en

ubbed at my skin until it was raw, desperate to wash away the sickenin

arsh breath of frustration. Doria's little performance tonight hadn't just

n red paint and draping herself in si

icating fire. Doria... Doria was a drab, gray sparrow trying to glue bright feathers to her wings. She was a clumsy

arp twist of my wrist and step

, insignificant shadow huddled in the far corner of our massive bed. The cloying sce

y oak armoire, retrieved a separate quilt, and tossed it

t her flinch behind me, but I didn't care.

ss. The pressure from my father, the endless political maneuvering

to appease my father and paint the Sheppard clan with a veneer of "mercy" after we slaughtered

was supposed to

ears, and her womb remained as empty

rr

r wasn't just a personal failure; it was the ultimate disgrace. My peers had already secured

human woman. I could hear the whispers behind my back in the gilded halls of power, t

d an Exarch who couldn't even plant a seed in his ow

the narrowness of the chai

e shipped off to the dark mines or the military camps with the rest of the Conrad survivors. My so-called m

ia

tossing and turning on the chaise lounge across the room. Every a

th me anymore. I was a plague h

estless shifting stopped, and his breathing fi

ing a shiver up my legs. The room was bitterly cold, and he only had a thin

habit. The instinct of a woman who st

the sofa. I reached out, my fingers gently grasping the

leep. His lips parted, and a voice, thick with sleep but dri

n... a barr

hed out of my lungs. The blood in my veins didn'

in the unconscious depths

ren v

tner. Not a woman who had spent seven years trying to love him. I was just a worth

om my numb fingers,

. The burning humiliation from earlier tonight-the sharp, sta

ge, hollow numbness s

me. I lay back down, pulling the covers up to my ch

could eventually melt the ice around his heart. I had once believed the sacred bondi

I finally understood. There

ion. A bad investment occupying a sp

Humiliation was a sharp knife that made you bleed and cry. This... this was a slow-acting

go flashed in my mind. He had been distant then, too, but I had

thetic illusion I ha

ffocating need to be loved by Jaden Sheppard-a need tha

to cry. I just felt... empty. And in that cold, abso