Mira Ashford POV
My eyelids felt heavy, sealed by tears and exhaustion. When I finally forced them open, the ornate ceiling of that nightmare room swam above me, blurred by the fierce morning light. My entire body was screaming. My head throbbed, my limbs ached, but the agony surging from deep inside me was a far crueler torture.
I tried to sit up, a sharp, stabbing pain lancing through my stomach. I gasped, collapsing onto the velvet comforter he must have tossed me onto. He was gone. The beast had finished his feast and retreated, leaving me in the wreckage of my own body.
I reached up, my hand shaking violently, and touched my chest. Beneath my skin, I felt the hot, jagged line where his metal knife had pressed the burning seal; it was a brand, a savage, terrifying scar meant to decl
