Aria sat stiffly in Zyren's lap, her back straight and her expression carefully blank, doing everything she could to ignore the revulsion that knotted like a fist in her chest.
Every instinct screamed at her to pull away from him—to tear herself from the cold, unyielding body pressed against hers, from the possessive curve of his arm locked around her waist. But she didn't move. She couldn't. Not without provoking something worse.
Her leg still throbbed with pain, a slow, pulsing ache that coiled around her nerves like barbed wire. Dull, constant, and impossible to ignore. But as long as Zyren didn't try to go further—didn't let his hands wander again—she could endure this. She had to.
The carriage bumped and swayed with every jolt of the uneven cobblestone path beneath its wheels, making her stomach turn.
