-Julien Grayson:
I stared at him.
That one word still hung in the air between us.
"Eat."
His voice rolled through the room like distant thunder, low and rough, carrying a weight that made the simple command feel heavier than it should have. It wasn't loud. He didn't raise his voice. But somehow it still filled the small wooden kitchen, vibrating faintly through the quiet space.
It was the kind of voice that didn't need to be loud to be heard.
Deep.
Gravelly.
Warm in a way that made the sound settle somewhere low in my chest before I could stop it.
And that annoyed me.
A lot.
Because why the hell was my brain even noticing that?
I was sitting in the house of a rogue. A murderer. Someone who had slaughtered our guards like it was nothing. I should have been terrified, angry, and focused on finding a way to escape.
Instead, my brain was stupidly registering how unfairly good his voice sounded.
