Taming the Beast: 5. The Fault Line

The storm that Ciaran had unleashed still lived beneath Elodie’s skin.

She felt it in the ache of her wrists where his grip had bruised, in the way her thighs pressed together as though to trap the last heat of him. Sleep had been a stranger—her body heavy with exhaustion, her mind frayed, and yet every time she closed her eyes she saw him. The mask. The scars. The eyes that had stared through her like she was already his.

She told herself she should write notes, keep her cover intact, document his volatility in the detached language of psychology. But her journal lay blank on the desk beside her untouched glass of water. What could she write? That she wanted her patient more than she feared him? That the man she was supposed to observe had already mapped the rhythm of her pulse?

By morning, her composure was a costume stitched together with trembling hands. She slipped it on anyway and crossed the private wing. The staff avoided her gaze—they always did after a ni