Chapter 9

Fading in and out of consciousness, Evangeline is carried by someone with scorching heat, hears murmured arguments, and fears for Apollo. Jacks speaks into her mind, implying Apollo caused her wounds. She is briefly held in Jacks’s cool arms before drifting into a dream of the Archer and the Fox, a cursed hunt that mirrors compelled harm between lovers.

Evangeline wakes in searing pain beneath iron bars in a sumptuous yet ominous room and realizes she is in Chaos’s underground castle. Chaos greets her calmly, claiming she is free to leave though her injuries make it impossible. She worries Jacks delivered her here after apologizing at Wolf Hall.

Jacks arrives, surprisingly at ease with Chaos. He bluntly explains Apollo nearly killed her, leaving a ruined shoulder and a deeply wounded leg, and warns human healing risks infection and permanent damage. Chaos offers vampire venom to accelerate healing, though it risks compulsion and potential transformation if human blood is later consumed.

When a female vampire enters to administer the bite, Evangeline refuses, demanding clothes and time to heal naturally. Chaos readies restraints; at Jacks’s suggestion, bars crash down to cage her bed. Despite her struggles and pleas, Chaos seizes her wrist and presents it to the vampire.

The vampire’s fangs sink into Evangeline’s wrist, beginning the forced venom treatment. Evangeline is left terrified—not only of Apollo’s compulsion and betrayal, but now of what the venom might make her become.