The blood was still dripping from my thumb when the shadows began to move.

"You have no idea what you've done."

He formed from the darkest corner. Tall. Brooding. His eyes were so black they seemed an actual absence of color. He looked at me like he could reach my soul, and I felt like I couldn't move.

"That document is not a lease," he said. "And your blood on it only sealed your fate."

He stepped closer. The temperature dropped ten degrees.

"You belong here now. For fifteen days. You cannot leave. The contract will not allow it."

Behind him, three shapes materialized. Massive. Black fur that swallowed light. Red eyes that tracked my every movement. Hellhounds. I knew this the way I knew my own name, though I'd never seen one, never believed in them. They were looking at my blood dripping on the floor.

My finger stung from the pen that cut me when I signed the lease.

Four hundred dollars a month for a two-bedroom in the Arts District. The pen the broker handed me was cheap, plastic, leaking. It sliced my thumb on the cap. I signed with the cut still bleeding, red smearing across the signature line, and the broker smiled like I'd given him exactly what he wanted.

I should have noticed that.

I should have noticed a lot of things. The building had no buzzer. No other tenants. The hallway lights flickered in a rhythm that felt deliberate. But the apartment was stunning, hardwood floors, gas stove, actual counter space, windows facing the neon-slicked Arts District, and the rent was four hundred dollars.

In this city. Four hundred dollars.

And now I'm trapped in a beautiful apartment with something ancient, handsome, wearing a tailored suit, and three hellhounds that looked like they were made of nightmares.

The largest one padded over and sat at my feet. Its head was level with my hip. It was warm, which surprised me. I expected something forged in hell to feel different.

"You're not afraid," he said. Not a question. He tilted his head, and the movement was too precise, too controlled, like a predator recalibrating.

"I lived in a studio with a roach infestation and a landlord who sold meth." I scratched behind the hellhound's ear. It leaned into my hand. "Ancient shadow entity is, frankly, an upgrade."

Something shifted in his expression. Not amusement. Closer to recalculation.

He closed the distance between us in two steps. No sound. No warning. Just suddenly there, close enough that I could feel the cold radiating off him like standing next to an open freezer.

"You think this is a joke." His voice dropped. "Fifteen days. Every rule I give you, you follow. Every boundary I set, you respect. Break one, and the contract extracts payment in ways your body will remember long after your mind forgets."

My pulse spiked. I held his gaze.

"And if I refuse all of it?"

His lips pulled back in a predatory curve that had nothing to do with kindness.

"Then you die."

I looked at the marble floors, then back at this handsome nightmare. I thought about my last security deposit that I never got back, and the landlord who sold meth.

"That's not a dealbreaker."