CIARAN
I closed the door behind me, and the sound echoed against the noise in my head.
The girl didn’t even try to answer. No sound, no word, just wide eyes and trembling silence, as if I were talking to a mute person.
She wasn’t defiant. I knew this because I’d spent my time around defiant men and women alike. This... This was something else.
Maybe she was afraid I was too volatile to be spoken to.
Maybe she was right.
The truth was that the thought of her thinking that way irritated me.
I'd dared kings, warlords, witches who'd cut their own wrists before refusing to give me what I wanted.
But her? She just sat there, in silence, letting my words dangle between us like a fog.
My mind flashed back to her in the woods—bleeding, terrified, but alive enough to look at me as if I wa
