The last bloodline

CONTRACT OFFER

The men were gone. But nothing was normal anymore.

My grandmother lay on the ground, blood drying at her temple. Her breathing sounded wrong, like every breath cost her something she didn't have left to give.

I got my arms under her and pulled her up. She was so light I laid her on the bed, the only piece of furniture still standing in the wreckage of our home.

I cleaned the cut on her head. My hands wouldn't stop shaking.

"Grandma. Are you okay?" A stupid question. She was sixty-three years old, fighting stage three lung disease, and now this. Bruises everywhere. Of course, she wasn't okay.

Her hand trembled. She pointed at the old chair by the window.

"Where did you get that?"

I followed her gaze. The letter sat there, black wax seal catching the candlelight. A wolf's head, ringed in thorns.

It was the letter from the man earlier; I haven't had a chance to open it yet.

"It came with the letter," I replied.

"No." The word came out of her like a breath she'd been holding for years.

She reached for it. Then stopped, her fingers curling back, as if the wax might burn her.

"Grandma?"

She shut her eyes.

"You mustn't accept whatever that letter is offering."

"Why?" I asked. She looked away. She didn't answer.

Her breathing got louder. Rougher. Then her hand flew to her chest, and she groaned, folding forward like something inside her had snapped.

I found her medicine in the wreckage and forced it past her lips. Her eyelids dropped. She went still and collapsed.

She never told me why. I'd promised myself I wouldn't open that letter, but I couldn't stop thinking about her face when she saw the seal. That kind of fear doesn't come from nothing.

So I opened it. I read every line. Every clause.

*Come alone. Irongate Inn. 8:00 AM.*

I turned the letter over. A name, written in bold, deliberate strokes.

*Darius Nightfang.*

The name meant nothing to me. But something about seeing it made the back of my neck prickle.

I kept reading, and the words on the page rearranged themselves into something I wasn't ready for.

My eyes slowly drifted to the lower left corner: what…? A marriage contract.

My fingers curled into a fist, crumpling the edge of the paper before I caught myself.

He slept with me last night, only to leave me a contract marriage, like I'm something to be signed for.

I told myself I'd go. To say no to his face. At least then it would be my choice.

But even as I thought it, I knew better. Grandma's medicine bottles were almost empty. The house was rubble. The debt collectors would be back. I needed the money.

I looked down at the wax seal one more time. Something about it itched at the back of my mind, like a word on the tip of my tongue. Then I remembered where I'd seen it before. Grandma's shoulder. That faded mark she always kept covered, even in summer.

The next morning, I stood in the bathroom with water still running down my back.

My legs gave out first. I slid down the wall until I hit the floor, knees pulled to my chest. Something was wrong.

I could hear the pipes ticking behind the wall, three rooms away. I could hear Grandma's breath, slow and even, through two closed doors. I shouldn't have been able to hear that.

My skin felt too tight. Too warm. Like my whole body had turned up the volume on itself. And under all of it, a smell. Faint. Familiar. I couldn't place it until I realized it was him. Still on my skin, in my hair, after a full night's sleep. It shouldn't still be there. I pressed my palms against my eyes and tried to breathe normally.

*If I hadn't stepped in. If I hadn't thought he was in danger. None of this would be happening. I touched my collarbone; a mark was slowly taking shape.

A wolf's head. Surrounded by a ring of thorns.

The same symbol was stamped onto the black wax of the letter. The same mark Grandma had tried to hide from me for years. My fingers trembled as I touched it.