EMBER’S POV

I stare at him.

Then I look at the people around the table — twenty faces, twenty blank expressions, twenty pairs of eyes watching a woman tied to a chair being told she’s someone’s fated mate by the person who drugged her unconscious and dressed her like a doll, and not a single one of them registers anything beyond polite dinner-party interest.

He is insane. Not dangerous-insane the way I’ve dealt with before, not Gale’s abusive cruelty or my mother’s dramatics.

This is the other kind. The kind that feels worse and masquerades with his performative charm.

My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in...