Valentina's POV
I trembled as panic rose in my chest. My throat locked in.
But his hand didn’t move. It stayed there on my lower back like a warning.
I knew what this was, it was a branding. Speak, and you earn a place.
Stay silent, and you become nothing but a trembling ornament in the palace of monsters.
I looked up slowly, letting my eyes meet the first man I could focus on. His eyes were ink-dark, and there was a scar running from the side of his lip to his jaw.
I turned my head to the next. Older. Wiser, maybe, cold.
And then I looked forward again. I didn’t know what to say.
But my lips moved.“My name is Valentina,” I said, my voice soft. “And I belong to Ryker Blackthorn.”
My own words turned to glass in my throat. I expected laughter, disdain.
But there was only silence b
