Vesper let out a cold chuckle. "Get the hell out of my cell."
That did it.
Lucian moved.
No warning. No wind-up. One second he was standing six feet from her and the next his hand was around her throat and her back was against the stone wall, her manacles pulled taut and her feet off the ground.
He didn't squeeze. The hand was a frame. A display case. A way of holding Vesper Willow's face at the exact height where she had to look into his eyes. He leaned in close enough that she could see the gold flooding his irises, the pupil narrowing to a slit that wasn't human, the muscle in his jaw jumping with the rhythm of a man holding back something.
When he spoke, his voice was not singular, his wolf braided with his own.
"You spit on her. You sat in a cell you earned and spit on a woman who came to set you free. You called her a whore. You laughed. You think this is amusing. She might have come down here with compassion. I am not her."
His grip tightened. Vesper's breath shortened.
