UpNextDrama · Free serialized drama — one more episode.

He Pushed Me Into the Void, So This Time I Said No novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Fine Print

Page three of the guild's Bond said what page three always said.

If a bonded partner dies, all assets and talents go to the survivor.

The same last line was in the same gray type, and the timer was running down.

I did not wait for them.

I tapped No, and the gold bar broke apart.

A player: [DECLINED. she declined AGAIN]

A player: [the hearth queen does not miss]

Dee snorted into her stew pot.

Across the dark, on the planks that led east, a man was walking toward our wall with both hands open at his sides.

He was big and gray-faced, in his forties, with ice in his beard, and a long coat that had been burned at the hem.

He stopped where the gold light started.

"Call me the guildmaster," he said. "Everybody does."

"Why did you send me a Bond?"

"Because my lieutenant did." He rubbed his face. "I was asleep. He thought it was the fast way. I came to say I'm sorry and to ask for help in the same breath, and I hate that."

"What kind of help?"

"I've got three thousand people on a hundred and forty patches. The fires went out Day 7. Half of them are alive because they huddle in rows." He swallowed. "I heard the Hearth Queen can keep a fire burning eight hours."

"Eight hours a log."

"I'll pay five thousand logs a night."

Dee stopped stirring.

Five thousand logs was more than I had made in nine days.

I could feel the pull of it, and I could feel Gabe not touching me, on purpose, so that I would choose.

"What do I sign?"

He drew a flat gray slab out of his coat and held it across the gap.

"A service contract. Not a Bond. I wrote the template myself on Day 8."

"Wrote it?"

"Bought it," he said, after a beat. "I'll be honest. Someone sold it to me."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Pushed Me Into the Void, So This Time I Said No from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.

← Chapter 14 · All chapters · Chapter 16 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend