I shuddered, my fingers grazing my lips as if to erase the memory.But it was there, seared into me—a dangerous dance of desire and dread.
“How could I be so reckless?”I whispered to the empty room.
But the truth was far more damning.
I wasn’t just reckless.I was captivated.
And the worst part?I wanted more.
The thought struck me like a dagger to the chest, stealing my breath and tightening its grip on my sanity.I craved what I should have feared.
The realization sent a violent shudder through me.No.No more.
I stood abruptly, knocking over the chair in my haste.It clattered to the floor, the harsh crash a stark reminder of my situation’s fragility and the perilous tightrope I walked.I was tired—so exhausted—of being a pawn in their games.
Of men who sought to dominate.To dictate.To control me.
“No more.”
The words were steel against my tongue.My reflection in the mirror was no longer that of a frightened girl but of something colder, harder.Deadlier.My blue eyes darkened into shards of ice, steeled, unbreakable.
“I won’t let him, or any man control me again.”
My hands trembled—not from fear, but from rage.It coursed through me like molten fire, igniting something deep within, powerful and waiting to be unleashed.
I inhaled, steadying my breath, my resolve solidifying like tempered glass.
“I will rise from the shadows.”
The words spilled from my lips, quiet but lethal, the first droplet of a venomous concoction forming in my mind.
“I will create the most dangerous poison.”
The vow settled in my chest, a dark promise, a fate already written in blood.
“I will join my father’s society—but on my terms.I will infiltrate his world, his Timehunter empire, and tear it apart.”
A slow, dangerous smile curved my lips, my reflection smirking back at me as the pieces fell into place.If the Black Wraith thought he could break me with a single kiss or a few words, he was mistaken.
He had no idea what he had awakened.
I was far more dangerous than he could ever imagine.
My alchemist’s mind, once shackled in obedience, was now free.It pulsed with lethal possibilities, each more ruthless and deadlier than the last.The dormant hunger for vengeance unfurled in me like a creeping vine, twisting its way into every fiber of my being.
This was no longer about rebellion.
This was about war.
I would no longer be their pawn.I would be their reckoning.
And when the time came, I would make sure the Black Wraith watched as I crushed every chain and expectation and remade myself into something far more dangerous than any man had ever dared to imagine.
A Queen of Poison.
And I would not bow.
ChapterEleven
