Camilla's Pov...
My head was a slab of throbbing stone. My body felt flayed, every muscle screaming in protest.
Why did the ache between my legs burn the sharpest?
My eyes flew open.
I knew this ceiling. The faint crack in the plaster shaped like a rabbit. The smell of Sophia's lavender detergent and dust.
I was in her guest room. In the slightly-too-small bed that had once felt like a safe cocoon.
Memory crashed over me in shattered, brutal pieces.
Lucian Throne. The storage room. The blood. His hands. His mouth on mine. His voice: "Beg. Me."
He had sex with me.
No.
No, no, no, NO!
I could recall details with horrifying clarity: the sea-glass green of his eyes in the hellish light, the iron grip of his hands on my hips, the taste of whiskey and dark promise on his tongue.
But the end… the end was a black hole. A wall of static after the screaming crescendo. I remembered the overwhelming, desperate climb, but not the fall. Not how it stopped.
