"What are you so afraid of?"
Cyprian’s question chased me into the dark, echoing through a dreamless, exhausted sleep.
When I opened my eyes, the answer was staring me in the face: I was afraid of waking up back in that coffin.
But this wasn't a coffin. And it wasn't the beige prison of the Thorne estate.
I was lying in a bed the size of a landing strip, wrapped in sheets that smelled of charcoal and rain—Cyprian’s scent. The room was vast, a cavern of dark slate and floor-to-ceiling glass that overlooked the jagged coastline of Neo-Veridia.
"The Fortress," the tabloids called it. A brutalist mansion perched on the cliffs, rumored to have security tight enough to rival the Pentagon.
I sat up, wincing as my head spun. My red dress was gone, replaced by a silk oversized shirt that defi
