“I—” The memory makes my throat close. “No. Someone was touching her. I couldn’t see who. Just her reaction. Her face. Her body…”
I can’t finish. Can’t explain the way she moved, the way she surrendered. The horrifying intimacy of watching her pleasure without understanding its source.
“Was she afraid?” Thane asks.
“Yes.” The word tastes bitter. “Terrified. But also…”
I can’t finish. Can’t admit what else I saw in her eyes.
Stellan finishes for me. “Desire.”
The reality of it makes me flinch. But he’s right. That’s exactly what I saw. Terror and desire mixed in a way that one feeds the other.
“That’s not Bree,” Thane says. No emotion. Just fact.
“It looked like her,” I protest, but even as I say it, doubt creeps in. Because he’s right. The woman I saw—the way she moved, the doubt even in surrender, the dark silk she’d never choose—
But also… itwasher. I know her face. Her body. The way her eyes look when she’s scared.
“I don’t know,” I admit finally. “It looked like her. Felt like her. But everything else was wrong.”
“The marks,” Stellan says. “You’re certain they were shadow marks? Not bruises or bindings?”
“They moved.” I try to visualize them again, but the memory is already starting to blur the way visions do. “Like smoke, circling her wrists but not touching. I’ve never seen anything like them.”
Stellan and Thane exchange a look. A long one. The kind of communication that happens between people who’ve known each other for centuries and don’t need words anymore.
“What?” I demand. “What do those marks mean?”
“Nothing good,” Stellan says finally. “But if that’s what I think they are—”
“Then wherever the real Bree is,” Thane interrupts, “she’s in deeper trouble than we thought.”
The real Bree.
The words hang between us like a death sentence.
“You think—” I can’t finish. Can’t voice what they’re suggesting.
“I think,” Thane says carefully, “the woman walking around this sanctuary is playing a part. And she’s very good at it. And I think whoever you just saw—wherever she is—is the real one.”
My stomach drops.
“Then where is she?” The question breaks out of me, raw and desperate. “If that’s the real Bree, where is she? What’s happening to her?”
“I don’t know,” Thane admits. His silver eyes are cold, calculating. “But your visions might be the only way to find out.”
The responsibility of it settles over me like a weight.
“The others don’t believe you,” I say quietly. Not a question. A fact.
“No.” Stellan’s expression doesn’t change. “They think we’re paranoid. That Bree’s just grown stronger after the Oath. More confident. More… herself.”
“But you don’t think that.”
“Iknowthat’s not her,” Thane says flatly. “I’ve known since she came back. The way she looks at me. The way she moves. It’s almost perfect. But it’s not Bree.”
“And you want me to keep watching.” My voice comes out hollow. “Keep having these visions. Keep seeing her—whoever she is—being touched by something I can’t identify.”
