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The more time passed, the more I realized how much I enjoyed when she yielded. Though I favored willing submission over self-preservation.

She didn’t respond to me the way she did to the others. In fact, she didn’t treat any of us the same. I wondered how many sides the woman possessed, or if it was all a clever lie to manipulate us.

With that thought in mind, I stepped forward.

She sucked in a sharp breath, stepping back as I moved toward her. “What are you doing?”

I continued corralling her toward the wall without a word. Telling her we needed to talk seemed unnecessary. When I had her where I wanted her, then—and only then—would I speak.

When the wall stopped her retreat, I placed my hands on either side of her head, caging her in. My nostrils flared at the trace of her essence in the air.

Interesting.

So the little human enjoyed being hunted? And here I’d believed her skilled in predator avoidance.

Leaning close, I counted her shallow breaths as her scent spiked.

How easy it’d be to break you.

My fingers flexed on the wall. I ground my teeth and banished the intrusive thought. I wouldn’t allow her scent to distract me from my task.

“You have something I want,” I whispered.

Her quick intake of breath made me smirk. I had her where I wanted her.

I lowered my hand from the wall and ran my fingertips along the side of her neck, tracing the cord along the neckline of her sleep shirt. I slipped my fingers beneath her collar and curled them around the cord to pull it free.

The little black stone in my hand confirmed Ash’s words. The smooth, cylindrical pendant, made from the same crystal as the band on my index finger, warmed my skin where it lay.

As if surfacing from a spell, Raelynn blinked, looking down at the Zhyfri crystal in my hand. “What are you doing with my necklace?”

“Where did you get this?”

“It was my mom’s.”

I lifted my gaze to hers, finding no trace of deception in her silvery-hued eyes.

“Where did your mother get the stone?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, her gaze falling to the stone again. “She shoved it into my hands before she closed the door of the shed.”

“Where was it before then?”

I wouldn’t force her to relive the trauma of the night her parents died.

Even I didn’t relish mindless mental torture. Dredging up the weakest moments of someone’s life to break them for information was the laziest way to obtain knowledge. I didn’t want a prisoner—or troublesome human—sobbing from heartbreak.

Dysregulated emotions led to cognitive dysregulation, which led to inattention, spotty memories, and poor decisions. Prisoners broken that way rarely cared what happened to them anymore.

I couldn’t get what I needed from sadness.

“Mom always wore it.”

“Always?”

She frowned up at me. “I don’t remember her ever taking it off.”

“And you know nothing about this stone?”