Her trust was a living thing.
It trembled against my hands, throbbed in the frantic rhythm of her pulse beneath her skin, whispered through every breath she took. Trust was fragile, but with her, it was also raw and unshaped, like molten metal waiting to be forged. And I would be the one to shape it.
Cheyenne knelt before me on the chaise, her wrists bound neatly behind her back with the black silk ribbon. She wasn’t fighting. Not anymore. She wasn’t rigid with panic or stiff with resistance. Her body was alive, tense, and trembling, yes, but her stillness was deliberate. She was breathing through the storm swirling in her head, her gaze darting toward me every few seconds, as though I held all the answers she’d been afraid to ask for.
And maybe I did.
I crouched beside her, tilting he
