Jocelynn stared at the neatly folded stack of letters, feeling the weight of months of pain and joy, terror and love, desperate hope and looming dread all weighing down on her.
The months since Ashlynn's wedding had been the hardest in Jocelynn's life. She'd lost her sister, left her home, felt abandoned by her parents… She'd slowly realized that she'd fallen in love with a monster, and by the time she started planning her escape, it was too late. She'd been tortured and humiliated in the frozen dungeons beneath Lothian Manor, and she only survived the ordeal because her beloved cousin Eleanor sacrificed herself so that she might live.
Then, with a knife in her hands, she'd stabbed her tormentor to death, piercing his flesh dozens of times before the last, gurgling breath escaped his bloody lips. And Owain had praised her for it.
