//CLARA//
I crept back to my wing, my knees threatening to buckle with every step.
Every shadow cast by the flickering lamps took the shape of a man with salt-crusted hair and predatory eyes. I half-expected him to lunge from behind a velvet tapestry and drag me back to the cliffs to finish what we started.
But when I reached my door, the blood in my veins turned to ice.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
A thin, accusing line of light bled out from under the door, cutting across the dark floorboards like a scalpel. My heart was a fist pounding against my ribs.
I pushed the door open.
Aunt Cornelia sat on the settee, still as a corpse and twice as cold. The room felt thick with a pitch-black aura that seemed to swallow the flickering light.
Her gaze brushed over the wreck of me. The wet robe clinging to my frame like a second skin, my tangled hair, the sand stuck to my legs and between my toes.
