# Chapter 3: The Crimson Anchor

Damien's eyes locked onto hers, the shock rippling through his frame as the blood-ink anchor took hold, tethering his life to her fragile survival.

The air in the bridal chamber thickened, turning syrupy and metallic. Isabella watched the pupils of Damien’s eyes dilate until they were naught but obsidian voids, reflecting her own pale, mask-like face. He tried to pull back, to wrench his spirit from the invisible hook she had cast into his marrow, but his knees buckled. A mirrored spasm went through Isabella’s chest—a sharp, sympathetic pang that forced a jagged breath from her lungs.

"What... have you done?" Damien’s voice was a low rasp, stripped of its usual silken arrogance. He looked down at his own hands as if they no longer belonged to him.

Isabella straightened her spine, despite the hemomantic exhaustion dragging at her limbs like leaden weights. She reached up, slowly tracing the high lace collar of her gown, ensuring it still hid the jagged history of her neck. "Pray, do take care with your footing, My Lord," she said, her voice a cool chime in the silence. "If you fall too hard, I fear I shall feel the bruise. And should your heart decide to cease its rhythm, mine will surely follow as an uninvited guest."

Damien lunged. It was an instinctive, predatory movement, the strike of a panther who had forgotten he was caged. His hand shot toward her throat, but halfway there, his fingers curled into a claw and his entire arm began to tremble violently. He let out a choked sound, a grunt of pure frustration, as his own muscles refused the command to harm the source of his current existence.

"It is a blood-ink anchor," Isabella explained, her tone dripping with the clinical detachment of a tutor. "A specialty of the Nightbloom, usually reserved for those we cannot trust but must keep close. My blood is now the ink, and your life is the parchment. We are written together, Damien. A singular, bloody sentence."

Damien shoved himself away, stumbling toward the heavy oak wardrobe. He gripped the wood so hard it groaned. "You’ve breached the Treaty," he spat, his eyes burning with a mix of fury and a new, dark fascination. "The Unmarked Vessel clause. You are far from unmarked, witch. I saw the scars. I saw the rot beneath the silk."

Isabella’s expression didn’t flicker, though inner ice crystallized around her heart. "A touch inconvenient, I admit. But the Treaty also demands my protection. Can you fulfill that duty if you are dead? Or if I am?"

A sudden, white-hot pulse radiated from the small of her back—the Peace Vow, sensing her internal dissent, her refusal to be the submissive trophy the Blackthorn Coven demanded. The magic lashed her. Isabella gasped, her knees hitting the plush carpet. 

Immediately, Damien let out a cry of genuine agony. He collapsed against the wardrobe, clutching his spine at the exact meridian where she felt the Vow’s sting. 

"Stop it!" he roared, sweat beading on his brow. "Whatever you are doing, cease!"

"I am... doing... nothing," Isabella managed, her teeth gritted. "It is the Vow. It punishes the defiant. It seems you are now being punished for my sins."

The irony was a bitter tonic. She watched him stagger toward her, not out of malice, but out of a biological imperative he could no longer ignore. He reached down, his large, calloused hands trembling as they gripped her shoulders. His touch was supposed to be a violation, but the anchor transformed it into a desperate stabilization. He pulled her upright, his strength compensating for her waning vitality.

"You are bleeding," he noted, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low frequency. 

He didn't need to look at her wrists to know. Beneath her fine silk gloves, the fresh scars from her recent ritual had reopened under the stress of the Vow’s lash. A dark, damp heat bloomed under the fabric. Damien’s gaze traveled to her hands, and for a moment, the predator in him resurfaced—the vampire who craved the very essence she used as a weapon.

"Pray, keep your hunger in check," she whispered. "If you drain me, you effectively commit suicide. A tragic end for a conqueror, is it not?"

Damien’s grip tightened, but not in a way that hurt. He lifted one of her gloved hands, his eyes fixed on the deepening crimson stain. "I have never seen such reckless hemomancy. To bind a Blackthorn... it is an audacity that deserves either a crown or a pyre."

"I have already had the crown," Isabella retorted, her breath hitching as the pain subsided into a dull throb. "And I find the pyre much too warm for my tastes."

The silence that followed was charged with a nuclear tension. They stood too close, the scent of crushed lilies and copper filling the small space between them. The Peace Vow’s pulse had receded, leaving Isabella hollowed out, her hemomantic exhaustion reaching a critical point. She needed to stabilize the anchor—and she needed to satisfy the ritualistic demands of the tower.

"The Sanctioned Heir," she said, the words tasting like ash. "The High Priest waits below. The blood-ink will not hold indefinitely if the union is not recognized by the Keep’s own ancient magic."

Damien’s lip curled. "You want me to bed you? Now? After you’ve shackled my very soul to your heartbeat?"

"I want a regal correction of this power dynamic," Isabella corrected icily. "We have an obligation. If there is no heir, or at least the commencement of one, your father and my coven elders will storm this room. And then, Damien, they will find the anchor. How long do you think they will let us live once they realize the 'Witch of Nightbloom' has stolen the agency of the Blackthorn heir?"

