CHAPTER 17
THIRD PERSON POV
The sun was high and unforgiving, pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the mansion's room.
Lucian stood in the center of a carnage, his silk shirt splattered with crimson. At his feet lay the fifth woman of the afternoon.
Like the four before her, she had been a "gift" from Marcus—a woman from the fringes of society, someone the world wouldn't miss.
And like the four before her, she was now a dead body.
Lucian wiped his mouth with a lace handkerchief, his movements precise and cold, despite the violent tremor in his hands.
His eyes weren't red, they were a terrifying, blown-out black. "Another one, my King?"
Marcus stood by the heavy oak doors, his expression carefully neutral. He looked at the bodies strewn across the marble floor—it looked less like a dining room and more like a slaughterhouse.
"That makes five. You're feeding with a desperation I haven't seen in three centuries."
