Chapter Six

Aria

I blinked awake, the memory of the previous night slamming into me hard. I sat up and nearly cracked my head on a low bookshelf that hung over my bed.

My bed. I was in bed?

I looked around, groggy and confused. There was my dresser, and my uniform from the diner, neatly folded over a chair, just like I left it last night. There were my shoes, and my books. My cell was plugged into the charger next to the bed. Unease crawled through my veins. I searched my memory.

Was it all a bad dream?

The stranger in my trailer. Stone Acanthus. A tall, towering warrior in black who had told me he owned me.

I touched my lips, remembering the feel of his ruthless kiss. My first one. Had I really imagined it? What about that bizarre flash of light, and the way he’d flown backward away from me as if hit by an invisible wrecking ball.

I sighed, dropping my face into my hands, and letting out a groan. How embarrassing, and why the holy hell if it had been a product of a feverish, virgin imagi