ELODIE’S POV
My hands were still shaking, even after we got back. Even after the door closed behind us, even after the silence wrapped around the house again. I could still feel it. Damon’s grip, the force of it. The way he had said I had no choice. I exhaled slowly, pressing my hands together as if I could steady them by force.
“You are safe.”
Nathan’s voice cut through the noise in my head, I looked up. He was watching me, not casually. Not distantly. Carefully. Like he was tracking every shift in me.
“I know,” I said.
But my voice didn’t match the words, he noticed. Of course he did.
“He won’t take you,” Nathan said. There was no hesitation in his tone. No uncertainty.
And for some reason, that mattered more than the words themselves.
“I told him,” I said quietly. “I told him I
