Page 27

A slave.

Battered, scarred, and wide-eyed with fear.

Her chest rises. Falls. Slow. Shallow.

“No,” she says.

“Yes,” I whisper in her ears, willing her to glance at me.

Her head snaps toward me, her expression dangerous, vicious. “I won’t kill for you.”

I grip her jaw, tilting her face up to me.

I press my thumb against her lips, smearing a drop of wine she missed from earlier.

“Then you’ll die instead,” I declare softly but with a voice that brooks no argument.

She breathes faster.

I see the war inside her.

The righteousness. The stubbornness.

The terrified, aching truth.

She’s going to fight to survive. And she knows I’m not lying.

She looks back at the man in the cage.

He’s thin. Weak. Terrified.

He won’t stand a chance against her.

I brush a strand of hair from her face, leaning in, my lips a breath away from her skin.

“Make a choice, little fox,” I murmur.

Her body shudders.

Not from my touch.

From the inevitability.

She clenches her jaw. “You’re a demon from the depths of the glacies.”

I chuckle, dragging my fingers down her spine, feeling the way her breath hitches.

“I never said I wasn’t. I may be a dark elf, but I’m as demonic as they come.”

I step back, nodding toward the cage. “Now. Go inside.”

She hesitates.

I arch a brow.

With stiff, deliberate steps, she moves toward the iron gate.

The crowd erupts.