Page 75 of Savage Crown

I step forward, closing the distance again, forcing her against the edge of my desk.

She doesn’t retreat any further.

She won’t run.

Not this time.

I can see it in her eyes—the war inside her, the unspoken pull that neither of us want to acknowledge.

I want to shake her. I want to ruin her.

I want the truth.

But instead—I do nothing.

I let her go.

If I don’t—I will do something reckless.

And we’re already standing too close to the edge.

Her breath is unsteady as she steps around me, moving toward the door.

She hesitates once, just for a second.

She leaves.

I stand there, staring at the space where she had been, feeling like I just let something slip through my fingers that I may never be able to get back.

28

SERAPHINA

Something is wrong.

I wake to the feeling of breath on my skin.

Too close.

The room is pitch black, suffocatingly silent. The only sound is my own breathing, shallow and uneven.

Then—a shift in the air.

Instinct kicks in.

I roll—fast—just as a hand slams down where my throat had been.

The mattress dips violently beneath me, and I hit the cold stone floor in a blur of motion, scrambling backward.

My pulse shrieks in my ears.

There’s a figure in the dark.

Tall. Cloaked. Moving like a shadow that has finally come to devour me.

And then—I see it.

The gleam of cold steel.

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