Dante’s gaze locked onto the contract, his breath slow and measured, though his pulse pounded like war drums in his ears. The inked words did not sit still. They slithered, writhing across the page as though alive, as though they knew he was afraid—no, more than that. They hungered for his signature, for the irrevocable promise of his flesh, his time, his soul.

  Strength. Evasion. Control.

  No matter which path he chose, the cost would be the same—unforgiving, absolute, and tailored to break him in ways he could not yet comprehend.

  Years stolen from his lifespan. Fractures carved into his mind. A debt so deep it would follow him past the grave.

  And yet, retreat was not an option.

  The Enforcer was coming.

  Dante curled his fingers into a tight fist, his right hand still smoldering from the ever-present ache of the Ashen Mark—a contract already bound to him, its terms unknown, its consequences creeping through his veins like an incurable disease. He had been branded into this nightmare long before he understood the rules, shackled by choices he never made.

  But this time, at least, he could choose his own poison.

  His hand hovered over the page.

  The Broker did not smile, but Dante could feel the satisfaction radiating off him like heat from dying coals, like a loan shark watching a desperate man scrawl his name onto an agreement that would see him ruined.

  Dante did not pick Strength. He did not pick Evasion.

  He chose Ashen Reaper.

  Because if his body was already burning, already infected with whatever wrongness had taken root inside him—then why not make that fire his own?

  His thumb met the parchment.

  A sharp sting—then warmth—then fire.

  The contract drank.

  His blood, his name, his very essence soaked into the ink, flaring crimson before darkening, deepening, turning as black as a starless void. The words twisted, curling into themselves, consuming the page, swallowing his fate whole.

  And then—

  The world lurched.

  Dante barely had time to gasp before something slithered through his veins, spreading outward from his marked hand, threading into muscle, bone, and thought alike. It did not feel like power. No—power was something that could be wielded, bent to a master’s will.

  This was a reckoning.

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  The Ashen Mark pulsed, flared—and then it was no longer a mark.

  The pain came first—sharp, electric, threading through his nerves like a thousand burning needles. But beneath the pain, beneath the searing heat that raced through his blood, there was something worse. A presence. It slithered through him, not just invading his body but studying it, mapping the pathways of his muscles, the cadence of his heartbeat, the weight of his thoughts. This was not power being granted—it was power taking root. And it was making room for itself, whether he could endure it or not.

  His vision blurred. Shapes bled at the edges, the room buckling as his senses fractured, overwhelmed by the sudden shift in reality. For a moment, he swore he was somewhere else, some place where the air hummed with whispers and the dark had weight. Shadows moved at the edge of his sight—not cast by light, but writhing of their own volition. A presence loomed in that space, unseen yet felt, vast and ancient and hungry. The feeling scraped against his ribs, wound itself around his lungs, a silent demand curling into his bones. It did not speak, but he understood its meaning all the same: You are ours now.

  And then the world snapped back into place. The floor was beneath him again. The contract still burned in his veins. But the air felt heavier, the room sharper, as if reality itself had shifted to accommodate what he had just become. His hand ached, but it was no longer just a hand—it was a conduit, a vessel, a thing bound to something far older than him. And as his fingers twitched, as the blackened veins rippled like liquid shadow beneath his skin, he realized that part of him—the part that should have recoiled, should have feared—was already adapting to the weight of it.

  Black veins surged up his forearm, shifting, liquid metal spilling and reforming beneath his skin. His fingertips tingled. His breath came sharp, unsteady. A pressure coiled around his mind, threading into his thoughts like invisible chains tightening link by link.

  The room dimmed.

  No—darkened.

  The shadows did not simply lengthen. They twisted, reached. Tendrils of darkness stretched toward him like something long-forgotten had just stirred, just realized.

  They did not reach blindly. The darkness was not an idle force, not some passive void spilling into the room. It recognized him. Tested him. The tendrils curled around his limbs, brushing against his skin like a lover’s whisper, like chains measuring his weight before they locked into place. Cold seeped into his bones, not the absence of warmth but the presence of something else, something vast and watching, pressing against the edges of his mind. The air itself thickened, humming with a soundless pull, a gravity that had never been there before.

  A flicker—small, instinctive. He moved his fingers, and the shadows moved with him. A shiver ran up his spine, not from fear but from the sheer, gut-deep certainty that whatever had been sleeping inside his blood was now awake. It coiled beneath his skin, an unseen weight settling into his very marrow. He clenched his fist, and the darkness pulsed in response, sinking into his shadow, threading through it like ink in water. Not just an extension of himself—an extension of something larger. Something waiting to see what he would do next.

  For a moment, he swore he could hear breathing. Not his own. Not the Broker’s. A slow, measured inhale from every corner of the room, from the walls, the floor, the very spaces between the air itself. A presence, neither hostile nor kind—simply there, watching, waiting, expectant. It did not ask for permission. It did not need to. Because he had already signed. Because he had already belonged.

  He belonged to them now.

  Dante clenched his jaw, swallowing back the rising tide of something deep, something alien. His legs did not buckle. His lungs still pulled in air. His heart still pounded.

  He was still standing.

  Still breathing.

  Still alive.

  The Broker watched, his satisfaction now fully formed, his approval settling over the room like a silent benediction. "Congratulations, Pactmaker."

  His gaze flicked toward Dante’s hand. "You are no longer just prey."

  Dante flexed his fingers. There it was—that weight, that pull. The thing inside him shifting, stirring.

  Whatever he had just signed, whatever he had just become—

  It had changed him forever.