Page 47 of Marrying My Professor

The words hang in the air like a noose.

Forever.

No escape. No end date to count down to. No light at the end of the tunnel, just an endless stretch of darkness and servitude and pretending to be Alexander Draven instead of the man I used to be.

I think about my apartment. About the fake passport hidden in the floorboards. About the money I've been slowly siphoning away for eight years, building an exit strategy one dollar at a time. About the life I was planning to disappear into—a small town somewhere warm, a job that doesn't require me to lie about who I am, the simple fucking pleasure of waking up and not being owned by anyone.

All of it, gone.

And then I think about Elara. About the way she looked at me in the office earlier today, lips swollen from my kiss, eyes dark with want and trust and something that looked dangerously close to affection. About the way she smiled when I called her mine. About the way she feels in my arms—like she fits there, like she was made to be held by me and no one else.

"I'll do it," I hear myself say.

"Alexander—" Dominic starts, and there's something almost like concern in his voice.

"I'll do it," I repeat, louder this time. "Indefinite service. I'll serve the Veritas Order for as long as you require. Just let her live."

Nathaniel's expression doesn't change. "You understand what you're agreeing to."

"Yes."

"You'll never leave Belgrave. Never leave the Order. You'll be ours, completely and permanently, with no possibility of freedom. Ever."

"I understand."

"And if she betrays us again," Julian adds, "if she reveals what she's learned, if she so much as whispers the name Veritas to the wrong person—the deal is void. And you both die."

"She won't," I say, with a certainty I don't entirely feel.

Nathaniel stands, and the others follow suit. He walks to a cabinet built into the wall, unlocking it with a key he produces from his pocket. When he turns back, he's holding something that makes my blood run cold.

The sacred text.

It's massive, bound in black leather that's cracked with age, the cover embossed with symbols in gold that's faded to a dull bronze. The pages are yellowed parchment, the kind that would crumble if handled too roughly. This book is older than the university, older than most of the buildings in this city. It contains the founding principles of the Veritas Order, written in blood and Latin and the kind of certainty that only comes from men who believed they were creating something immortal.

Nathaniel sets it on the table with reverence.

"A blood promise," he says. "You know what that means."

I do.

Blood promises are binding in a way that signatures and verbal agreements can never be. They're woven into the fabric of the Order itself, enforced not by laws but by something older and more primal. Break a blood promise, and the Order will hunt you to the ends of the earth. Not because they're vindictive, but because they have to. Because the magic—or the psychology, or whatever you want to call the force that holds two hundred years of tradition together—demands it.

Evander produces a small knife from his pocket. It's ornate, the handle carved with the same symbols that mark the sacred text, the blade sharp enough to catch the light.

"Your palm," he instructs.

I hold out my right hand, palm up.

The blade is cold against my skin for half a second before Evander draws it across in one clean motion. Pain blooms sharp and immediate, blood welling in the cut and dripping down to my wrist.

"Place your hand on the text," Nathaniel says. "And speak the words."

I press my bleeding palm against the ancient parchment, feeling the rough texture against the wound, watching my blood seep into pages that have absorbed the promises of hundreds of men before me.

"I, Atticus Drexel," I begin, and hearing my real name spoken aloud after so many years of being Alexander feels like skinning myself alive, "do hereby pledge my life in service to the Veritas Order. I bind myself to this organization indefinitely, with no expectation of release or reprieve. I accept all debts and transgressions of Elara Cross as my own. I swear this on my blood, on my name, and on everything I hold sacred."

The words feel like chains wrapping around my chest, pulling tight.