Her voice, when it came, was unsteady in a way it had no right to be, lacking all her usual confidence and control.
"…Are you out of your mind?"
Lu Yuze didn't answer immediately.
She felt rather than saw him open his eyes, felt the weight of his gaze on her face.
When she finally forced her own eyes open, what she saw there stole what little breath she'd managed to recover.
His eyes were dark. Unshielded. Burning with something he'd clearly lost control of, and did not regret losing.
Raw want.
Undisguised need.
Absolute certainty.
For the first time that night....
For the first time since she'd crawled out of the sea and learned to bend humans to her will....
Shuyin wasn't the most dangerous thing in the room.
And somewhere in the base of her spine, in the ancient part of her that remembered deep waters and older hunts, a small voice whispered a truth she didn't want to hear:
You're in trouble.
