EMBER’S POV

He takes me from the guards. His hands close around my arms and he pulls me against him and lowers me to the floor forcefully, aggressively restraining against my dulled fight-or-flight instinct.

My skin crawls because it’s WRONG. This is wrong. His touch is wrong. His feel on my skin is wrong. Everything about this moment is wrong.

He pins me under him, forcing me down with his crushing weight, and the tears gather in my eyes.

My body is betraying me — the heat surging through my core, my skin oversensitised, nerve endings firing at his proximity in ways that have nothing to do with desire and...