(Nova POV)
The tower chamber was beautiful in the way graves are beautiful—polished marble floors veined with black, velvet drapes the color of spilled wine, a four-poster bed carved with twisting thorns that looked ready to bite. Candles burned in iron sconces shaped like raven wings. A fire roared in the hearth even though the night outside the barred windows was warm. Everything screamed luxury. Everything screamed cage.
I sat on the edge of the bed, wrists still wrapped in shadow-cuffs that tightened whenever I tested them. The shallow cut on my throat had scabbed over, a thin red line that stung when I swallowed. Between my legs ached—pleasure and violation knotted together so tightly I couldn't untangle them. My body remembered his mouth, his hands, the way the bond had sung when he moved inside me. My heart remembered the dagger at my throat and the lie he'd spat like venom: You mean nothing.
