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She arched beneath him, her own hands seeking to bury themselves under his shirt.
But she found no heat in his skin.
Isobel frowned as her palms followed the corded knitting of strong muscles.
He felt strange to her somehow. His skin was too smooth, his body too light.
He lifted away from her long enough to strip his shirt off over his head, long enough for her to glimpse the jagged line of an angry white scar etched like a curved lightning bolt along one side of his torso.
“Varen?”
He descended once again, his mouth locking with hers, silencing her.
The urgency in his kiss grew, climbing toward ferocity. She struggled to keep up, to catch her breath.
She pressed her palms flat to his bare chest . . . and felt no heartbeat.
His grip on her tightened.
With a whimper, Isobel tried pulling away. She wanted him to slow down, to stop. She needed to understand what was happening.
Both of her hands rushed to cup his face, to push him back. But her fingers fell through on one side, curling to hook onto the jagged cut-glass socket in his cheek.
She stiffened.
Against her mouth, she felt his lips curve into a slow smile.
He drew back, angling to grin at her, displaying two rows of sharp crimson teeth visible through the gaping void in the side of his face.
“I’ve missed you, too, cheerleader,” hissed a familiar voice.
7
Unrest
Isobel screamed.
Her howl, primal and fierce, pierced the nighttime silence.
She strained against her bed, her hair whipping at her face. Twisting and writhing, she finally yanked free from the hands that grasped for her wrists. Scrambling back, she slammed into her headboard, banging her skull on the wooden frame.
“—sobel!”
Her eyes sprang open. The room swirled into focus.
She blinked rapidly at the artificial light that radiated from her ceiling fixture, her heart thundering in her chest, manic as a captured bird.
“Isobel, wake up. Wake up, baby.”
She gasped, heaving, and swallowed the air in gulps.
Someone patted her cheek. She seized the large, warm hand between both of hers, her attention narrowing on the thick golden band that encircled one finger and the slim dark hairs that poked out from beneath the drooping cuff of a familiar navy fleece robe.
Isobel looked into the face of her father. He stared at her hard, eyes searching, his dark brows knitted together.
She glanced from him to her window. Closed. Against the backdrop of snow and night, her lace curtains hung motionless.
She felt a hand brush her cheek, and she flinched. She turned back to her father, whose eyes strove to make contact with hers.
