But I didn’t have to.
She was already here.
On my side of the line.
That fact settled in the space between us like smoke thick enough to choke.
She’d opened the door.
She stepped into my world.
And now?
Now she’d have to ask herself why.
Because that was the most dangerous part of all—not when she was locked in.
But when she started wondering if she walked in on her own.
“My sister.” She stood there—shoulders squared, eyes wild—anger and disbelief locked in a violent tug-of-war. “You ran her off, didn’t you? You scared her away.”
I laughed.
Dark. Sharp.
It cut through the room like a guillotine.
“Callista?” I cocked my head, the smile twisting on my lips. “Your sister’s a slut, Persephone. She’d drop to her knees for any man who so much as remembered her name.”
Her face twisted, equal parts disgust and fury.
“Stop!” she hissed, voice shaking with heat. “It bothers you, doesn’t it? That she didn’t choose you.”
Ah. There it was.
The raw, angry little nerve she thought she could touch.
I closed the distance between us in a breath. One second, space.
The next—my hand wrapped around her throat, thumb resting just beneath her jaw.
Her skin was burning hot, tension crackling between us like a live wire.
I leaned in, voice low enough to crawl under her skin. “You think I wanted your sister?”
Her eyes widened. She flinched—but didn’t back down.
I smiled, teeth bared. “She would’ve begged to be ruined by me after the first night. She just wanted the name. The power. The fantasy of being mine.” I leaned closer, lips grazing the shell of her ear as I said it. “But you? You’ll beg for me with your soul, little muse.”
Her hands shoved at my chest. Weak. Desperate. “You’ll never touch me.”
I didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
“Won’t I?”
My grip stayed firm on her throat as my other hand slid down, slow and unhurried, until it found the curve of her thigh.
