ADRIEN'S POV
I left her perched on the cool marble of the bathroom counter, a fragile porcelain doll surrounded by white porcelain and chrome. I took a deep breath, t and the faint trace of her perfume—delicate, flowery—still clung to the air, layered over the ghost of clean linen. The image of her tear-streaked face seared itself into me, shame and confusion warring in her eyes until they burned on the backs of my eyelids. It was a look I never wanted to see again.
The calm I'd worn in the bedroom had been a mask. Necessary. Calculated. A lie. A necessary one.
Inside, a cold, unfamiliar panic was clawing at my ribs. Not because of the blood—that was nothing. It was her reaction. The raw, visceral terror in her voice when she'd begged me not to look. As if a simple, biological function had turned her into something monstrous in her own eyes.
That was unacceptable.
