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CORDELIA’s CLAIM part 2

Author: ELSA RIVERS
last update Last Updated: 2025-10-17 16:43:01

THIRD PERSON POV

The kiss was not a promise; it was a brand. When Julianna pulled away, Elias’s lips felt bruised, his entire being humming with a terrifying, exhilarating shock. The cold concrete at his back and the dominating warmth of her body pressed against his front created a dissonance that left him reeling.

“A… robbery?” he stammered, the words sounding absurd even to his own ears. He was a historian, an academic. He wrote papers, not heist plans.

Julianna traced the line of his jaw with her nail, a mockery of a caress. “An reclamation,” she corrected, her voice low and steady. “The locket is mine by right. Mr. Cavendish merely provided the temporary financing. He is a vulture, collecting shiny things he doesn’t understand. I, however, understand its purpose entirely.”

She finally stepped back, and the sudden absence of her warmth made him shiver violently. She picked up his discarded shirt from the floor, not to hand it to him, but to drape it over a chair with a faint look o
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