The night dragged on like a blade against bone.

The chains bit into my wrists, every twitch sending sharp heat through the welts they’d carved into my skin. The fire inside me didn’t sleep it coiled, hissed, pressed against the walls of my veins like it wanted to split me open.

And Killian?

He hadn’t left.

He sat across the room, slouched in the shadows with a glass of amber liquor in one hand, his silver gaze never straying far. Watching me. Always watching.

I let the silence stretch ...