Chapter 1 1

Consciousness returned not as a gentle awakening, but as a violent surge from a black void. A sharp, rhythmic throb hammered against the inside of Blake White's skull, like a second heartbeat demanding attention.

Her eyelids felt heavy, glued shut by exhaustion, but the air in the room was wrong. It was too thick. Too warm.

The scent hit her first. It was a cloying mixture of expensive sandalwood cologne-Hardin's signature scent-layered over the sour, unmistakable musk of sweat and sex.

A low, guttural moan drifted from the foot of the bed.

Blake forced her eyes open. The room was dim, illuminated only by a sliver of moonlight cutting through the heavy velvet curtains. Her vision blurred, swimming in a haze of confusion, before snapping into razor-sharp focus.

Two figures were intertwined on the chaise lounge. The pale, frantic movement of skin against skin.

She recognized the platinum blonde hair instantly. It spilled over the edge of the velvet cushion like spilled milk. Carissa. Her sister.

She recognized the man's back. The sprawling tribal tattoo between his shoulder blades flexed as he moved. Hardin. Her husband of six hours.

A spike of pain drove itself into the center of Blake's brain. It was blinding, a white-hot needle that should have made her scream.

But she didn't scream.

Something inside her fractured. The terrified, stuttering girl who had walked down the aisle earlier that day dissolved. In her place, a cold, dormant program booted up.

Her heart rate, which had spiked to one hundred and eighty beats per minute upon waking, plummeted.

One hundred twenty.

Eighty.

Sixty.

Steady.

Blake sat up. The silk sheets pooled around her waist, cool against her skin. She observed the scene on the chaise lounge with the clinical detachment of a surgeon looking at a tumor.

She swung her legs off the mattress. Her bare feet touched the hardwood floor. It was cold. Grounding.

She reached for the crystal glass of water sitting on the nightstand. Condensation slicked the outside of the glass.

She brought it to her lips and took a slow, deliberate sip.

She set the glass back down. The heavy crystal bottom hit the marble coaster with a sharp, decisive click.

The sound sliced through the room like a gunshot.

Hardin froze mid-motion.

Carissa gasped, a strangled sound, and scrambled backward, pulling a throw blanket over her naked chest.

Hardin whipped around. His eyes were wide, the pupils blown from exertion, now rapidly contracting with shock, then flaring with rage.

Blake looked at him. She felt nothing. The adoration that had defined her existence for the last two years was gone, replaced by a hollow, quiet calculation.

Hardin stood up. He made no attempt to cover himself. He puffed out his chest, using his nudity as a weapon, trying to fill the space with aggression.

"You're awake," Hardin sneered. His voice was rough, masking his surprise with instant hostility.

"Get out," he commanded, pointing a shaking finger toward the heavy oak door.

Carissa peeked out from behind him. Tears were already welling in her eyes, shimmering and fake in the moonlight.

Blake tilted her head to the side. She analyzed the geometry of the room. The distance between the bed and the door. The obstacle of the chaise lounge.

She stood up. Her spine, usually curved in a posture of submission, straightened. Vertebrae stacked upon vertebrae until she stood at her full height.

"Correction," Blake said. Her voice was raspier than usual, stripped of its habitual stutter.

She took a step toward them, her bare foot silent on the wood.

"You're in my light."