Instinctively, I shift my weight, angling away from him, but he tightens his grip, an unyielding vice against the soft silk of my clothing. The way he holds me feels both possessive and predatory, as if I am both prey and trophy in one. My heart races, a frightened rabbit in a field of hunters.
"Why are you here?" I manage to whisper, forcing the words past the lump in my throat. The festivities swirl around us in decadent chaos, a macabre


