The hotel safe house wasn’t a cellar, but it still felt like a cage.
It was a windowless suite on the secure sub-level of the hotel, decorated in sterile shades of gray and white. Two council guards stood outside the heavy steel door, their presence a constant reminder that for the next twelve hours, I belonged to the commission, not to Cassian.
I paced the length of the plush rug, my boots making faint, rhythmic thuds against the floorboards.
My skin still tingled where Cassian’s fingers had held mine in the grand hall. I could still hear the lethal rumble in his chest when he threatened to burn the city down. He had looked unhinged ready to spill blood in front of the elders just to keep me from being hauled away.
I sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, burying my face in my hands
