Maria.
The door opened.
I turned instinctively, my breath catching as Daniel stepped into the room. For a brief moment, everything seemed to pause, time, sound, even my thoughts. His foot barely crossed the threshold before he stopped short, his entire body stiffening as his eyes landed on Galen.
The look that crossed his face was unmistakable.
Shock.
Not the mild kind, not surprised, but the sharp, naked kind, like a man who had just been caught standing in the ruins of a mistake he thought no one would ever discover. His eyes widened slightly, his jaw tightening as if he had forgotten how to breathe.
And then he looked at her the way someone looks at a crime they regret committing.
My heart sank.
I didn't know what bound them together, didn't know the shape or name of it, but I knew one thing with certainty: whatever it was, it wasn't ordinary. It wasn't the relationship between an Alpha and a servant. It wasn't casual, and it definitely wasn't insignificant.
