The first thing I felt was heat. Not from a flame. From eyes. Watching. Weighing. Wanting. My back was against a wall, wrists caught before I could even breathe. The air was thick with incense and something darker…. leather, wine, and sin. I didn’t fight. I couldn’t. The hand that held me wasn’t rough, just firm, as if it belonged to someone who’d done this before, a thousand times, in a thousand shadows. I knew I was no longer outside the door. I was inside it. The Circle.
My vision blurred. The room wasn’t what I expected. No desks. No pews. Just stone. Velvet. Masks. Dozens of them. Men and women, faces half-covered, dressed like temptation had a uniform. Some standing, some sitting, some whispering to each other like they’d been waiting for this exact moment. For me.
A voice cut thro
