idy

ped her arm through her mother's, looking down her

klace from Cartier," Alexandria said, deliberately pitching her voice high to make sure every wo

warm blood soaked through the torn denim of my jeans,

. In this pit of vipers, a single sharp w

oug

me down against the sto

he room, smashing straight through Corene's suppression an

ed forward onto my hands, coughing quietly as

rthless outsider?" Corene's eyes bulged in disbeli

id, his voice dropping to a freezing rumble as his thumb rubbed slowly over the large sapphire set

her's shoulder. For all her spoiled arrogance, she was te

rene started, pointing a

th shut. Slowly, he leaned on his cane and walked across the room until

warm, doting father as he extended a wrinkled, liver-spotted hand toward me. "Th

e eyes. Keeping my gaze lowered, I avoided touching his hand and braced

ather," I mur

e red stains soaking through my jeans. Turn

d help the young mistre

uter corridor scurried in, her face pale as she s

o ice as he addressed his wife and daughter, "if I catch you putting on another trash

ainted lip so hard it dented, shooting a look of pure, mur

t of the grand hall without looking back once, le

ding to the servants' wing and my small courtyard. "Your knees are bleeding badly

k smile, wiping the cold sweat from

my damp, sparsely furnished room while Martha used tweez

d violently, a sharp hiss escaping my teeth, though m

calculation behind it; he needed me alive and obedient as a leash on Dillan-or perhaps

e around my knees and bowed out of the roo

ff my bloodstained jeans and the oversized whi

birthmark beneath my collarbone. Out of nowhere, the memory of that stranger's dark, p

ands on the edges of the cracked sink, I star

I couldn't afford to stay blind. I had to find out ever