Chapter 1

I have a condition that multiplies pain by ten thousand. And the lunatic who bought my life turned out to be the only thing that stops it.

It hit me while I was holed up in that filthy basement in the South End. At first it was just a small tingle in my fingertips, like a static shock. Three seconds later it tore through every nerve I had and went off all at once.

"Ngh..."

I bit down on my lip, rolled off the broken spring mattress, and hit the concrete hard.

It hurt.

Like ten thousand rusted needles driven into the marrow of my bones, and then somebody swinging a hammer at them. Every nerve was screaming. Every muscle was seizing up.

I curled in on myself, clawing at the floor until my nails bent back and the blood came up dark underneath them. I couldn't feel my fingers at all. What was happening inside me had swallowed everything else.

Then somebody kicked the basement door open.

It was the loan shark, with two collectors behind him. The three of them stood in the doorway and watched me thrash around on the floor, laughing.

"Well, would you look at that. Lark's having another one of her episodes."

He crouched down and reached for my face.

"Three hundred grand you owe me. If you can't come up with it today, I'll have to teach you some manners another way."

"Get... get off me."

The words came out through my teeth, and my voice was shredded. I tried to drag myself backward, but my body wasn't listening. Breathing felt like pulling broken glass down into my lungs.

He laughed and started pulling at my clothes.

"Quit acting like you're too good for this. Look at the state of you, I might as well do you a favor."

His hand never reached me.

The rusted iron door suddenly came off its frame and slammed into the wall, and he jumped and spun around.

A man walked into the dim light of the basement. Black suit, cut to fit him. Tall enough that he blocked most of the light coming in behind him.

He didn't look at the three of them at all. His eyes went past them and landed on me. There was nothing in them. No warmth, no feeling.

"Who the hell are you? You don't want to get in the middle of—"

He didn't finish. The two bodyguards behind the man stepped forward, and it was over in a second. Two sharp cracks. The loan shark didn't even get a scream out before both his arms were snapped, and then they threw him out the door.

The basement went quiet. All I could hear was my own breathing.

The man walked across the mess on the floor and stopped in front of me. A pair of expensive shoes came into my line of sight. He looked down at me like I was a stray dog that was already dying.

"Lark Vance."

He said my name low, and somehow it made the room feel smaller.

My vision was going black and whatever was left of my judgment had burned off a while ago. I didn't care who he was. I lunged at him and bit down on his pant leg.

I needed somewhere to put it. I needed to push the pain into something else.

He didn't flinch. He lowered himself down slowly and put one knee on the filthy concrete. Then he reached for me. No hesitation at all. One hand caught both of my wrists, the other went around my waist, and he pulled me in against his chest and held me there.

"Let go of me! Get off—"

I fought him, fists landing anywhere they could, his chest, his shoulder. He didn't move. I bit and I hit and he just held on.

Right when I thought the pain was going to finish me, I felt the heat of him through his shirt.

And it stopped.

Everywhere we touched, something calm spread out and moved through the rest of me. The thing in my head that had been about to split open just went quiet. Like a piece of red hot iron dropped into ice water.

I stopped fighting.

I lay against his chest, breathing in gulps, soaked through with cold sweat. I could smell him. Something cold and woody, with a trace of disinfectant under it.

How was that possible? I'd seen more doctors than I could count. I'd taken every painkiller there is. None of it ever did anything.

So why did it stop the second he put his arms around me?

I lifted my head and met his eyes. Black, impossible to read.

"Who... who are you?"

I could barely get the words out.

He looked at me and smiled, just slightly.

"Sevrin Voss."

He wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth. His voice stayed perfectly calm.

"From now on, your life belongs to me."