Page 48 of The Madness Within

“No.” I lied.

“Hmm,” he hummed, tipping his glass again. “And yet, I can’t help but wonder what she tastes like.”

I moved faster than breath. One second I was seated. The next, I had Cassian by the collar, pinned against the antique bookshelf like a pinned butterfly.

“Youwill notgo near her,” I said, voice low, guttural. “Not when I’m awake. Not when I’m dead. Not even if the world splitsopen and the Veil swallows every last soul. She isnotyours to touch.”

Cassian didn’t flinch. His eyes glittered, wrong.

“Touchy,” he whispered. “What if she touches me first?”

I stared into him. Past him. Something was off. Rotten beneath the charm.

His pupils didn’t dilate the way they should in my shadow. His scent, different. Colder.

“Get out,” I said.

He straightened his lapels as I stepped back, his grin never slipping. “Don’t say I didn’t offer help.”

“I don’t need it.”

“Oh, but Dorian,” he said over his shoulder, voice echoing like a curse, “youdo. You just don’t know fromwhatyet.”

The door shut behind him like a tomb sealing.

And for the first time in over a century, one-hundred and thirty-six years of blood, shadow, and silence, I felt something crawl up my spine that wasn’t hunger or hatred.

It was doubt.

And it reeked of something ancient. Something wearing Cassian’s skin like a suit.

I turned back to the monitor. Ember still hadn’t moved. But the air in the house had.

And something told me… She wasn’t the only secret left to uncover.

Chapter Nineteen

??Cages With Silk Bars

Ember

I woke to silence.

Not peace.

Silence.

The kind that listened. The kind thatwaited.

The fire had died down in the hearth, but the room was still warm. Too warm. My skin felt like it’s been kissed by smoke and eyes I couldn’t see.

The bed was too soft. The sheets smelled like clove, midnight, and him.

Dorian Vale.

Defense attorney. Butcher. Executioner.

And now… jailer.

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