Where Devotion Burns
Lucien
The collar had gone dark.
Its silence pressed like smoke in my lungs—lingering, invisible, and impossible to ignore. But it wasn’t what held my breath captive right now.
Madeline was.
She stood close, still holding my hand, her fingers cool against my heated skin, grounding, steadying me. The storm that had burned behind her eyes only moments ago had softened now.
And then, without a word, she sank to her knees before me.
Not in surrender.
But in power.
Like a queen deciding how best to worship her most dangerous weapon.
I reached for her instinctively. “Madeline…” I said as she slipped through my fingertips.
Her eyes lifted, locking on mine. Her blue iris gleamed in the lantern light. “Shhh,” she whispered, silencing me with nothing more than her br
