His glowing eyes met mine. He let out a roar so loud, so angry, it rattled the windowpanes.

“What the hell is your problem?”

He slammed into me, teeth clamping on my coat again and jerking me forward.

“Don’t make me grab your whiskers again.”

He let me go, trained to recognise that word.

A frustrated whimper escaped him followed by a savage growl.

The fire in my blood paused as goosebumps scattered down my spine. He’d never put on such passionate displays before. Not before she arrived.

I went still. “Is it Rook?”

He cocked his head and sneezed.

I didn’t know what that meant.

Would he even recognise Rook’s name?

Bending over, I held his stare. “Has something happened to the girl?”

He hissed right in my face.

I took that as a yes.

Urgency shot down my legs to go to her—

I froze.

A thin bead of sweat ran down my temples as a burn centred in my heart that had nothing to do with the vitalsync core.

This felt...human. Messily intense instead of callously engineered.

But...

If she was in danger—if Marcus had noticed the unwanted connection forming between us and decided to use it against me—wouldn’t I be walking into yet another trap?

What would he make me do in order to stop hurting her?

The worse question was: what would I be willing to do to keep her safe?

Anything.

I didn’t like that answer.

I didn’t like the sudden flash of wrath and violence and—

Fuck.

Swaying backward, I shook my head.

Impossible.

How had this happened?

I didn’t even know her.

I wasn’t supposed to feel anything.

She meant nothing to me, so why did the very thought of Marcus and his men laying a single finger on her make me want to slaughter them in the slowest, sadistically cruel way possible?

I backed up, shaking my head as more rage filled me.

If she’d become yet another tool to keep me in-line, then...I’d somehow already fallen for it and—

Stalking into my quarters, I threw myself onto the well-worn couch.

Fuck it.

Whisper dashed after me, snarling, spitting, hissing.

He leapt onto the couch and shoved his nose right in my face. Panther spittle landed on my black shirt as he growled.

“I’m not going.” I crossed my arms, fighting the trembling in my legs demanding I go immediately. “She means nothing.”

My pulse violently disagreed.

My hands balled into white-knuckled fists. “I have no intention of getting tangled in their games. I was only using her to combat my pain. Her suffering has nothing to do with me.”

A wrenching somewhere in my soul—

Whisper roared right in my ear, making my skull throb.

“Fuck you too,” I shouted right back. “Even if I do go, I’m just running into Marcus’s trap. Do you think he’ll stop hurting her if he knows how quickly I’ll give in?” I shoved the cat away from me, hating the judgement in his stare. “I go now and he’s won, do you hear me? I go and I condemn both of us to a lifetime of yet more pain.”

Whisper hung his head and whimpered.

I didn’t know how much he understood but he definitely recognised my tone. With a flick of his long tail, he dropped to the floor and charged toward the door.

He didn’t look back as he vanished.

In the silence left behind, I glowered at the coffee table and how clean everything was. Not a speck of dust, not a piece of lint. I’d always kept this part of the palace tidy because my days were long and insufferably boring but...somehow, she’d transformed my home from a prison cell into something more.

Memories of her in the window seat—curled up in a patch of sunlight, dozing when she thought I wasn’t watching. Images of her moving around my space—her gaze flicking to study me every couple of minutes as if she was highly aware of me, just like I was highly aware of her.

I’d pretended to read a book—hiding how ridiculously addicted I’d become to watching her move about my quarters, her cooling presence muting my pain so I could breathe again.

If Marcus truly was hurting her, then...she’d never share this space with me again.

I’d return to being alone and hurting and—

Safe from being manipulated.

Gritting my teeth, I nodded.

“He won’t kill her. This is just a test. A little experiment to see if he can use her against me.” My voice dropped like stones. “A little pain will be fine. The minute he realises he can’t use her against me, he’ll leave her alone.”

Fury grew hotter, sharper—

“She’s not my responsibility.”

Ferocious rage seized my muscles—

“Not my problem.”

Flames erupted in my blood—

“Fuck.”

Chapter Forty-Six

“I TOLD YOU! I TRULY DON’T HAVE any more!”

Evelyn dug the tip of the dagger into my chest for the fourth time. Each time she raised the knife and acted as if she’d plunge it deep into my heart, she paused, laughed, and demanded I tell her where Lucien’s blood was.

“I don’t believe you,” she hissed. “Tell me where it is, and I’ll make it quick.”

“I have told you! I’ve told you as many times as you’ve asked!” My vision flickered as my migraine became unbearable. “Why do you even want it? It’s not like it will do you any good in here!”

“You don’t get to ask questions,” she hissed. “Tell me who the fuck you are! Why has he accepted you and none of us? Who are you?”

“I’m no one. Literally no one. So let me go and—”

“Bullshit,” Lydia snarled from above me, her fingernails drawing blood around my wrists. “You’re working for someone. You have to be. Why else is he just fucking you? What makes you so special?”

“He’s not. I’m not—”

“Stop lying!” Evelyn snarled. I gasped as she drove another fist into my side, directly over the previous injuries.

Lydia crouched over me, her face upside down. “Tell you what...we won’t kill you if you help us, how about that? Help us keep him company. We’ll look after him with you.”

“You’re trying to kill him,” I spat. “There’s no way I’ll let you get near him.”

“Did you hear that?” Lydia blinked at Evelyn. “She’s getting possessive. We definitely have to kill her.”

“Agreed.” Evelyn sighed. “Ah, well. I was getting bored anyway.” Double-fisting the knife, she raised it high. “I’m really going to kill you this time. Any last words?”

“Wait!”

“Goodbye—”

“I suggest you stop if you don’t want to die today,” a bored, cold baritone cut through the air. “However, even if you do...I can’t promise you’ll walk out of here alive.”

All three of us sucked in a breath, our eyes snapping to the doorway.

Lucien filled the entrance, lazy and nonchalant, leaning against the doorframe as if he had nothing better to do than interrupt a murder.

His gaze flicked to mine, his expression unreadable. Power hummed from him, low and electric, his long black coat pooling by his ankles. Whisper flanked him, fur bristling and eyes molten.

My heart leapt. My pulse skipped.

He looked...beautiful. Lethal and feral and not a single sign of the pain I knew he constantly suffered.

“Mr. Ashfall,” Evelyn simpered, still sitting on top of me with her dagger raised. “What are you doing here?”

Dropping his chin and watching us beneath hooded eyes, Lucien smiled softly.

Every moment we’d ever spent together—all the seconds I’d been drawn to him, threatened, commanded, and kissed by him—vanished as I stared at the man from the first day we met.

A callous, heartless, ridiculously terrifying predator who snapped necks and ordered his pet panther to slaughter people as easily as drinking tea.

An avalanche of stress crashed over me, adding pressure to my head. Hypersensitivity cracked every broken piece of me.