Taming the Beast: 3. Ashes and Lies

Elodie's POV

I told myself I wouldn’t look at him while he slept.

But I did.

The man they called the Beast lay sprawled beside me, scars thrown into relief by the first touch of morning. One arm was flung over his head, the other resting heavy across my waist as if even in sleep he needed to stake a claim. The steel mask was back on the nightstand. His face, bare and brutal, was in my memory now—the twisted mcarvedap of fire and ruin, the beauty he refused to believe he still carried.

And I couldn’t stop staring. He looked so beautiful and sexy

I should have gotten up. Slipped out, showered, composed myself. Reported. That was my job. But my body ached with reminders of the night, and my chest ached with something worse: the truth clawing its way into me.

I was supposed to be spying on him. Instead, I wanted to crawl deeper into his ruin.

The secure line was buried inside my room—behind a false panel in the bookshelf, disgui