Azriel's Point Of View
Arthur pushed himself back so hard against the far corner of the Jacuzzi that his skin turned stark white against the blue tiles. The water splashed violently over the rim, sloshing onto the marble floor in frothy little waves, but his hands shook so uncontrollably that he couldn't gain a proper footing.
His chest heaved in ragged, shallow gasps, each breath catching somewhere deep in his throat, and his lips trembled as a stream of snot and panic-laced tears ran down into his graying mustache.
Even now, drenched and sobbing, there remained some ghost of the man he'd once been… the set of his jaw, the way his eyes darted with calculation even as terror consumed him, as though some cornered part of his brain was still searching for an angle, a deal, a way out.
