I fixed my gaze on Freya, struggling to piece everything together. I knew better than to expect any honest answers from Hadrian—it simply wasn’t his way. The truth, if it existed, would have to be gathered from fragments, like shards of a shattered mirror. Judging by what little I could decipher, Hadrian had brought me to his bedroom out of some inexplicable pang of guilt after his sister’s so-called prank. He had undressed me but at least left me clothed in his shirt, refrained from biting me, and likely vacated the room once I was settled. But none of that explained his sudden and ferocious bloodlust. Could it have anything to do with me? Or was I just conjuring connections out of thin air, grasping at sensation where none existed? Perhaps it was all an elaborate coincidence.
Hadrian’s
