The cold stone floor bit into her bare knees, but the pain was a distant echo compared to the fire in his grasp. His fingers, iron-strong, dug into the soft flesh of her jaw, forcing her to look up into the stormy grey eyes that had haunted her dreams for weeks.
“You belong to me now,” he growled, the low rumble of his voice vibrating through his hand and into her bones.
She trembled, a full-body shudder she couldn’t hope to control. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird in a cage. Run. Fight. Something. But her limbs were leaden, locked in place by the sheer force of his will and the terrifying truth of his words.
And then it pulsed.
A searing, white-hot throb around her wrist, right beneath the leather cuff she’d used to hide it. The mark. His mark. It burned with a ven
