GRACEMy stomach lurched. shit.

“Answer me!” Damon’s roar split the air, rattling through my chest like it meant to shake my ribs apart.

My throat locked up. I couldn’t speak even if I wanted to, the words that might have saved me were dust anyway.

‘I’m not a spy. I’m not here to destroy you.’ They were filthy Lies wrapped in fear. Even if I dared to speak them would he believe me? Would I?

My hand stayed hidden behind my back, fingertips smudged with ink. I didn’t need a soothsayer to tell me that that alone was treason written on my skin. Treason punishable by death. It was a common law.

I swallowed, the sound harsh in my own ears. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth like glue.

Damon didn’t lunge, he stalked. Each step deliberate, thrumming with violence held on a leash. The way he carried himself made rage look deliberate, like he crafted it from scratch.

I was terrified. This was no child’s play, or some petty squabble. This was real fury.

“Really?” His voice dropped low, stretched into a drawl meant to strip me bare. He was close enough to sniff out the truth clinging to me. I backed away before I knew it.

First mistake. His eyes turned to slits instantly.

Shit.

The window chilled the air at my back. Its wooden handles grazed my skin, raising gooseflesh along my arms.

I glanced out into the dark night, the crow was long gone and the ground was too far below. When I turned back, I pressed my back hard against the window, the wood biting into my flesh.

Damon had moved closer. Too close.

Each step gnawed at my sanity. His breathing was too calm, his hands had curved at the wrists.

I looked up from his arms to his face and realization struck me cold.

He was going to kill me. Unless I beat him to it.

If he caged me in this room, if he decided my fate, then the death I’d prayed for since the first night of this marriage would come true. But not by his hand. Not by the wolf who had supposedly slit my mother’s throat.

No. If death was coming, I would choose it.

Sweat stung my forehead. My pulse raced wild and sick as I darted a second glance out the window.

I sucked in a sharp breath, trying to prime myself.How many stories was it? Four? Five? It would hurt, but it would be quick. It would be better than his claws, better than his teeth.

My fingers dug into the sill, my body trembling but my will locked tight.

I climbed onto the ledge. Damon’s eyes blew wide.

“Are you insane?” His voice cracked with fury and fear. I smiled, his breathing turned ragged.

I would die knowing I had the last smile. The last say. The window yawned wide as I pushed myself backward until it was one shove away. The air rushed against me as I leaned out.

“ You. Wouldn’t. Dare.” His voice shook the walls but I didn’t take orders. Not from him. Not from anyone.

I shoved off the sill.

For a moment, I tasted freedom , the wind clawing at my hair, the night swallowing me whole.

It stopped. Pain exploded but not from meeting the floor.Claws dug into my forearm, ripping skin and partly flesh. I screamed as my body jolted, dangling half out the window, his grip the only thing keeping me from splattering on the ground.

“Grace. Shit!” He muttered, when I traced his range of sight, I screamed even more. A sharp metallic smell engulfed me at once. I was bleeding.

His strength hauled me back inch by inch. His eyes were lit ablaze, his jaw a hard line of fury. I thrashed, begging gravity to take me, but Damon was stronger, always stronger.

“No!” My voice cracked in my skull, silent to his ears, but in my mind it thundered.

Let me go. Let me fall. End this torture!

His arm clamped my waist and wrenched me back inside. My spine slammed the wall, his body pinning mine, chest to chest, thigh to thigh. Heat radiated off him, his scent drowning out the blood on my skin. Musky, pine…male.

My breasts were pressed against him as I struggled for air, but his grip pinned me in place. His forearm pressed firm across my collarbone, careful not to choke me but trapping me underneath his muscle and weight reminding me, who held power.

Tears burned at the corners of my eyes. My skin was hot where he touched me, cold where the night breeze still licked through the window.

“You think I’d let you leap to your death?” he snarled, his mouth grazing my ear. “That would be too easy.”

The press of his body forced me deeper into the wall. My knees wobbled, not from weakness but from the terrifying awareness of how close he was. Every nerve in my body screamed in confusion. I wanted him gone but I wanted him close.

His eyes had gone black, He was losing his grip on the wolf, and the mate bond thrummed between us. I could feel the pull between us as his face inched closer to mine but the fury was still there.

“I’ll ask you one last time, Grace,” he whispered, arm pressed harder, keeping me still without crushing. “Tell me the truth.”

I could barely see him through the blur in my vision, but I forced myself to meet his eyes. My hands shook, yet I pressed my palms against the wall beside me as if to anchor myself.

“Are you working with your father?” he demanded, words laced with venom.

I would never betray my pack or my mother’s memory. Damon could do what he liked.

I shook my head slowly but his eyes narrowed into slits. Claws lengthened at his fingertips but didn’t touch my skin as if he was afraid to touch me.

“For years,” he hissed, “your father has been my poison. Maybe it’s time I return the favor.”

His wolf clawed at the surface. His scent overwhelmed me, every whiff of him male and primal. The bond turned my hatred into a storm of heat and disgust.

I wanted to laugh but I wasn’t granted the right to do so. The goddess I’d prayed to for eighteen years had mocked me, gifting me a mate who hated me as much as I hated him. Where was mercy in that? Where was deliverance?

After all, wasn’t he the monster who had supposedly ripped out my mother’s throat and left her on the cold floor?

My body weakened against the wall. Blood dripped from the gouges in my arm, metallic scent curling into my nose. My knees buckled in exhaustion. My chest heaved.

The memories struck, cruel reminders of the goddess’s mockery.

When my stepmother paid guards to string me up and whip me raw.

When she locked me in a room with an older wolf, his sour breath burning my skin as he tore at my dress.

That night I was “lucky.” Luck had been my only mercy.

Compared to that, Damon was nothing new. Just another cruelty. Another prison and I was done with prisons!

Something in me snapped.

I grabbed his arm, fingers digging into muscle. My eyes shot wide, daring him.

Do it.

The words screamed in my skull, louder than his growl, louder than the mate bond pulsing between us.

Finish it, Damon. I dare you.

He froze.

For the first time, his control slipped. Shock was written all over his face.

I would rather die than let another person have some form of control over me. The memories flowed like a river in my head as I forced Damon’s grip to grow harder.

He jerked back, tearing himself away as if my touch had burned him. My body slid down the wall, collapsing onto the floor. My lungs dragged in ragged breaths, my chest heaving.

“You…” His voice was raw, frayed at the edges. He shook his head, as if my sight burned him.

The wolf writhed under his skin, his breath ragged, his gaze locked on me like I was both enemy and lifeline.

Then, ice-cold: “Never do that again.”

Never do what again? My eyes bore confusion. What was he talking about.

Then he left and the mate pull lessened.

Silence filled the room, heavy as the realization dawned on me . I stared at the floor, horror blooming in my chest. The mate bond.

What was the extent to our fated connection? Could he see every thought? Every memory…? Had he seen my last thoughts? Had he felt every jagged edge of my past? My shame, my scars, the filth I’d kept locked away…

Had I just laid bare before the one man I hated most?

I wrapped my arms around myself, shoulders hunching, rocking gently as if I could sew myself back together.