The two of them stared each other down in the dim hallway—one with a heart pounding so loudly it nearly broke through her chest, the other standing as still and emotionless as a statue.
Valeska struggled to breathe normally, refusing to let the fear show on her face. Kieran, however, remained unnervingly calm.
"Your people, you say?" he asked, voice low and laced with a sharp edge. He turned his gaze toward the wall she had been scrubbing for the past hour. "Aren't you supposed to be the Luna's daughter? And yet here you are… cleaning walls like a servant."
The bite in his tone made her flinch inwardly. But she held herself together, refusing to let him see how shaken she really was.
She said nothing in response. Silence was safer.
Then Kieran turned his eyes on her. Crimson, intense, unblinking. The kind of eyes that could devour a soul.
"Don't tell me you're being mistreated by your so-called people," he murmured. "And again… why don't you smell like a wolf?"
