Chapter 87

Her vision blurred. Every breath scraped her throat raw. He must have laughed at her all this time, watching her dance on his strings, believing she still had a shred of dignity left. Sloane staggered into a shadowed corner of the Civil Affairs Bureau, clutching her chest. The bile rose before she could stop it. She bent over and retched, her body trembling uncontrollably. It turned out that despair had a taste. It was acid and iron and heartbreak, burning its way out of her throat. When the nausea finally ebbed, she pressed her palm to the cold wall. Her whole body shook as tears streaked her cheeks. The man she had loved for so many years, the man she had believed in, wasn’t just blind. He was poison. And she had swallowed every drop willingly. A growl escaped her throat, low and wounded. Her wolf stirred restlessly beneath her skin, reacting to her pain. She struck the wall again and again until her knuckles split open, the sharp sting cutting through the haze in her head. She force