. The pact binds me to the last MacQuoid heir. That's you. If you refuse me, the Blackwood line dies with me." I didn't know why that made my chest ache. I didn't know this man. I owed him nothing. But the weight in his voice, the resignation, told me he wasn't lying. He was as trapped by this ancient pact as I was. I walked to the counter and picked up the contract. It was heavier than it looked. "I'll read it," I said. "That's all I'm promising." "That's all I'm asking." He moved toward the door, and I expected him to leave without another word. But he paused with his hand on the knob. "Sienna?" "What?" "I meant what I said. I'm not him. I know you have no reason to believe me. But I'll spend the rest of my life proving it, if you let me." Then he was gone, and I was alone with the contract and the silence and the weight of a decision I wasn't ready to make. I sat on my mattress and opened the leather cover. The first page was a financial agreement, numbers so large they didn't feel real. The second page outlined the terms of the marriage. The third page detailed the expectations for the heir. The child will be raised with full access to the Blackwood legacy. The mother will retain full parental rights. In the event of separation, custody will be shared equally. I read that line three times. Andrew had never let me have anything. No money. No friends. No autonomy. He'd treated me like property, and I'd let him because I didn't know there was another way. But this contract, cold as it was, transactional as it was,gave me more than Andrew ever had. It gave me rights. It gave me protection. It gave me a choice. I looked around my apartment. The water stains. The broken chair. The drawer full of warnings from men who wanted me dead. Then I found a pen, pressed the contract against the wall, and signed my name on the dotted line. Greater congratulations, Sienna, I thought. You just made a deal with the devil. But as I stared at my signature, something stirred in my chest. Something I hadn't felt in years. Hope.