Damien
The key turned with a sound like bone cracking in silence, and for a moment I just stood there, my hand still on the iron, feeling the weight of what I had done settle into my spine like chains. The lock was final, cold and absolute, and yet nothing in me felt steady, because when I turned when I let myself look she was there.
Pressed against the door, her breath coming fast, her hair loose from the wind and curling wild over her shoulders, the fire painting ribbons of copper through the strands. Her gown had slipped when I carried her, baring the sharp line of her collarbone, the pale curve of her throat, and the sight of it carved something deep and vicious inside me, something I had held chained for far too long.
Gods, her mouth.
It should not have undone me the way it did, t
