I wasn't sure how much more my body could take. My muscles felt shredded, my skin prickled from the cold that never left the room, and every nerve was a live wire. But the shadow didn't care. Shadows never did.
The mattress dipped beside me before I could even catch my breath. He hovered there—weightless, but heavy as a storm. The mirror showed him: broad, faceless, filling the glass like a silhouette carved from night. His presence pressed down; the room smelled like ozone and old roses.
“You’re beautiful when you fight,” he murmured, close enough that the breath across my ear felt like frost and fire at once. “It makes taking you worth it.”
Before I could answer, something metallic scraped the nightstand. The minibar door swung open by itself and a heavy brass bar—polished, cold—lifte
