Bound in Sin
> "I'm the one who's going to kill you."
The tip of Aria's blade touched my throat, cool and sharp, glinting with runes that pulsed like they were alive.
I didn't dare move. My back was against the blood-stained wall. Judgment's crumpled body still smoldered in the corner. I had no plan, no weapons, and barely any strength.
Only a glitching system and a heartbeat full of fear.
> [System Alert: Contract Override Detected.]
[User Aria Vayne is bound under Clause 9: Mutual Survival Dependency.]
[Attempting to kill Host will result in Subject's instant death.]
My eyes widened. "You... can't kill me."
Aria flinched, ever so slightly.
> [System Message to Subject Aria Vayne:]
"Sorry, sweetheart. He dies, you die. That's the price of crossing the Devil's line."
– Lucien, the Devil
She lowered the blade by an inch. Her jaw clenched so hard it looked painful.
"You think this changes anything?" she said, voice icy. "I will find a way to break the contract. And when I do…"
"I'll be first on your hit list. Got it."
We stared at each other. For a moment, the silence was louder than any explosion.
Then I smirked. "You don't seem thrilled to be my bodyguard."
She turned away.
"I'm not your bodyguard," she said. "I'm your curse."
---
We moved through the city ruins under cover of night. Aria knew all the dead zones—places the Chosen's surveillance couldn't reach. I followed her past burned churches, broken domes, neon-lit graveyards where the dead were never buried.
And then we reached it: a safehouse.
Carved into the side of an abandoned subway tunnel, reinforced with wards and sigils I couldn't even begin to understand. The place reeked of incense and dried blood.
Aria lit a lantern. Her red eyes flicked to me in the flickering light.
"Shirt off."
I blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You're bleeding through the coat," she said. "And you've got holy contamination. If I don't treat it, you'll burn from the inside."
So. Not flirting.
Cool.
I peeled off the jacket, then the shirt—wincing as fabric stuck to the gash on my side. The wound glowed faintly with a golden shimmer. It wasn't healing. It was spreading.
Aria leaned close, unrolling a vial of black powder and a knife.
"You're going to feel pain," she warned.
"I've felt worse," I said.
She didn't smile. She carved a sigil into my skin.
I screamed.
---
> [System Error Detected.]
[Pain threshold exceeded. Adaptive Resilience activated.]
[New Trait: Pain Symbiosis – Increased resistance when wounded by divine energy.]
I was panting when she finished. The glow in the wound faded, replaced by a deep scar.
I looked at her. "You've done this before."
"Hundreds of times," she said. "To people better than you."
I tried to laugh, but pain tore through my ribs.
Then she sat across from me, pulled out a flask, and drank.
I watched her for a moment.
"What are you?" I asked. "You fight like a god, but you hate your own kind. You tried to kill me, then saved me. And now we're tied together by some cursed Devil's code."
She didn't answer right away.
Then she said, "I was supposed to be the Chosen of Light. I was born into prophecy. They trained me to destroy darkness."
Her voice was hollow.
"But when I met the Devil, he showed me something worse than darkness."
I leaned in. "What did he show you?"
She looked at me—just for a second. Her eyes shimmered with something that could have been regret. Or rage.
"My future."
And then the sigil on her hand lit up—brighter than ever before.
> [System Alert: Hidden Function Activated.]
[Devil's Contract — Dual Sync Mode: 1% Complete.]
"What the hell is Dual Sync Mode?" I asked.
She froze.
Then whispered one word like a curse:
"Bonding."