Aveline looked up and met his eyes, still a little breathless from the run.
The suddenness of the way he had pulled her close, and the quiet intensity in his gaze, left her momentarily unguarded. And those dark eyes… the way he looked at her, as though she were something fragile, something precious, loosened something deep inside her chest.
For a fleeting, dangerous moment, she forgot what she was and what she was to him. She was his slave, and nothing more.
Theron lowered his gaze slightly, his voice softer now, stripped of the easy humor he had worn so effortlessly moments ago.
"Those women… were they the girls from before?" he asked. "From when we were young?"
He needed to be sure.
Aveline nodded. "They were," she said quietly.
They had once been her friends, at least in name. But she had never liked the way they treated him. The day she turned on them, gave them a taste of their own cruelty, something had shifted irrevocably. After that, they had left her, immediately.
