Chapter 104

• Allissa
• I floated between consciousness and some dark sea, adrift in shadows with nothing to cling to but his smell. There was no mistake that Alfred was beside me. A thin thread of memory tried to pull me back, but everything slipped through my fingers, leaving me drowning in uncertainty. How long had I been out? My pulse beat like a frantic drum as I fought against the heaviness, the haze, the tight metal around my wrists. Time had all blurred together, and I lost track of it. I braced myself and slowly opened my eyes. He was right in front of me. His eyes met mine, and I could see the pain in them again.
• “Lissa, gods, Lissa. Do you need a drink? Are you hungry?” The beast inside me recoiled, confused by its own emotions. I wanted to scream, to tell him how deeply he’d wounded me, how nothing could ever be okay. Instead, a different urgency took hold, more primal and immediate: my throat was parched, and I felt the sharp gnaw of hunger twisting in my stomach. My senses seemed magnified, every discomfort elevated by the small life growing inside me. But all I could do was stare, barely registering his movements, until he snatched a bottle from a table, broke the seal, and thrust it forward.