A Debt of Mercy

Tessa

The second Knox's footsteps fade, my legs give out.

I drop to the stone floor and grab my neck. My fingers come away red. It's only a small drop of blood, but it's mine.

That bastard actually hurt me.

My heart is racing so fast I can feel it in my ears. I try to breathe slowly. It doesn't work.

"Tessa!"

I turn my head.

Levana is running across the courtyard, and she looks furious.

"What were you thinking?" She skids to a stop in front of me. "Are you mad? Have you completely lost your mind? You told the Alpha of Alphas to punish you!"

I laugh. It comes out cracked and tired.

"Why are you laughing?"

"I don't know."

She drops down beside me. Her eyes land on my neck and her whole face changes.

"He hurt you?" Her voice goes low. "That piece of..."

She doesn't finish. She presses her lips together instead.

"Okay," she says after a moment. "Tell me how you got out of that. Knox cleared the whole yard. Then I find you on the ground with blood on your neck. How did you walk away from him?"

I would love to say it was a master plan.

I would love to say I stood in front of the council and calculated every move.

It wasn't a plan. I was desperate. I read one paragraph about the debt mark in an old book after he marked me, and I wasn't even sure it applied to me. I bet everything on that paragraph.

Thank heavens for the debt mark.

Right?

"I'll tell you everything later," I say. I push myself up off the floor. My knees shake, but they hold.

"Tessa, what?"

"I have to go. I'm sorry. Later, I promise."

"*Tessa!*"

I'm already running.

People stop and stare as I go. A group of students near the gate goes silent. Someone whispers my name. I don't care.

I take the stairs two at a time.

I don't know where the guards took him after Knox sent everyone away. If he isn't in his office, it means he's still in a cell. I pray the whole way up. I pray harder than I've ever prayed.

I reach his door and push it open.

He's there.

He's standing by the window in his usual spot, with his hands behind his back, staring at nothing and everything at once.

I run across the room and wrap my arms around him.

He turns around. For a second he's stiff. Then he holds me back, firmly, and I close my eyes.

He's okay. He's out. He's okay.

We stay like that for a long moment.

Then he pulls back and takes me by the shoulders.

"How could you?" he shouts.

I flinch. He has never shouted at me like that.

"How could you do something so reckless? So unreasonable? Do you have any idea what you did out there?"

"What was I supposed to do?" I shout back. "They were about to hurt you!"

"They didn't."

"Because I stopped it!"

"Nobody touched me, Tessa."

"Not yet," I say.

"No." He lets go of my shoulders. "Not yet."

I stare at him.

"Do you think Knox and his clan will stay quiet?" he says. "Do you think they'll go back to their rooms with their tails between their legs after you mocked him in front of everyone? You practically declared war."

I frown. "That's an exaggeration."

"Is it?"

"Yes. And it doesn't matter. He can't hurt me anyway. Not with the debt mark."

Father goes still.

"What debt mark?"

I realise what I just said.

"Tessa." His voice is quiet now. "What debt mark?"

So I tell him.

I tell him everything. The meeting room. The curtain. Knox catching me. The mark on my wrist. What it does, and what happened in the courtyard when the guard hit me.

He doesn't interrupt once.

When I finish, he turns away and walks slowly across the room. He stops at his desk. He walks back to the window. He does this twice, and I let him, because I know that look. He's working something out.

"The debt started when Knox spared your life," he says finally.

"Yes."

"Then it can only end one way. A day will come when you have to spare his life, or save it."

I wait.

He stops walking. He turns to face me.

"That is," he says slowly, "if you want the debt to be paid."

"Father, what are you saying?"

He crosses the room until he's right in front of me. He takes my shoulders again, gently this time, and the look on his face scares me more than the shouting did.

"The moment that debt is broken," he says, "Knox will kill you. Right where you stand. It won't matter what you did for him."

My mouth goes dry.

"Father..."

"Listen to me." His grip tightens. "When the time comes, you must look the other way."