Verret’s Pov
I stood over her a long time, watching the way she curled herself around the floor as if it could hold her together. She looked small and fragile. I could not fathom what had happened, when I could have taken her life and ended whatever she carried inside her.
“Thank you,” she breathed at last, voice thin. “Thank you for saving me.”
Do not be quick, I told myself. Do not be sudden with mercy. “Do not thank me…not yet,” I said aloud, and the words tasted strange in my mouth.
I shut the door, locked the hall behind me, and let the silence of my chambers settle. My skin still prickled where Ramon had bled.
The wound I had given him had closed so fast the air had barely had time to taste iron. That more than any other thing disturbed me. Nothing I had done in a hundred wint
