Katrina’s POV
The walls gleamed too perfectly. Glass polished to blindness. Marble floors that echoed my footsteps like mockery. Every corner of Damon’s penthouse reminded me I didn’t belong here.
A cage, no matter how golden, was still a cage.
I paced the length of my room, anger simmering hotter with every step. His rules replayed in my mind—each one a chain he’d fastened around my throat. Eat what he provided. Wear what he chose. Speak only when permitted.
I hated it.
Hated him. Hated the way my chest raced whenever his presence filled a room. Hated that I could feel my pulse spike at his mere gaze, though my mind screamed that I was his prisoner, bought and caged. And worst of all, I hated that his rules had begun to stick—not because I obeyed them, but because they were insidious
