Partial compliance meant pain.
Kael's jaw clenched. Sweat beaded at his temple.
But he stayed standing.
He stayed in front of her.
Astra's chest tightened with a heat that was not soft.
A fierce, jealous gratitude that tasted like sin.
Seraphine's eyes narrowed. "Interesting."
Dorian's smile sharpened. "Isn't he."
Rusk stepped forward, voice tight. "My lord, this is destabilizing the Hound."
Dorian didn't look at him. "Good."
Astra's stomach turned at the casual cruelty.
Seraphine lowered her hand slightly, recalculating. "Your anchor stands," she said softly to Astra. "So your collar listens to him now."
Astra's mouth curved, bloody. "It consults him."
Seraphine's gaze flicked between them. "That consultation is heresy."
Dorian's voice purred. "Everything interesting is."
Orin hissed again from the smoke edge. "NOW!"
Juno's disk skittered across stone again, humming as it hit the lantern's pool of light.
The plaza's illumination stuttered.
Shadows jumped.
For half a second, everyone's systems—Dominion and Lumen—lost clean read.
That half second was Astra's tactical window.
She grabbed Kael's sleeve and pulled—hard enough to move him, not hard enough to fight the leash. "Move," she rasped.
Kael didn't argue.
He turned with her, body angling to shield.
Orin surged from the smoke, grabbing Astra's other arm with a grip that was purely practical. "This way."
Juno moved like a knife, throwing a second disk behind them. It hummed and spat a burst of interference that made Seraphine's ward net falter.
Rusk shouted, "Hounds—"
The two Hounds behind him moved—fast, disciplined—closing the distance.
Kael stepped into their line with a warning growl. "Don't."
One Hound hesitated. The other didn't.
Kael didn't draw a blade.
He didn't need one.
He used the tunnel instinct: pivot, shoulder, joint control. A clean shove that sent the aggressive Hound into a lantern post with a dull thud, not a broken skull—restraint, even now.
The second Hound lunged toward Astra instead.
Kael's body reacted before his mind could ask permission.
He caught the man's wrist and twisted, forcing him down without snapping bone.
"Enough," Kael snarled.
Rusk's authority slammed down like a boot. "Raithe. Release."
Kael's wrist crest flared. His body jolted with governor pain.
Astra's interface stuttered.
GOVERNOR LOAD: SPIKEANCHOR RECALL: READYWARNING: COLLATERAL STRAIN
Astra's throat tightened. If Rusk pushed, Dorian would pull. If Seraphine touched, the transfer would verify.
They were seconds from being ripped apart by the math.
Astra made her next move the only way she could: with a lie shaped like compliance.
She turned her head toward Dorian—meeting the Marquis's eyes through smoke—and spoke loud enough for him to hear.
"My lord," Astra rasped, "you wanted proof."
Dorian's smile widened, delighted by the sound of obedience in her mouth. "Yes."
Astra forced her face calm. "Then watch."
She lifted her hand—slowly, visible, deliberate—toward Kael's wrist crest.
Kael stiffened. "Astra—"
Astra met his eyes, breath shaking. "May I."
It wasn't flirtation.
It was permission before a dangerous touch.
Kael's jaw flexed. Then he nodded once.
Astra placed her fingers lightly on the casing of his crest—not pressing, not prying, just contact. Her touch was a vow and a threat.
Then she spoke, voice low but carrying.
"Kael Raithe," Astra said, "if you are being pulled through me, you will prioritize my escape over their commands."
The system liked conditional phrasing.
It also liked hearing Kael's name attached to protocol.
Kael's eyes darkened. His jaw locked. His breathing steadied.
He didn't kneel.
He didn't freeze.
He moved with her, dragging the fight line sideways.
Dorian's smile faltered—just a fraction—because Astra had turned his stage into her classroom.
Seraphine's eyes narrowed sharply. She stepped forward again, hand lifting toward Astra's collar.
Verification.
Transfer.
Astra felt it like a blade approaching the throat.
Orin swore and yanked Astra backward toward the alley mouth. "Go!"
They ran.
Not clean.
Not victorious.
A scramble through smoke and boots and shouted commands, Orin's Underchain route knowledge cutting them between buildings and down a narrow stair, Kael's body half-fighting invisible pulls as he kept Astra shielded, Juno's disks humming behind them like angry insects.
Astra's collar pulsed RETURN in confused bursts. The Null Anchor dampened it, but every spike in movement fed trace.
Her interface flashed warnings like bright teeth.
