Kaleb screamed, swallowed, and tried to sound unaffected as he asked, “How about a little warning?”

Aya looked like she might fall over.

But Zevi was as calm as he always was when he was working. “You tense up if I warn you.”

Kaleb winced as Zevi took one of the bandages and smoothed it across his rib cage. “Then why do you warn me sometimes?”

“So you don’t know when to tense.” Zevi took another bandage and methodically layered it over the first one. “Open the bin and grab me two more.”

Without a word, Aya did as Zevi directed.

“You, sit up.”

Kaleb smothered a curse as he obeyed—and another one when Zevi grabbed his legs and dropped them over the edge of the bed. Humming now, Zevi wrapped bandages all the way around Kaleb.

In a few short minutes, Kaleb’s chest was wrapped, and the pain-relief concoction in the bandages was seeping into his body. Zevi helped him to lie back. “I need to check the other wounds before morning. I’ll wake you.”

As the blissful numbness hit him, Kaleb told Zevi, “Thank you.”

Zevi nodded, brought over a mug with willow bark, poppy extract, and who knew what else, and then he walked to a pile of blankets in front of the fire. Without any seeming discomfort at resting in front of an outsider, he stretched and settled himself on the blankets. He was snoring before Aya could close her mouth.

AYA HAD NEVER SPENT much time around the curs. They were, by nature, not very embracing of outsiders. These two acted like she wasn’t there, or maybe this was restrained for them. If so, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see them relaxed.

She wasn’t sure what to do. Kaleb was a ferocious fighter, but he wasn’t cold or cruel here in his home. It was like he was a completely separate person from the cur she’d seen fight.

Because he’s at home or because of Zevi?

“Should I go?” Aya asked in a low voice.

“You don’t need to whisper.” Kaleb’s gaze fell on the snoring cur. “Zevi will sleep unless the threshold is violated or I call for him. He’d sleep through the excesses of the Night Market right now.”

“Is that . . . normal?”

“For Zevi or for a cur?” Kaleb started to reach for the mug Zevi had left beside the bed, pursed his lips, and lowered his arm. “Or do you mean is the way he shoved my bones back normal?”

“Any of it?” Aya walked over and picked up the mug. “Actually, all of it.” She handed him the mug.

“Hard to say. The bones, yes. They need rebroken so they set right. He broke them, and now I will stay still and drink the nasty concoction he has for aiding in mending them.” He drained the mug. “And, yes, the sleep thing is normal for Zevi. He feels safe when I’m home.”

She waited, not quite sure what to say or do.

After a few moments, Kaleb looked up at her. “Not that I’m complaining about this new side of you—I appreciate the help tonight—but I’m pretty sure you didn’t show up to learn how to nurse a battered cur.”

Unlike Kaleb, Aya didn’t have a warmer side she wanted to share. In an expressionless voice, she asked, “You’ve heard about the new competition terms?”

“The winner gets to mate with his daughter or with him,” Kaleb said flatly. “Why are you telling me?”

“I don’t want to breed with Marchosias or with anyone. If I had, I would’ve wed Belias. I refused. I want to rule.” Aya sat tentatively on the edge of Kaleb’s bed. “When I realized the competition didn’t specify gender, I thought I’d found the answer: a woman can rule in The City by winning Marchosias’ Competition, but now, winning would force me to do the very thing I am trying to avoid.”

Kaleb’s gaze swept her from head to toe, and even injured, he was clearheaded enough to assess her like she was wearing a red mask. “Do you oppose the act too?”

“No.” She tilted her chin up. “But you know that already. You’ve had your scabs bring you what they know of me and the other contenders—as I have of all of you.”

Kaleb laughed. “Right now, I’m not feeling as confident that I’m still a contender.”

“You won’t be without help,” Aya said.

To his credit, Kaleb didn’t deny the truth. “I can’t forfeit, and I’m not looking for a protector, especially one who killed the last daimon she took to bed.”

Aya barely resisted flinching at his mention of Belias. “I’ve sufficient wealth to take care of you both. Neither of you would need to do mask-work again.”

“I’m a cur. Curs don’t forfeit. I’ll win or die fighting. If I die, Zevi will need—”

She interrupted, “If you die, you’re no use to me. I need you alive.”

“Do you?” Kaleb gestured at his bandages. “Then we both have a problem.”

“If I’m going to avoid breeding with Marchosias, I need a protector. You’re my best option.”

When he didn’t reply, she added, “I have a plan. I know protector arrangements are usually about money, but I have that. I need your ferocity.”

Kaleb glanced back at Zevi, and she saw the struggle he faced. As a cur, he had two competing interests: to protect his pack and to counter any challenge.

Finally he looked at her and said, “How can you help me?”

“I can weaken your opponent, so you’ll win.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Then, I’ll forfeit and offer a blood oath as your chattel in public. For one year, you’d be my protector. If I’m your property, no one—even Marchosias—can claim me. If you take me as a bloodmate, only you could impregnate me, and we can agree privately not to do that. I’ll buy time, and you’ll survive the fight. I can help you win. You’ll get the prize and the girl. All I need is someone strong enough that my being . . . property is believable.”

Kaleb shook his head. “If I accept you as mine after he made this announcement, I look like I’m rejecting Mal— Marchosias’ daughter. No deal.”

“Then I’ll move in as Zevi’s bloodmate for one year. You can announce that as your price: you accept my forfeit in exchange for the right to gift me to your packmate.” Aya’s temperature dropped as her mind filled with fear that she couldn’t entirely quell. “You’d still own me.”

“Why would you do this?” he asked, not unkindly.

“I can’t breed.” She shuddered. “It’s the one thing I can’t do. All I want is to rule, to make The City be the place it could be. If Marchosias is already noticing me, do you think he’ll lose interest? If I win, I’m his. If I forfeit a fight and am an unclaimed breedable woman, the odds of him not claiming me are so slim as to be laughable. And if I have a child . . . I’ll lose everything. You understand”—she glanced at the sleeping cur—“what it means to risk it all for something or someone. I want to serve The City, and if I have a child, I won’t be able to.”

Kaleb’s attention was fixed on her now, and as he watched her, Aya knew that he also had secrets that would cause her problems she couldn’t see yet. She hadn’t survived this long in The City without learning to read the clues people didn’t think they revealed.

Does he suspect me as well? He’d be a fool not to.

Finally, he said, “I’ll only accept your offer if you can guarantee my win.”

“I can do it.” She held his gaze. “My kill count will be yours, too, if I’m your chattel.”

Kaleb paused as that detail settled on him: with her kills added to his, he’d be ranked first by a huge margin. He could win the whole competition without killing anyone else in the fights. “And all you want . . .”

“I won’t breed under any circumstances. That term must be inviolate,” she stressed. “If we do this, if I’m bound to you or to Zevi, I’ll not bed down with whoever I’m bound to.”

“Agreed, but if I win and breed Marchosias’ daughter, I will live in the palace. That will mean that you will live within Marchosias’ reach too.” Kaleb spoke very clearly. “I cannot tell him you are for Zevi’s uses exclusively. He’d kill Z, and anything that results in injury to Zevi is a no-starter.”