Page 6 of The Panther's Price

Evryn’s hands curled into fists at her sides.

“No,” she whispered. “I’m done running.”

She stood by the window long after he’d gone to bed, watching the fog crawl down the streets like it had a mind of its own.

She could feel the eyes again.

Somewhere out there, something was watching. Something dark. Somethingbeautifulin the way predators were beautiful—sharp and silent and endlessly patient.

She was always the one to see things others didn’t but tonight, she had been the one who felt seen.

She knew she should be scared, worried. But for some reason, she wasn’t. She felt ready.

THREE

LUCIEN

She knew he was there.

Lucien stood half-submerged in the mist curling along the alley rooftop, one knee balanced on the rusted metal frame of a forgotten billboard. The city below was all peeling paint and flickering lights—Grayridge, the last gutter before the Veil swallowed the map. The place where the rules thinned out and the monsters got bold.

She walked like she belonged here. Like the cracked pavement recognized her tread. Like the ghosts in the fog had learned to step aside.

But sheknew.

Lucien had seen it. In the way she’d paused yesterday—just a second too long at the vendor stall with the bone charms. How she’d shifted her weight subtly, not out of fear, but calculation. Her hand had slipped toward her coat like she was checking a weapon, and her eyes… Goddess, hereyes.

They didn’t just glance. Theysearched.

And then, she looked right at the rooftop where he crouched, even though he was wrapped in shadow, his breath stilled, his pulse dropped low like they taught him in the early years.

No glamour should’ve pierced that. No human should’ve known.

But she did. His mother had been right.

Evryn Hale had the old blood.

Lucien shifted his weight and leapt silently across the gap between buildings. The shadows followed him like obedient dogs, clinging to his heels, cloaking him from the waking world. He landed with the grace of a falling leaf on the edge of a brick outcropping, eyes locked on her moving form below.

She wasn’t panicking.

She wasn’t running.

That... intrigued him.

Most marks either fled, fought, or pissed themselves the moment theyfelthim near.

But this one?

This one simply kept walking.

Lucien’s lips twisted into a grim smile.

Dangerous. Not just because of her bloodline—but because of what she stirred in him. A flicker of interest. A sliver of respect. A spark of… something warmer he wasn’t accustomed to.

No.

He shut that thought down like a door slammed in the dark.

---