The silence that followed his demand was not empty; it was heavy, suffocating, a physical weight that pressed against the velvet hangings of the bed and choked the dying fire in the grate. Caelan Virellion, Duke of Ravenshade, felt the familiar, cold burn of violence uncoiling in his gut—a sensation he had spent centuries mastering, now threatening to snap the leash he kept so tightly wound around his own soul.
He stared at Isadora. She was so close he could count the golden lashes framing her wide, terrified eyes. He could smell the lingering scent of smoke on her skin, beneath the lavender soap Mrs. Blight forced on guests, and beneath that, the rich, iron-sweet pulse of her blood—the blood that was currently keeping him alive.
But his focus was not on her scent. It was on the faint, mottled bruising blooming like a dark flower on the delicate column of her throat, just above the collar of the silk robe she clutched like a shield.
