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id his violence.
That her gift had helped him amass his growing fortune, and the power that came with it, made Arabella want to retch.
How often had she thought about giving him a false reading from her scrying bowl?
How many times had she dreaded that her visions would one day prove incorrect?
But she hadn’t deceived him, not once.
And, thankfully, her visions had never been wrong.
Either of those failings would come at the cost of innocent lives. Not her own, but the people she cared about most in the world. The only family she had left now.
It was those precious lives she held close in her heart as she walked over to the cabinet across the room and retrieved the hammered gold bowl she would need for her reading downstairs. In reality, her gift would awaken when she peered into any standing pool of liquid, but Massioni insisted she use the ridiculous carnival fortune-teller’s style bowl for dramatic effect whenever she performed a public reading.
Cradling the shallow bowl in her palms, she drew the empty vessel out of the cabinet. Her own face stared back at her in the reflection on the polished gold basin—but that wasn’t all.
Behind her stood the ominous shape of someone else.
A man.
Tall, immense.
An intruder dressed entirely in black tactical gear.
Bella sucked in a startled breath.
Fear streaked through her, but before her shriek could rip up the back of her throat, a broad palm came up to cover her mouth.
Oh, God.
The bowl slipped out of her grasp, thudding onto the thick rug. Muscular arms caged her from behind, immobilizing her. She staggered on her high-heeled sandals, drawn helplessly against the unmistakable heat of a very strong, very male body.
Not Massioni’s. This wasn’t any of the other men gathered in the salon with him either, although there was no question that the male trapping her in his unbreakable hold was Breed.
“Don’t scream, Bella.”
He spoke against her ear, his growled command voiced in a deep baritone that brushed over her jangled senses like a caress.
He knew her name. How? Who the hell was he? Where had he come from?
She struggled and fought to break free, but he didn’t let go. He was much too strong, and none of her squirming or resisting was getting her anywhere. All her grunts and cries for help were snuffed by the hand still sealed firmly across her lips.
Trapped, she could only stand there, her breath rushing out of her nose in panicked gusts while terror wrapped around her heart like a vise.
“Be calm. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Did he think she was a fool? She didn’t believe him for a second, not when she could feel the lethal power radiating off his big body. Whoever this man was, he was beyond dangerous, and she had no doubt that his only business in the villa was death.
She groaned, trying futilely to pull away from him in another burst of desperation. Her heart was speeding, banging against her rib cage as if on the verge of exploding. Yet despite her alarm, her instincts had begun to prickle with some kind of distant recognition.
She knew it was impossible, this strange feeling that this intruder was no stranger at all. Her blood was still racing and cold with terror, but beneath the fear was a growing sense of familiarity.
A name skated across her memory, one she had tried for years to bar from her thoughts and her heart.
No. It couldn’t be him.
The beautiful, golden-haired Breed male she had known all those years ago had been a scholar, not a soldier. He would have no business in a place like this, among thugs like the ones gathered downstairs.
