Chapter 15

• The words slithered from Marcel's lips like a serpent coiling around my spine, cold and foreboding. "You need to be bitten, Serena." My pulse hammered in my ears, a frantic drumbeat signaling danger, but I forced my body to remain still, betraying none of the terror that gnawed at my insides.
• "Actually," I said, my voice a steady stream flowing over a bed of jagged rocks, "Xavier and I haven't gone into the specifics of... my transformation." My fingers twitched at my side, yearning to fidget, to do anything other than hang limply while my fate was discussed as casually as the weather.
• Marcel's eyes narrowed slightly, the golden flecks within them swirling like autumn leaves caught in a whirlwind. Shadows seemed to cling to him, wrapping around his broad shoulders like a cloak made of dusk. I could almost taste the metallic tang of secrecy in the air, feel the weight of the unsaid pressing against my chest. The idea of being bitten, of the sharp sting and the rush of something wild and untamed coursing through my veins, sent shivers skittering down my back.