Lilian’s POV
“Ten minutes,” Alexander had said. It was a command, not a suggestion, and the tone of it brooked no argument.
I scrambled around the bedroom, shoving clothes into the duffel bag he had tossed onto the bed, and I could feel my hands shaking, a lingering tremor from the fever or perhaps just the adrenaline of being woken up at dawn to flee the city.
I grabbed jeans, sweaters, and the few comfortable things I had brought from my old life, my mind racing to catch up with reality. Boot camp. A Queen. The Lion’s Den. None of it made sense. Alexander was speaking in riddles, and his face a mask of cold, hard granite that I didn’t recognize.
This wasn’t the man who had held me through the fever, spoon-fed me soup, and looked at me with haunted, golden eyes in the middle of the ni
