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“I was,” she said, forcing herself not to act on the instinct, “driving through a fairly isolated area when I lost my way” The truth was, she’d driven off the path and into an uncharted wilderness on purpose, unable not to follow the painful tug that drew her onward

“I must’ve driven for hours, and this is where I stopped” She shrugged, trying tosorrow, she’d cried for hours after she finally returned to civilization “I’d never seen a place as beautiful” As eerie, as heartrending

Dmitri continued to stare at her, such lethal calculation in his eyes that it took all her control to stay in position, to not lunge for the bed and the blade so close “What do you see in the photos?” she asked instead, feeling as if she stood on a precipice, her entire life balanced on this moment “Dmitri?”

Face stripped of all sophistication, until he was only the sleekest of predators, he reached up to tuck her hair behind her ears “If this is a game, you won’t like the price you’ll have to pay”

The hairs rose on the back of her neck This tio for a weapon She couldn’t She had to trust him, because if she couldn’tif she couldn’t, then her world would siments “Threats aren’t sexy” Don’t do this Please “Take your black ainst the corner, the body she’d looked forward to caressing suddenly a stifling wall It took every ounce of her will to keep fro But when he bent his head and very deliberately put his mouth over her pulse, she couldn’t stand it anyers into the exposed side of his neck

Or would have, if he hadn’t rip No, no, no! The restraint threw her back into the pit where she’d spent so many weeks, the pit she now realized she’d never escaped—but twined through with her terror was a crushing sense of betrayal

Not my Dmitri This isn’t him

And then there was no ry as he was at that instant, riding a vicious edge where he hungered only to hurt the wo, but he would get the answer out of her, even if he had to break her into a million tiny pieces That field, what it represented, it was not to be touched, not by anyone

Squeezing her wrist as she froze against his in an act that he kneas cruel, but then again, she’d been playing him from the start There was no chance in hell that she’d just happened to coirl had died, where he’d brought his son afterward, so that Misha wouldn’t be alone, where he’d stood vigil for an entire turn of the seasons

“My beautiful De you Don’t let her rede’s words had been unable to halt the change, not after she was gone Nothing would reverse it So he would make use of it

A burst of ht toher to the wall But Honor didn’t stop fighting, twisting and wrenching her body with a strength that would break so soon if she didn’t stop