Chapter 1

The heavy oak door of the Sentinel estate dining room felt like it weighed a ton tonight.

Ten years.

Ten years I' d been bound to Chloe by the Legacy Pact, a promise made by our families before we could even understand it.

Now, she stood across the long table, her eyes cold.

Julian, her new man, smirked beside her.

"Ethan," Chloe' s voice cut through the silence, "Julian and I are together."

She placed a hand on her stomach.

"I' m pregnant. With his child."

The Sentinel Elders, usually stern and unmoving, shifted in their seats.

My family. Our society. Watching.

"You will arrange our wedding, Ethan," she continued, each word a hammer blow.

"And then, you will leave this estate. Permanently."

"Julian isn' t comfortable with you here."

I felt the familiar drain, the one I' d lived with for years.

Secretly using my Sentinel energy, my life force, to shield Chloe.

Shield her from her own messes, from the Elders' wrath.

Especially after the scandal three years ago.

That scandal led the Elders to force the Binding Alliance on me, a betrothal to Olivia from a Guardian family.

It was meant to protect Chloe, indirectly. To contain the damage she' d caused.

She never understood. She thought I abandoned her.

Now, this.

I looked at Chloe, at the triumph in her eyes.

My energy was low, my body weak.

"Alright, Chloe," I said, my voice barely a whisper.

I had nothing left to fight with.

She nodded, a small, cruel smile playing on her lips.

"Good."

Later, in the grand hall, with the portraits of my ancestors staring down, Chloe approached me again.

Julian was with her, looking pale and uncomfortable.

"Julian needs protection," Chloe said, her tone demanding.

"Give him your Ancestor' s Locket."

The locket. Passed down for generations. It offered protection but drew on the bearer' s vital energy.

My energy.

"He can' t wear it, Chloe," I tried to explain. "It' s a Sentinel artifact. It will react badly to him."

Julian clutched his chest, wincing as if he could already feel it.

"See?" Chloe snapped, ignoring my words. "He needs it."

"I can' t just give it to him," I said.

"Then make it work for him," she ordered.

She knew what that meant.

A Sentinel ritual. A direct transfer of my vital energy to Julian, to make the locket compatible, to shield him.

It was dangerous, especially now, in my weakened state.

"Chloe, this could..."

"Do it, Ethan," she cut me off. "Or Julian suffers."

I looked at Julian, frail and manipulative, preying on her.

I looked at Chloe, my fiancée, the woman I had spent years protecting.

The woman who was now destroying me.

I agreed.

The ritual was agony. I felt my already depleted energy pour out of me, into Julian.

He looked stronger, a faint color returning to his cheeks.

I felt like I was fading.

When it was over, Chloe didn' t even look at me.

"Take him to the old west wing," she told a retainer. "He can stay there."

The west wing. Isolated. Filled with more portraits of Sentinels who had sacrificed.

My prison.

I collapsed before they even got me through the door.