Kat.
Fury rolled off the woman in waves, scorching Audrey’s already shredded senses. Audrey tried to steady her vision, but the world kept sliding to the side. She rolled—and fell off the bed. Her palms smacked the floor just in time to keep her skull from following. A low, hysterical laugh left her as she landed on her back. Darkness pooled at the edges of her sight.
A voice murmured inside her mind. Not her own. Too soft. Too close. Her eyes flew open. She shook her head, and the ceiling rippled like water. “Fuck me,” she whispered. “Is that...still the drugs?”
Kat loomed above her—posture rigid, her arms crossed so tightly it looked like she was holding herself together by force.
God, Audrey needed water. And clothing. Her gaze dropped to her bare breasts.
Fantastic.
Another wave of vertigo rolled through her, and she curled onto her side to keep from vomiting.
“What did you take?” Kat asked, the words distorted and dragging.
Audrey tried to think. Right, the glittering powder.
Felix had laughed when she asked what it was. “Silver Fury,” he’d said, sliding the mirror toward her. It was a Voírían stimulant, too strong for most humans.
Audrey should have walked away.
Instead, she’d bent over the table.
And then the pill—the Mist Roll—had felt dangerously familiar. She wondered if this was how Ryker survived inside his own skull.
Her gaze drifted lazily across the room—to the naked man sprawled on the bed, the plate dusted with residue, the straws glinting faintly.
Kat swore in Voírían.
Her memory came back in fragments: Felix laughing. Felix cutting lines. Felix insisting she could handle it. Audrey thinking she could. Audrey wanting the silence that followed more than she feared the consequences.
Stupid.
Weak.
Desperate to feel nothing.
She pressed her hands to the floor and forced herself upright.
Then—
a hand pressed against her chest. Another lifted her chin.
“Look at me.”
Ryker’s voice cut through the haze like a blade.
Her head lolled back, and she blinked dreamily up at him. He was beautiful. Horrible. A nightmare carved into human shape. His eyes were solid black tonight, drowning any trace of white. She tried to smother her thoughts—God, she knew he could hear them—but everything was unraveling too fast. His fingers slid up her neck, precise as he checked her pulse. She moaned softly before she could stop herself.
Oh, Christ.
He forced one eye open. Light seared her pupil. “Stop,” she hissed. “Fuck, that hurts.”
“What did he give her?” Kat demanded.
“I don’t know,” Ryker murmured, his voice low and lethal. His thumb moved in slow circles against her neck, coaxing her pulse to slow. “She’s half-human and strung out on things she shouldn’t even survive.”
His gaze shifted to Felix. “Whether he does is another matter.”
