Her words were a whisper, but it sounded like breaking glass in the silence of the lair. I didn’t need my monster form to read her. The violet scent of defiance that had coated her spirit since she stepped off the train was now laced with something new and sharp. Fear.
It was delicious.
It wasn’t the blind terror of a typical sacrifice. It was the fear of consequence. The fear of the unknown cost. It was the very thing she’d tried to numb herself against with liquor and cynicism for months. It was the fear of a woman who finally realized that choosing the forbidden comes with a terrifying and permanent price.
I watched her eyes flick from my amber gaze to my chest, then quickly back up. She was cataloguing me. Measuring the strength of the human shield, calculating the exact moment I
