Isabella's POV
Dante’s whisper was a ghost on my skin long after he’d left the dining room.
This conversation isn’t over.
The words were a promise and a threat, coiled together in a way that left me breathless. I sat there for what felt like an eternity, the silence of the grand room pressing in on me, the echo of his voice the only thing I could hear.
For a moment, a terrifying, thrilling moment, I had almost wanted him to stay. I had almost wanted to see where that dangerous, shimmering thread of tension would lead.
And that was the thought that finally broke the spell.
What was I doing? I was sitting in the lion's den, debating the allure of the lion’s teeth, while the door to the cage was—metaphorically at least—swarming with people from the outside world.
The supply boat. The
