Except I was only in a bodysuit, which couldn’t hide any device. And from my position facing the door, I saw his discarded shirt on the floor, his jeans folded over the chair. No pockets to hide electronics. No earbuds were visible when he’d been standing in front of me moments ago.
“Close the door,” I called out. “Go into the hallway and close that door too.”
“Violet, I am in nothing but sweatpants.”
“So? This will only take a second.”
“As you wish,volchok.”
He came back to close the bedroom door, then I heard his muffled footsteps retreating. I felt more than heard the front door close. I sat in silence for a moment. My pulse hammered loud in my ears, my breathing shallow and quick. The rope pressed into my ribs with each inhale, grounding me.
This is insane. This is absolutely fucking insane.But a part of me—the part that had already accepted my own impossible rebirth—whispered thatmaybe, just maybe, the world was stranger than I’d allowed myself to believe.
I licked my lips. Dropped my voice to the barest whisper, so quiet I could barely hear myself. “Rowan. . . I want you to fuck my slutty mouth and choke me with your thick cock.”
Silence.
My heart raced, heat flooding my face despite being alone. The words hung there, filthy and desperate and true. I waited, counting my own panicked heartbeats.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Nothing.
Finally. Finally, I stumped him.
Relief and disappointment warred in my chest. Relief that he wasn’t actually some superhuman freak. Disappointment that—
The bedroom door opened.
Rowan stepped through, his pale eyes locked on mine with an intensity that stole my breath. He crossed to me in three strides, each step deliberate and predatory. When he reached the bed, he bent down, bringing his face level with mine.
“I will not shout that for the neighbors to hear.” His voice had gone rough, gravelly with want. “But I would be happy to oblige your request,volchok.”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach.
“You—” I started, my voice strangled. “You heard that?”
“Every word.” He straightened, and I tracked the movement with wide eyes. “Every filthy, desperate word.”
“That’s not possible.” But even as I said it, I knew I was lying to myself. “You bugged the room. You have—I don’t know, hidden microphones or—”
“Where would I have hidden them on you, Violet?” He gestured at my bound form. “You are wearing practically nothing. I am wearing practically nothing. No earbuds. No phone. No device to hear you with except my own two ears.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. My mind raced through possibilities, desperate for a rational explanation that would let me cling to the world I understood.
There wasn’t one.
“You really heard me,” I said finally, the words coming out smaller than intended. “From the hallway. Through two closed doors.”
“Yes.”
“That’s. . .” I struggled to process it, this fundamental shift in what I thought was possible. “That’s not normal, Rowan.”
“I know.” He moved behind me, and I felt his fingers resume their work on the rope. “But it is real. And it is how I knew that woman in class was not human. How I know when you are nervous, or angry, or,” his voice dropped lower, intimate, “when you want me.”
Heat flooded through me despite the creeping unease. “What do you mean?”
“Your heart.” His hand pressed against my back, right over where my heart hammered against my ribs. “Right now, it is beating at approximately one hundred beats per minute. When you are calm, it runs closer to fifty. When you are nervous, around seventy. When you are angry with me—which is often—it spikes to one hundred and ten.”
