R A I D E N
My eyes never left her.
“You gave commands to my guards,” I continued. “To my staff.”
“Yes.”
“You ordered the removal of pack heirlooms.”
She finally smiled then, not wide, not mocking but assured.
“I ordered the removal of things that don’t belong to me,” she corrected. “There’s a difference.”
A dangerous silence stretched between us. I took a step forward. Then another. Each movement deliberate, predatory.
“And who,” I asked quietly, “gave you the authority to decide what belongs in this room and what doesn't?”
She didn’t retreat.
Didn’t lower her gaze.
“You did,” she said simply.
The words hit harder than any defiance.
I stopped a few steps away from her, close enough now to feel her presence, warm, steady, unshaken.
Close enough to see the faint smudge of dus
