I flinched. “I won’t,” I promised. “You won’t even have to see me again. Just let me go.” There was nothing but my tears and silence for a second—this massive void of silence that would devastate anything alive. And then he called my bluff. He moved toward me, closing the distance so quickly I jumped back a step, and that was when my clammy finger slipped on the trigger. Click. Both of our eyes fell to the pistol in my hands right before I dropped it. The click replayed in my mind on a reel, each time sending a colder wave through me than the last. My thoughts were so jumbled, my body so numb, I couldn’t feel anything but the words in my head. I just pulled the trigger on him. The gun wasn’t fully loaded. I didn’t mean to do it. Ronan laughed humorlessly. “Guess I got really narcissistic tonight.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me out of his room and down the hall. In a stunned haze, I didn’t say a word—even as he yanked me down the stairs and out the front door. The icy chill in the night air wrapped around my bare skin and fought the emptiness inside. But I didn’t feel anything, not even the snow beneath my feet while he dragged me through the yard. Ronan opened the outbuilding door and pushed me in. I only heard his movements as he padlocked the gate to Khaos’s kennel to keep me out of it and the last thing he said before he slammed the door shut behind him. “Sleep tight, kotyonok.” OceanofPDF.com