Page 8 of The Panther's Price

Lucien’s chest burned in a place he didn’t remember having left open.

She wasn’t afraid.

Andhe…he didn’t want to kill her.

Lucien retreated into the upper reaches of Grayridge just as the sun began to bleed through the fog. The color didn’t warm the streets. It just made the rust glow a little more.

He entered the hollow of a building long since gutted by fire, where ash still clung to the walls like mourning shrouds. His breath was measured. Controlled.

He had decisions to make.

She was Sighted. Powerful. More than connected to a forgotten bloodline that shouldn’t exist.

The Queen’s orders were clear,kill her.

No trial. No questioning. No hesitation.

Lucien stared at his gloved hands. The same hands that had taken lives for less than whispers. He had slit the throat of a nobleman’s daughter because shemighthave known too much. Poisoned a warlock child with tears still drying on his cheeks.

Butthisgirl? Evryn Hale?

Something in him refused.

She didn’t scream when she should’ve. Didn’t run when she could’ve. Didn’t break when blood was drawn.

Lucien felt it in the marrow of his bones—this wasn’t just another assignment. This was the beginning of something. Something far more dangerous than rebellion or prophecy.

It was the beginning ofchoice.

And choice was the one thing he was never supposed to have.

FOUR

EVRYN

The blood on her knuckles wasn’t hers, but it felt personal.

Evryn stood still in the alley, her breath fogging in the early dawn air, hands shaking onlyslightlyas she stared down at the crumpled shifter thug groaning in the dirt. She didn’t know what was louder—her pulse in her ears or the silence that came after the violence.

Something had shifted in her tonight. Not just her body, fast and sharp like a dancer with a blade, but something deeper.

She looked up.

There, on the rooftop.

A shadow.

No,nota shadow.

Aman.

Black-cloaked, crouched like a panther ready to strike, still as stone butwatching.

Her breath caught. Their eyes locked. And it was like falling—quick and cold and without bottom.

She couldn’t see his face in detail. Not really. But his presence slammed into her like a memory she couldn’t grasp. There wasdarknessin him, thick as tar and twice as dangerous. But it wasn’t just that.

There was grief. Bone-deep and brutal. And something else.

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