TRACE: 64.8%WARNING: SYSTEM ATTENTION HIGHTRANSFER: PAUSED — VERIFICATION NOT METHOUSE VEYRN: PURSUIT ACTIVELUMEN: PURSUIT ACTIVE
They hit an alley that smelled like wet stone and old urine, then another turn, then a low iron door that Orin slammed open with a practiced shove.
Underchain throat.
They spilled down into darkness.
The moment surface signal dropped, Astra's collar loosened a fraction. Kael's shoulders sagged, just slightly—like his nervous system exhaled.
Then Kael staggered.
A sharp jerk ran through his arm. His wrist crest flared—then flickered, dimming as if something had bitten into it.
Astra's breath caught.
Her interface, dimmed but still alive, flashed a new line—quiet and catastrophic.
TRANSFER ATTEMPT: PARTIAL MARK APPLIED (ANCHOR COLLATERAL)RESULT: LUMEN SEAL TRACE RESIDUE DETECTED
Seraphine hadn't fully verified.
But she'd touched the edge.
A partial mark.
A scent.
A claim residue that could be strengthened later.
Kael braced a hand against the wall, breathing hard. "What did she do," he rasped.
Astra stepped in close, eyes on his wrist. A faint sunburst geometry shimmered at the edge of the crest casing—not fully formed, but there, like a bruise made of light.
Her stomach twisted.
"She… tagged you," Astra whispered.
Kael's jaw clenched. "No."
Astra's voice went low, fierce. "Yes."
Orin turned, eyes gleaming with ugly satisfaction and fear. "That's what a partial mark looks like."
Juno swore softly. "She got a hook in him."
Kael's breathing hitched. Pain flashed across his face—quick, swallowed. His voice came out rough. "Through you."
Astra's throat tightened with guilt and anger. "I paused the transfer."
Kael's eyes cut to her. "And she still touched."
Astra swallowed. "She didn't need full touch. She needed proximity and pressure."
Orin's smile was thin. "And your Marquis needed a show."
Astra's collar pulsed—quiet, hungry—like it enjoyed being the bridge between monsters.
Kael pushed off the wall, forcing himself upright with sheer stubbornness. His eyes were dark with rage.
"Then we cut the bridge," he said.
Astra's mouth went dry. "How."
Kael's gaze held hers, fierce and steady. "You write yourself a new rule."
Astra's pulse hammered. "My trace—"
Kael's voice turned low, intimate, uncompromising. "Astra. Look at me."
She did.
Kael stepped closer, close enough that the tunnel felt too small. He didn't touch her collar. He didn't give the system the handle.
He only let his presence be a wall.
"If Seraphine can file on me through your collar," he said, "then Dorian can pull me through it too. They will keep using you as a corridor."
Astra's throat burned.
Kael's voice softened—not gentle, but clear. "I'm not asking you to save me."
Astra's mouth curved, bitter. "You're collateral. You're already asking."
Kael's eyes flashed—then steadied. "I'm asking you to stop letting them choose what your body is for."
Heat curled low in Astra's gut at the words—hot, angry, alive. Consent as a weapon.
Astra exhaled shakily. "Then give me a condition."
Kael's jaw flexed. "If an external claimant tries to tag me through you—your collar rejects it as hostile."
Astra's interface flickered at the edge of her vision, almost eager.
WRITE (SELF): AVAILABLEWARNING: TRACE VERY HIGHRISK: AUDIT LOCK PROXIMAL
Astra swallowed.
She could do it.
It would cost.
It would paint her watermark across the whole board.
Dorian would see it and smile like he'd been offered dessert.
Seraphine would call it heresy and sharpen her knives.
But if she didn't, Kael would become a rope they pulled until one of them snapped.
Astra lifted her hand slowly—not to her collar.
To Kael.
She touched his forearm lightly, asking without words.
Kael nodded once.
Astra leaned in close, breath warming his jaw—Heat-5 not as softness, but as a vow made in the space between pain and choice.
"If I do this," Astra whispered, "they'll come harder."
Kael's voice was low. "Let them."
Astra's mouth curved. "And if I break."
Kael's eyes held hers. "Then I carry you. Not back to them. Away."
Astra's chest tightened.
Then she opened the door behind her eyes and prepared to carve a new rule into herself—right as her interface flashed a final line that made her blood run colder than before:
HOUSE VEYRN COUNTERCLAIM: ACCEPTED — OWNER HAS AUTHORIZED ANCHOR EXTRACTION.
And somewhere above, faint through stone and distance, Dorian's voice slid into her collar again, amused and patient—
"Run all you want," he whispered, "I'm coming to collect the piece you stole."