Chapter 6 Wolves Don't Cry

• Olivia wasn't sure how long she remained slumped against the tree trunk, cradling her knees to her chest as tremors of shock and heartbreak wracked her small frame. Tears streaked down her ashen cheeks, every ragged inhalation feeling like shards of glass scoring her insides.
• The beast's—no, Esker's— abandonment kept replaying through her mind in a nightmarish loop of cruelty. One moment, she'd been the cosmic focal point of his entire existence, an irrevocable well-spring of longing and possession seared into his feral depths. His scorching stare had burrowed straight through her essence, imprinting an indelible stamp of possession that reverberated through every plane of her being.
• And then, with one callous word, he'd severed that profound metaphysical tether as easily as snapping a cobweb strand.