Damien leaned in, his shadow swallowing her. "You speak of duty as if it were a blade."

"In my hands, it always is."

He moved then, swift and decisive. He didn't take her with the gentleness of a lover, nor the brutality of a conquerer. It was a negotiation of flesh. He lifted her, carrying her to the massive, silk-draped bed. Isabella’s heart hammered against her ribs—not with fear, but with the frantic rhythm of a bird hitting the bars of a cage. 

As he leaned over her, his hands moved to the high collar of her dress. Isabella froze. 

"No," she commanded.

"If I am to be bound to you, Isabella, I will see what I am bound to." He didn't ask. He unhooked the silver fastenings, peeling back the lace to reveal the network of faint, shimmering crimson scars that raced across her collarbones and up the side of her neck. 

Damien’s breath hitched. "Who did this?"

"The coven. My mother. Myself," she said, her voice a series of cold fragments. "It is the price of power. Every oath. Every vow. It leaves a mark. I am a map of every promise I have ever kept."

Damien’s finger traced a line of raised, pink tissue near her throat. The anchor hummed, a low vibration that made Isabella’s skin prickle. In that touch, there was a flash of something that wasn't hatred—it was a recognition of shared scars, of a different kind of bondage.

They moved together then, a frantic, desperate attempt to satisfy the Keep’s magic. It was a partial consummation, a collision of teeth and tangled limbs that served more to bind their blood than to foster intimacy. Isabella felt the anchor pulse with every gasp, drawing from Damien’s vitality to stitch her own tattered energy back together. It was predatory. It was necessary.

When they drifted apart, both were breathless, the air between them thick with the scent of salt and iron. No heir would come of this—not yet—but the magical threshold had been crossed. The room felt different. Heavier.

Isabella sat up, her movements stiff. She reached for a small, antique silver locket resting on the bedside table. With a sharp, practiced movement, she pressed a thumb against a hidden needle in the clasp, drawing a single, concentrated drop of the blood-ink from her palm and sealing it inside the talisman. 

"What is that?" Damien asked, watching her from the shadows of the pillows.

"Insurance," she replied, her fingers trembling as she clicked the locket shut. "This amplifies the anchor. As long as I wear this, the tether remains unbreakable. Try to leave this room, and the distance will tear your heart right out of your chest."

Damien let out a dark, sharp laugh. "You truly are a monster, Isabella Voss."

"I am what my vows have made me," she said, fumbling with the chain. 

"Let me," Damien said. He reached out, taking the locket from her hands. His fingers brushed her neck as he fastened the clasp, his touch lingering on the scars he had uncovered. For a heartbeat, Isabella felt a wave of his emotion through the tether—not humiliated fury, but a strange, protective heat. It terrified her more than his rage.

"You have the Unmarked Vessel breach to worry about," he whispered into her ear. "If Malakor sees those scars on your wrists... if he realizes you are not the 'pure' sacrifice the Treaty demanded..."

"Then I suppose you had better ensure he doesn't see them," Isabella snapped, pulling away and re-fastening her collar. "Our lives are intertwined now, My Lord. My secrets are your secrets. My survival is your only priority."

"Is it?" Damien rose from the bed, his physique imposing even in the dim light. He looked at the door, then back at her. "I wonder what would happen if I simply... stopped fighting? If I let the Vow take us both?"

"You are too vain for martyrdom, Damien."

A heavy thud shook the chamber door. It wasn't a knock; it was a demand.

"Lord Blackthorn!" High Priest Malakor’s voice boomed from the hallway, vibrating through the thick wood. "The hour of the sealing rite has passed. The coven demands proof of the union's consummation. Open this door at once, or we shall conclude the Nightbloom Witch has offered only insult in place of an heir!"

Isabella looked at Damien. Her mask of regal correction was firmly back in place, but beneath it, the predatory focus was sharper than ever. She caught her breath, the exhaustion threatening to pull her under, but she forced her hands to remain still.

"Pray," she whispered to Damien, her eyes hard as diamonds, "do make yourself look like a satisfied husband. Our audience is waiting."

The door groaned again under the weight of a second strike. The nuclear standoff had just invited the world inside.

***

**SCENE A: INTERIORITY EXPANSION**

Isabella felt the weight of the locket against her collarbone, a cold silver reminder of the atrocity she had just committed. It was a heavy, parasitic thing, drawing a faint but constant stream of her focus to keep the enchantment from fraying. She looked at Damien—really looked at him—as he smoothed his disheveled tunic. He was a creature of absolute privilege, a scion of the Blackthorn bloodline who had never known what it meant to have his will subverted by the very blood in his veins. Now, he was a passenger in his own body, his pulse a secondary rhythm to her own.

The physical toll was nearly intolerable. Each breath felt like drawing in spun glass. Hemomancy was never meant to be used this way; it was a discipline of internal fortitude, not external subjugation. To weave an anchor was to tear a strip of one’s own soul and use it as a tether. She could feel the "ink"—her own life-force—vibrating inside him. It was a dizzying sensation, a phantom limb that extended into the chest of her enemy. She felt his heart speed up as Malakor’s voice echoed through the door, and the sympathetic response in her own chest nearly made her double over.

