|| Penelope ||
Her pulse raced under my fingers, her heartbeat betraying her calm facade. But even as her breath came in short, uneven gasps, a slow, eerie smile spread across her lips.
“Penelope,” she rasped, feigning innocence, “what are you doing?”
Liar.
Her voice wavered just enough to betray her. I tightened my grip, my claws pressing against her skin — not enough to break it, not yet, but enough to make my warning clear.
“Penelope, let go of my mother!” Isabella’s scream cut through the chaos, raw with desperation.
I barely registered her voice. My grip remained ironclad around the woman’s throat, her gasps filling the air like a dying ember. The world around me had narrowed to a singular focus — the thundering pulse beneath my fingers, the sheer wrongness of this woman standin
