The dress ripped like paper.

One second I was standing in the middle of Cassian Wolfe’s bedroom in white silk, trying to breathe, trying not to shake. The next, his hand was in the fabric at my throat, and I heard the seam tear all the way down my spine.

“Cassian...”

“Shut up, Mira.” His voice was low, rough, like he hadn’t used it in days. “You don’t get to speak unless I tell you to.”

I knew about him. Everyone did. Cassian Wolfe didn’t take wives. He took contracts. He broke things that belonged to other men and kept the pieces. They said he was brutal in bed. That he left marks. That women left his bed shaking and never came back.

I didn’t think it would be like this.

His mouth was at my ear before I could step back. “Four years I waited. Four years I let your father parade you around like you weren’t mine. Do you know what that did to me?”

His breath was hot against my skin. His hands weren’t gentle. They never would be. One was fisted in my hair, tilting my head back, baring my throat. The other dragged down the front of what was left of my dress, and the silk gave way under his fingers.

I should have been terrified. I was. My heart was hammering so hard I thought I’d pass out. But under the fear, under the anger at being handled like property, something else flared hot and traitorous.

His mouth found my throat. Not a kiss. A claim. Teeth and tongue and the kind of pressure that would leave a bruise tomorrow. I gasped, and he made a sound low in his chest, like he’d been waiting to hear it.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured against my skin. “Are you scared of me, Mira?”

“Yes,” I lied.

He laughed. It wasn’t kind. “Good, Now be a good girl and satisfy me".

The rest of the dress hit the floor. I was cold, exposed, and he was still fully dressed in black, looking at me like I was something he’d hunted and finally cornered. His eyes dragged over me, slow and possessive, and when they met mine again, they were dark.

“On the bed,” he ordered.

My legs moved before my brain caught up. I didn’t sit. I didn’t kneel. I just… obeyed. Because something in his voice told me fighting him right now would be worse.

He followed. He didn’t touch me again, not yet. He stood at the edge of the bed and looked down at me like he was deciding how to break me first.

He leaned down. His mouth hovered over mine, close enough that I could feel his breath, taste the whiskey on it.

“Say it,” he demanded.

“Say what?”

“Say you’re mine.”

My throat closed. Pride burned in my chest. I was Mira Hale. Or I used to be. I wasn’t supposed to beg. I wasn’t supposed to break.

But his eyes were on me, and his hand was fisted in my hair, and the man who’d just torn my dress off with his bare hands was waiting for an answer.

So I whispered it.

“I’m yours.”

The last thing I saw before the world tilted was the way his mouth curved, satisfied and cruel.

The last thing I felt was his hand on my waist, dragging me up to meet him.

And then....

Darkness.