The dream still had its fingers in my hair.
Restraints. Vivienne's high, sweet voice. Your body has never belonged to you, sweetheart.
My breath came fast and uneven. The studio smelled of paper and ink and that low, green scent that always clung to Darius, pine and wild grass and something colder beneath it. Slowly the dream peeled away. I was not strapped to a steel table. I was in my new studio, on the second floor of the building I'd signed for last month, with the man who had been teaching me how to fight for the last three weeks.
Darius hadn't moved.
His hands were lifted at the level of my waist, close enough to catch me, careful enough not to touch. His throat shifted under the blade as he swallowed once, slow. I stared at that small motion, fascinated and horrified in equal me