"This is intolerable," she thought, her fingers automatically moving to the silken gloves she had yet to pull back over her ruined wrists. She needed to hide the evidence of her desperation. If the High Priest entered and saw the raw, weeping gashes that ran from her palms to her forearms, the pretense of the "Unmarked Vessel" would be shattered. The Treaty of Thorns was a legalistic nightmare, and the Blackthorns were known for scouring the fine print for any excuse to spill Nightbloom blood. She was not just fighting for her agency; she was fighting for the survival of every witch who had been traded away in the name of a fragile peace.

She traced the edge of the locket. The blood inside was fresh, pulled from the same well of power that had nearly killed her mother. Her mother, Elara, had died with a vow unravelling in her throat, her skin splitting open as the magic she had failed to uphold turned inward. Isabella had vowed then that she would never be the one to break. She would be the needle, not the fabric. She would be the one who did the stitching. Yet, as she looked at the door, the terror she had suppressed since the wedding march began to leak through the cracks of her regal mask. "Blood, blood everywhere," she whispered to herself, the familiar panic rising in her throat. She had to stay composed. She had to be the queen her coven had discarded as a pawn.

**SCENE B: EXTENDED DIALOGUE**

Damien stepped closer, his shadow falling across her like a shroud. He didn't look like a man who had been defeated. He looked like a man who had found a new, more dangerous game to play. "You expect me to play the part of the doting groom while Malakor counts the minutes until he can declare us in breach? You have high expectations of my acting abilities, Isabella."

"I expect you to value your life, My Lord," she countered, her voice regaining its sharp, crystalline edge. "Pray, do not pretend you are above lying to your own kin. Your father would have you executed the moment he realized you were no longer a sovereign entity. He has other sons. He does not have another Treaty."

Damien let out a low, vibrant chuckle that she felt in her own diaphragm through the anchor. "My father would be impressed. He always said the Voss women had teeth; he just didn't expect them to be quite so sharp. But tell me, Isabella, how do you plan to hide the fact that every time I move, you wince? Or the fact that your scent is currently less like crushed lilies and more like a butcher’s shop?"

"I will manage my own symptoms," she said, turning away to catch her reflection in the darkened window. She looked ghostly, her skin almost translucent. "You will provide the distraction. Tell them I was... resistant. Tell them you had to assert your authority. They will believe that. They want to believe in your dominance."

Damien leaned down, his mouth inches from her ear. "And when they ask why I am not leaving your side? When I am forced to follow you like a hound because of this silver trinket around your neck?"

"Then you will tell them you have developed an obsession," she whispered, her eyes meeting his in the glass. "You will tell them that the Nightbloom Witch has a charm you cannot resist. It is not far from the truth, is it not? You are charmed, Damien. By necessity."

He gripped her arm, and for a second, the anchor flared, a warning heat between them. "I will play your game for now. But remember this, Isabella: an anchor works in two directions. If you lead me into a storm, you are going down with me. I will not be the only one to drown."

"I have been drowning since the day I was born into this coven, Damien. I am quite used to the pressure." She pulled her arm away, her movements fluid and practiced, though every nerve ending screeched in protest. "Now, the door. Before Malakor decides to bring it down."

**SCENE C: TRANSITION & NEXT STEPS**

Beyond the door, the hallway was a hive of muffled activity. Isabella could hear the rhythmic clank of guard armor—Blackthorn men, no doubt, waiting to escort their lord back to the banquet hall in triumph. The High Tower was a lonely place, a stone finger reaching into the cold, starlit sky, and for a moment, the isolation felt like a tomb. She had to transition from this chamber to the public stage without collapsing.

She moved to the basin of water near the bed, dipping a cloth into the cool liquid. With careful, trembling fingers, she wiped the smears of blood from her collar and the edges of her wrists. The water turned a pale rose color. She worked with the efficiency of a soldier cleaning a wound, her mind already racing through the next twenty-four hours. They would be expected at the morning blood-fast. They would have to sit through the Priest’s blessing. And then, the true test: the administrative transfer of Nightbloom assets to the Blackthorn treasury. 

Reginald Thorne would be watching her. Her own coven leader, the man who had traded her like a goat, would be looking for any sign of the "Peace Vow's" corrective influence. If she looked too strong, he would know she had found a way to bypass the magical compliance. If she looked too weak, he would discard her entirely. 

Damien watched her from the center of the room, his expression unreadable. The anchor was stable for now, a low hum in the background of her consciousness. She could feel his wariness, a prickling sensation on the back of her neck that wasn't hers. It was a bizarre, invasive intimacy, one she hadn't prepared for. 

She threw the cloth aside and straightened her high collar one last time. She was ready. Or as ready as a woman could be when she was holding the leash of a monster while standing on the edge of a precipice. "Smile, Damien," she said, her voice a silk-wrapped blade. "The world is watching."

The door groaned again, the wood starting to splinter. 

Lord Blackthorn, the rite demands consummation—open or face the coven's wrath!