That’s where the truth hides… in the middle of confusion.
Harlan growls something low, his voice scraping like stone, and I catch the flicker of panic in her eyes, just for a second.
That’s enough.
I reach for the oil again, letting it slide between my fingers, slow and deliberate. I don’t rush. I don’t break rhythm.
When I touch her, it’s not to claim.
It’s tomark.
To show her that fear doesn’t have to mean loss of control, that surrender, the real kind, starts when you stop running from the dark and learn to breathe inside it.
I watch her shiver and exhale. She’s fighting less now, but she hasn’t stopped. She’s trying to understand what we want from her.
What I want, and that’s the question that keeps her from slipping away completely, because she can’t read me.
Adrian burns… Harlan consumes.
But me—Iobserve.
I memorize the tremor in her voice when she whispers my name, the twitch in her pulse when I draw close, the way she tilts her head, afraid, yes, but still looking for something inside the dark.
Something only I can give.
Patience.
Precision.
Purpose.
That’s the real hunt.
Not the chase. Not the claim.
The moment she understands that we’re not here to take from her, but to show her what she’s always been capable of giving.
“Breathe, Lila.”
Her body tenses, then obeys. A breath leaves her lungs, and I watch her eyes close.
Adrian stills.
Harlan quiets.
For a heartbeat, everything stops.
And in that silence, I feel it, the shift.
The transformation.
The moment when fear turns into power.
When she stops being prey and starts becoming something entirely else to us.
Lila just became our everything… and that’s dangerous.
CHAPTER 17
